202. From the lightscreen

    Dear friends, "From the lightscreen" is our new statement, and it substitutes our previous one: "from analog to digital". We believe that the transition from analog to digital is now an accomplished objective. 15 years ago we set ourselves the goal to guide our fellow photographers thru this transition. Along the way, in this decade and a half, not only has our forecast been consistent with events, but now even we were surpassed by the the speed of the changes that occurred. For a year now, we have been working on the internal architecture of zonezero.com, to adjust to the new tools available for programming, to social networks and in re-organizing the contents in our site. We have also decided to include changes in design and even in our logo. For us, the commitment to make all these changes demanded we not leave out any of our pre-existing galleries. We have respected their original design, and thus contribute to recording a history, albeit a brief one, of how photography was presented over these 15 years, on our site. Zonezero is probably the oldest content oriented photography site on the web. As you can imagine, technology has changed very much, and it has been an incredible challenge to migrate all our contents so that you can appreciate them in their original form through your lightscreens. The process is not completely finished (we don't think it will ever be, but at least this is a pause along the way). We plan on publishing new areas within the site, and do so gradually over the next 90 days. We will also introduce a new topic every two months. We hope these are of interest to you.   We invite you to take a look at your new site. Read and see the vast universe that is available for you. We would also like to hear back from you, please share your comments with us.     Best regards, Pedro Meyer Coyoacán, Mexico, February 2010    

Thursday, 04 February 2010

204. Potential

Wednesday, 03 February 2010 | Read more

206. Alternate Realities

  Reality is no longer what it used to be and for some time now, it has ceased to be the way it is portrayed. Throughout the last century, the belief that matter and reality shared a precise correspondence crumbled as it was attacked on various fronts. First physics put us face to face with the relativity of time and space, then the social sciences showed us that language determines the way we construct our perception of the world, and in the final decades, technology has been enveloping us in spheres where virtuality in many ways seems to be more immediate and in different senses more real than the material presence of that same entity that is represented. An example of this is the friend on the other side of the world with whom we can speak through a social network or a videoconference, and it seems much more real than our neighbor, with whom we will probably never exchange even a good morning.   However, although since the time of rock painting, human beings perceived and communicated reality more as something feared or desired, and not from a materiality that is always incomplete and illusive, photography continues to evoke the expectation of objectivity. At the same time it allows it to occupy a privileged place as a result of its verisimilitude, it subjects it to particularly harsh demands concerning its capacity for representation. But what happens when that same reality is constructed, just as nowadays, more as a territory of shared subjectivities? How can this everyday virtuality of ours be captured in images in which each evocation allows us to go back over the disturbing mysteries and surprises of childhood, each scene tells us some fantasy charged with symbols, but whose moral goes beyond us, and each corner opens doors to improbable, if not impossible, landscapes?                       Almost since its origin, the language of photography has been served by highly diverse resources to allow for the representation of these particular corners. Since Óscar Gustav Rejlander constructed his allegory “The Two Ways of Life” (1857) with more than thirty negatives, Henry Peach Robinson presented his image of “Fading Away” (1858), also the result of multiple negatives, and several photographers developed the system suggested by Hippolyte Bayard (1852) of using negatives with different exposures for landscapes, photos ceased to be the testimonial result of what the lens had captured in front of the camera. If we add to this the exercises of staging that these same creators carried out and the work of women in the following decade such as Julia Margaret Cameron and Lady Clementina Hawarden, it is easy to understand this long tradition in which the image creates imagination and our everyday referents are mixed, thanks to each new technology, in illusive scenes, frame by frame, of some story, or where dreams assume an almost tangible materiality.     Just now, our daily life is saturated with “hard” data from all corners of the world, each time a tragedy shakes our monitors and at each moment when we are trapped between the vertigo of ongoing novelty and the immense magnitude of the happenings in the world. Just now, but perhaps as many times before, it becomes equally important to return our gaze to these alternate realities that open up a space of fantasy to us and invite us to imagine.   I don’t know, maybe I’m trying to convince myself that imagining together with others is a way of building a future for everyone. And also, why not, I like to think that this is an invitation to imagine, from the perspective of photography, a more dynamic, more open space that reinvents itself and that with enthusiasm extends itself, with new energy into this young century whose technology continues to make progress in leaps and bounds.    

