701. Alberto Korda (1929-2001)

  A homage to a friend Alberto Korda (1929 - 2001) Alberto Korda came to Mexico City last year, on account of an exhibition that he had been given at the French Cultural Institute. I had not seen Alberto for a good number of years, so it was particularly gratifying to have him visit us at our home in Coyoacán, together with his son Fidel and Darrel Coutourier from Los Angeles, among some of the friends that came that day with him. We took some pictures of each other, and then went to have a nice lunch. We talked about mutual friends we had not seen over the years and about photography, especially about digital image making. We discussed doing an exhibition of his work here at ZoneZero, withimages that his son Fidel and Darrel would choose, with images that had not yet been seen elsewhere. Time moved on, Darrel and I met once to continue with the idea of the show, Fidel who lives in Sweden was hard to reach through email. Then I got an email from Fidel some months later, and the idea continued to be in the planning stage. Today it is with great sadness that I report the loss of Alberto Korda. However sad the loss of a friend always is, one thing that can be said is that Korda had a very full life. We will keep you in our memory as someone who enjoyed his life to the fullest.   Pedro Meyer     Alberto Korda Dies at Age 72; Photographer Of Castro, Che Los Angeles Times Sunday, May 27, 2001; Page C08.   Alberto Korda, 72, the photographer whose picture of Ernesto "Che" Guevara became one of the best-known images of leftist and student revolts, died of a heart attack May 25 in Paris, where the Havana resident was attending an exhibition of his work.   The image of Guevara wearing a military beret over flowing curls and gazing pensively took on icon status when it appeared soon after the revolutionary leader was captured and killed in Bolivia in 1967. The picture, called "Guerrillero Heroico," was on posters and T-shirts, key rings, caps and even socks.   But Mr. Korda, a true believer in communism, received little monetary reward for his photograph. In the late 1990s, angered by the rampant commercialization of the image, he successfully sued a British ad agency that had used it in a campaign for vodka.   Mr. Korda was born Alberto Diaz Gutierrez in Havana, the son of a railway worker. Mr. Korda, who became a prominent fashion photographer in Cuba, loved fast cars and beautiful women. He had a Porsche, an MG and a fine studio across the street from the luxurious National Hotel. But he also fell in love with the Cuban revolution and surrendered all the trappings of capitalism.   From 1959 on, he abandoned commercial photography for photojournalism, spending much of his time as Fidel Castro's personal photographer. He captured images of Castro and Che playing golf and fishing; Castro with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev; Castro with American author Ernest Hemingway; and even an encounter Castro had with a caged tiger at a New York zoo.   On March 4, 1960, Mr. Korda was working as a freelance photographer for the Cuban newspaper Revolucion covering a memorial service for 136 people killed in the explosion of a munitions ship in Havana harbor. Castro was delivering a scathing attack against the United States, which he blamed for the blast. Guevara, then a minister in the Cuban government, showed up briefly, and Mr. Korda captured his image in just two frames, one of them particularly good, in Mr. Korda's opinion. It was of little interest to the editors at Revolucion.   Castro was the star that day, and his face would be on the front page.   Mr. Korda kept his negatives.   Seven years later, when Guevara, then operating in Bolivia, was captured by soldiers and killed, he instantly became a martyr to the revolution. Almost instantly, Mr. Korda's picture started showing up in Europe, which the Cuban government and Mr. Korda didn't seem to mind.   Over the years, he made a good living by Cuban standards selling prints of his Che image. He donated the settlement money from the vodka ads suit to a children's hospital in Havana.     © 2001 The Washington Post Company.       http://zonezero.com/magazine/articles/korda/korda.html    

Monday, 19 February 2001

703. Guest

  Date: Sat, 17 Feb 2001 20:43:17 +0800   I am a chinese amateur photographer and glad to find this excellent e-magazine about photography, some reviews is very good and I read them many times,I wish can register and became a member of you.   Ok ,at last ,I will give you a small advice about the e-magazine,I wish you can add reviews about cameras,and you know ,good photos can't leave cameras, :) thank you!  

