atomicphoto

To balance my other post today about citizen journalists, or ‘journazens’ as I like to call them, here is a story about the good things that can come from bloggers and the like: 

In another political photo controversy today, California congressional candidate Howard Kaloogian was exposed by a group of bloggers to have used a photo of an Istanbul street on his Web site claiming it was taken in Baghdad. Even worse, Kaloogian used the photo as an example of how things were returning to normal in the war-torn city. Kaloogian blames his webmaster for mixing up the photos.

San Diego Union Tribune article

The blog exposing the photo and here

Wiki entry on Kaloogian and the incident 

The Boston Herald published Justice Scalia’s controversial hand gesture on its front page today. For those not familiar with the story, read this. The Herald even talked to ‘The Sopranos’ star Joseph Gannascoli, AKA Vito Spatafore, who said it was an obscenity. I’ll admit that I’m a bit rusty on my studies of Sicilian hand gestures, but I’d have to lean on the side of obscene on this one. For a Supreme Court justice, regardless of obscene or not, it is certainly inappropriate. Click on the thumbnail to view a larger version of the page.

UPDATE: The church has apparently fired the photographer, who had freelanced for the church’s newspaper for a decade, for releasing the photo to the Herald.

The church newspaper editor explains the firing:
“It’s nothing personal,” added Pilot editor Antonio Enrique. “I need to try and find people I can trust.” 

Herald update story here

Interesting article by Michael McNamara, executive technology editor for Popular Photography magazine. McNamara basically says anyone can take a picture, but that doesn’t necessarily make them a photographer. This concept is particularly important in this time when citizen "journalism" is starting to catch on. Some sort of distinction needs to be made between fully-trained journalists and citizen journalists. Maybe someone will invent a catchy new word for citizen journalists and citizen photographers that would help clarify things a bit. Citijourns? Journazens? Photojournazens?

Popular Photography article

UPDATE: And it’s articles and headlines like this that irk me a bit. No, having a camera phone does not in fact make you a photojournalist.

I found this image on Michael Fuchs’ Dispatch from the Razor’s Edge blog and it intrigued me. It was shot in London at the March for Free Expression. What is this contraption the policemen are carrying? It looks like a Nikon digital SLR with a side-mounted video camera and a flash all mounted on one device. They have something in their pockets too. Batteries? Hard drives?

I’ve tried shooting video and still at the same event, and it wasn’t easy. Anytime I picked up one camera, I wished I had the other. It was a mess. I guess this is one way of getting around it. Anyone know how this rig is set up? Anyone?

Original image 

Some third-year photo students at U. of Washington have made some decorative improvements to the once bare walls inside a Seattle hospital. The class project was to photograph "hope." One student even asked a few patients and doctors to add their own photos. 

"It makes people feel comfortable and familiar and they feel at home in a situation that can be very anxiety producing here," says Peggy Weiss, Harborview’s Art Program Manager.

Students Take On Challenge To Photograph Hope

I love this photo taken by Josh Meltzer. Apparently the BOP judges did too. They named the Roanoke Times photographer the Photojournalist of the Year for the under 115k circulation. There must be something in that Roanoke water because fellow Times staffer Kyle Green won third place. AP photographer David Guttenfelder was the PJoTY for the above 115k circulation category.  

NPPA story

Full still photo winners list

UPDATE: I have to say congrats to my co-worker Eric Albrecht for winning an honorable mention in the Enterprise category for this photo. 

When Gerard Van der Leun came across Ansel Adams’ name on some photos in the Los Angeles Public Library, he wasn’t doing a search for landscape photography.

I don’t normally associate Ansel Adams with parking lots or small format images at all. Like you, Adams means the classic evocation of the great American wilderness in photography to me. It never crossed my mind that he had photographed any of the cities of men, much less Los Angeles. But there it was.

Ansel Adams’ Lost Los Angeles Found

Los Angeles Public Library 

This looks like an interesting exhibit about socially conscious photos at the Art Institute of Chicago for those in the Windy City area. Runs through June 11.

AIC - The Concerned Photographer 

Sun-Times review

What the insurance companies and Scripps is doing to Rocky Mountain News photographer Steve Nickerson is wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. He suffers from a rare, debilitative disease but has found a treatment that is helping, but the insurance company says it is "experimental" and refuses to pay. At $35k per treatment per month I wouldn’t want to pay either… unless I were an insurance company whose job it was to deal with these sorts of things! Former colleague Mitch Albom writes a passionate and well-researched column describing Nickerson’s plight.

Albom’s column

The photographer hopes you do.

Claim your reward here