Wednesday, 03 February 2010

208. Alternate Realities: Maleonn

Maleonn’s father was the director of the Shanghai Opera and his mother was a well-known film actress, so he has his family to thank for his artistic vein. Nonetheless, Maleonn’s childhood was a turbulent one because, after having been born in a Communist “re-education” camp where his parents had been sent during the Cultural Revolution, he was sent back to Shanghai to be raised by extended family until his parents’ release. In his life he has become a good director and, surprisingly, a photographer only since 2005. Film, painting (which he studied for 11 years) and photography seemed fused into one in his photographs. They are always constructed down to the last detail, like scenery, and, in fact, they seem like a stage filled with objects where he tries to tell it all in just a single shot. The director’s hand can also be seen in his “Circus” series where leafing quickly through the photographs creates a sort of motion picture...  http://www.zoom-net.com/zoom-magazine/articles-archive/article-detail.aspx?id=207762   © Maleonn

Saturday, 30 January 2010

210. Alternate Realities: Maleonn

What happens when an artist decides to drop all professional work to follow a calling? Maleonn, a Shanghai based former advertising director made up his mind 4 years ago. He was tired of trying to fit in, tired of catering to other peoples needs. Putting all practicality and financial security aside, he decided to pursue his desire in creating experimental photography, and the results speak for themselves. Portraying a very theatrical and often very abstract style, his work is highly emotional and attention catching and has gotten him recognition in many corners of the world... http://scoute.org/issue/july/photography/   © Maleonn

Saturday, 30 January 2010

212. Alternate Realities: CM Top 50: Tom Chambers

Tom Chambers, Richmond, Virginia • Is photography your day job? If not, do you want it to be? My photography is my (second) day job, although I dont like to call it a job. I would love to support myself totally with my photography but it isn't feasible at this point in time. • Can you remember/describe the first print you ever made? The first print I made that excited me was one I made in art school (1983) A double exposure: An image of a woman opening a door and outside a huge tiger head, teeth exposed. Ha, since then things haven't changed all that much with my direction. • Why photography? Why do you do this? Photography is the medium that best allows me to express my vision. Photography generally depicts reality, but skew that to some degree and it makes the viewer uncomfortable and draws their attention quickly. It is also a medium that I've been familiar with for some time due to my work as a graphic designer... http://photolucidapdx.blogspot.com/2009/06/cm-top-50-tom-chambers.html   © Tom Chambers

Saturday, 30 January 2010

214. Showcase: This Isn’t Show Business

The New York Times LENS blog brings us a selection of images taken by Daniel Morel the afternoon that the Earthquake devastated Port-au-Prince.  