Saturday, 17 February 2001

705. Laura Cantarella

  Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2001 14:59:22 +0200   Zone zero is great.   I'm up to present a phd proposal about digital photography and architecture and you are a great source of inspiration for me! Laura _____________________________________ dott. arch. Laura Cantarella Photography+Digital+Quicktime VR  

Wednesday, 14 February 2001

707. Joe

  Date: Tue, 06 Feb 2001 12:28:17 +0000   Hello I am from Q-Arts a participatory arts organisation based in Derby (UK), we work with individuals and community groups on the production of artworks from concrete sculptures to interactive multimedia pieces. I would appreciate it if you could place us on your mailing list.   Thanks Joe  

Tuesday, 06 February 2001

709. Anónimo

  Date: Mon, 05 Feb 2001 13:47:12 GMT   Hola a todos   Soy profesor de fotografía en España y también fotógrafo ( y además me gusta ). El atractivo visual de la revista en Internet, así como sus inteligentes comentarios y la selección de las imágenes , me animan a solicitar que se incluya mi dirección en vuestros archivos para así poder recibir la revista con periodicidad.   Gracias por la pasión, interés y buen hacer que demostrais.  

Monday, 05 February 2001

711. Javier Calvelo

  Date: Sun, 04 Feb 2001 16:49:04 -0300   quiero felicitarlos por este trabajo que hace poco descubrí a instancias de Ricardo Antúnez, no solo me agrada mucho estéticamente sino intelectual y moralmente.   desde hoy soy un nuevo visitante y espero de los muy asiduos. Mi nombre es Javier Calvelo ( jluisi) soy fotógrafo uruguayo y mi interés principal en fotografía es el fotoperiodismo.   muchas gracias, saludos  