Wednesday, 27 January 2010

216. Photographers Protest Against Police Stop and Search

  More than 2,000 photographers demonstrate against police using terrorism laws to prevent photography in public places. Thousands of photographers have staged a mass protest against the "malicious" use of anti-terrorism laws to stop them taking pictures in public places.   Trafalgar Square in central London was lit up by flash bulbs as part of the demonstration against photographers being unfairly targeted by police after taking photos. They are usually questioned under section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, which allows officers to stop and search without the need for "suspicion" within designated areas in the UK.   More than 2,000 professional and amateur photographers took part in the protest organised by the group I'm a Photographer, Not a Terrorist!, many carrying placards bearing its name.   Onlookers were handed stop and search cards by organisers outlining their rights.   Freelance photographer and Guardian contributor Marc Vallee, who helped organise the protest with appeals on Twitter and Facebook, said he was "delighted" by the turnout.   "It's quite obvious that professional photographers across the country are being searched because they are photographers not because they are suspicious," he said.   "It's a common-law right to take pictures in public places and we are here to show that."   Earlier this month the European court of human rights ruled that the use of counter-terrorism stop and search powers on photographers and peace protesters was not "sufficiently circumscribed".   The ruling by seven judges criticised the entire process by which section 44 stop and searches are authorised by the home secretary, and highlighted a lack of adequate parliamentary and legal safeguards against abuse.   The judges said that because officers' decisions about whether to stop and search someone in a designated area were based solely on a hunch or professional intuition, the effect was "a clear risk of arbitrariness".   All 43 police forces in England and Wales have received a memorandum warning them that officers were "confused" about stop and search powers.   "Officers should be reminded that it is not an offence for a member of the public or journalist to take photographs of a public building, and use of cameras by the public does not ordinarily permit use of stop and search powers," said the circular issued last year.   Andy Trotter, chief constable of the British transport police, who drafted the guidance for the Association of Chief Police Officers, said photographers "should be left alone to get on with what they are doing".   The shift in policy was a direct response to negative media reports surrounding photographers, amateur and professional, who said they were being unfairly stopped, usually under section 44.   A succession of high-profile incidents involving the use of the legislation against photographers has embarrassed senior officers, who privately concede that the rank and file are misusing their powers on the ground.   In December Guardian reporter Paul Lewis was stopped and searched while taking pictures of the Gherkin building in London and Grant Smith, an architecture photographer, was apprehended around the corner while photographing Sir Christopher Wren's Christ Church.   Other recent cases include Jeff Overs, a BBC photographer who told the Andrew Marr Show he was stopped under suspicion of terrorism reconnaissance while photographing St Paul's Cathedral, and Andrew White, an amateur photographer questioned by two police community support officers for photographing Christmas lights in Brighton.   Last April two Austrian tourists were forced to delete their shots after being stopped by police in Walthamstow; and Alex Turner, an amateur photographer, was arrested under section 44 after taking images of a fish and chip shop in Kent.   Guardian.com.uk  

Saturday, 23 January 2010

218. Charli Bikaner-Crime Doesn’t Pay-Anonymous @ blindboys.org

Karli Daps @ blindboys.org has a story on Charli Bikane, a private detective from Punjab who mysteriously disappeared. A collection of images of him posing as a wild assortment of criminals was re-photographed and compiled by Karli Daps. Bikane's nephew, Praveen, says of these astounding images of his uncle:  “As a detective these pictures were a way for him to tell people that crime doesn’t pay.” More on the story here.  

Wednesday, 20 January 2010

220. The photographer and his skeleton

  I would venture to say that most photographers have a back problem. We apparently have not been designed to carry a heavy load of camera equipment dangling from our shoulders. When I was a lot younger than I am today, I thought nothing of lugging around three or four cameras, and their lenses. Sure I might have gotten tired, but other than that I never gave it too much thought, as to what I was doing to myself.   My father always had back problems himself, yet he never advised me to be aware of how I should carry all that weight around, there just was a general lack of information about the cause and effect of such behaviors.   The fact however, is that today we do know that carrying all that weight  around for years, will inevitably affect the discs between the vertebrae of ones' spinal column. Nothing to say of the alignment of all those vertebrae.   My spinal column looks on an X-ray like a question mark, the result of a complete disregard for how I  managed the weights I would continuously dangle either from my shoulders or my neck.   My idea of writing about this is because I am sure that there are a lot of good ideas of how to cope with these issues. So let us hear from you, and share your experiences and solutions above all.   Pedro Meyer                  

Wednesday, 20 January 2010

222. iPhone Apps: Tiltshift

Cool iphone app gives your iphone a toy camera effect.  

Wednesday, 20 January 2010

224. Mexico 68

  "Mexico 68" by Pedro Meyer There was a face attached to body Curated by Rogelio Villarreal   Dur: 4:39 min   "Portraits" is now available for iPod video

Wednesday, 13 January 2010