Sunday, 04 February 2001

713. Tools vs. Content

    "It does not matter what the tools are, the important issue is what are the ideas."   You will probably have come across such a statement, here or there, made by people fending off any effort to discuss the tools of their trade. They even suggest that a writer wouldn’t be discussing if a fountain pen or a typewriter was used to create a novel or a poem, so why, they ask, would a photographer waste time having the equivalent of such a discussion.   At first glance, the argument looks very strongly in favor of that point of view. The only problem is that neither the fountain pen nor the typewriter can alter the possible outcome of either the poem or a novel while a digital camera can indeed modify the content of the photograph.   There is no doubt that there are photographers who in absence of content in their images sustain an endless dialogue around their obsession with gadgets. Their relationship to photography is essentially as consumers not as creators.   Nevertheless, we should not dismiss such an approach to photography; as these photographers contribute, through their consumption, in bringing to the market place, products that might not otherwise exist. This would be to the possible detriment of those who then use them solely for creative reasons. Think about it.   I recall when I first started working with digital images, a good number of photographers would tell me that they did not need to waste their time learning anything about computers and software, as they could hire people to do that kind of work for them, if and when they needed to do “such stuff”. At other times it was photography teachers, or even heads of departments at universities, who would dismiss such discussions about technology. They considered such issues to be beneath their academic status. Finally, we had the art critics; they seem to be the ones to have held out the longest, it seems many critics live in a rarefied world of their own. In the end, the critics have been those who know the very least about any technical issue leading to the production of digital work, so a very easy way out to justify their limitations has been to be dismissive of the entire media.   I believe it is a false dilemma; this dichotomy of “tools vs. content” because it remains anchored in a pre-digital reality. Unless you have been living in a cave, you will know that the influence of digital technology is an all encompassing one, and on a global scale. The technological changes we are living through, of course affects everything, not only photography. It touches the entire fiber of culture, as in entertainment, education, commerce, industry, science, health, communications and warfare, just to name a few off the top of my head. Faced with this transformation of modern civilization, the likes of which we have not known, at least not in our generations, it would be unwise not to become highly engaged in evaluating how all these new tools –in the case of photography- will affect our work. Not only are there changes in the way we produce, but also in how such content is affected by the emerging presence of the available technologies with which we can do things that were not possible before.   When Marshall McLuhan stated in 1967: ‘The Medium is the Message’, little did he know about the potential of a Powerbook connected to a video camera or what can be produced on an iMac with iMovie. Today CNN announced that their reporters will be doing their work precisely with such tools.   Understanding such transformations requires that we deal with both technological issues as well as the creative ideas. Adios to the dichotomy of tools vs. content. The pen/typewriter metaphor for the writer has little connection to the problems of the digital photographer. For the writer, either tool will not alter the content. However, the work of the photographer is going to be very much determined by the sort of digital instruments and the software employed, and how the resulting product might in the end be deployed.   Let us explore a few examples of some of those changes that the digital photographer will have to contend with.   1- We can now put sound with still images and publish them. This was not possible earlier when our means of distribution was solely the printed page. Very few photographers have yet considered the use of sound in combination with their pictures. We have been living in the era of the silent still picture, the question is when will that change for still pictures as it did in cinema? 2- The new digital still cameras are coming out with the ability to produce 30 second videos. Think of this time frame as the equivalent of most commercial TV ads, so there is a lot of time there to be explored. The video produced by these new cameras obviously includes it’s own sound track.     Video taken with Canon's G1 camera The original size is 320X240 pixels 3- Photo reporters very much accustomed and trained to work on their own with still images, in a very individualistic manner, shied away in the past from working with video. They would cite as a reason for such a decision: their lack of satisfaction of having to work with a crew of people, rather than on their own, to get their images. This is now changing, the momentum is moving precisely in the direction of being able to produce video on your own. If for no better reason than the stations who would want to buy their work, want to save money. 4- The internet is changing everything with regard to the distribution and sale of images.This is true regardless if you are one of the two giant agencies, Corbis or Getty Pictures, or an individual photographer. So what happens when a photographer is not up to date with all the potential opportunities to bring his or her work to the attention to larger audiences? 5- How does the photographer in the digital age deal with an archive? The technologies are evolving all the time rendering obsolete any vision for a long-standing set of standards. It could well be that two generations from today; those archives cannot be read anymore. 6- The photographer who does not evolve technologically with his profession runs the risk of not knowing that his competitors (assuming they work digitally) can produce a body of work at a fraction of the cost than he or she does. Since costs always factor in when considering content, you end up altering your creative possibilities for the sake of costs, when in fact it might not be needed. 7- How do the printing possibilities provided by Ink Jet technology alter the standards of what can be produced and sold on the market? Longevity of materials, for one (which is mostly in the process of being deal with successfully), but also the vast diversity of papers that can be used today which open up considerable new visual options. Therefore, the traditional standards of what constituted a photograph have certainly been expanded. 8- When you can alter a single pixel within a picture, you know that the levels of control are way beyond anything that could have been achieved in the traditional dark room. Now it is up to us to use successfully such newfound power to produce quality work that offers new visual directions. That has yet to be fully realized. 9- When the issue of "time" (as depicted or inferred) within the still image is as dynamic as that which we see happening today; where you can have a picture that represents diverse moments in time and all happening visually in a synchronous way, then you know that the decisive moment has taken on a new meaning altogether.   I have chosen to refer to only a few of the untold number of changes that are taking place for photography, today. The point is not to make an exhaustive inventory (for a closer approximation the book to read is: Photography: A Critical Introduction. Second Edition. Edited by Liz Wells) but to make a point about the lack of critical thinking of those that choose to ignore technical issues in lieu of content, when in fact the two topics are inseparable.   Pedro Meyer January 21, 2001 Coyoacan, México   For comments post a message in our forum section at ZoneZero         http://zonezero.com/editorial/enero01/january.html    

Sunday, 21 January 2001

715. Ingigerdur Einarsdottir

  Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 22:02:44 -0500   My name is Ingigerdur Einarsdottir and I am from Iceland, but now I'm Florida studying photography at Daytona Beach Community Collage, please send my e-mails and maybe some offers that you might have,   thanks ginger  

Wednesday, 10 January 2001

717. Karina Villalobos

  Date: 10 Jan 2001 12:00:11 -0800   Soy Karina Villalobos, de Mexicali Baja California Me dedico a la fotografia desde hace algunos años y su pagina es basica para mi.   Tambien me gustaria saber si reciben trabajos para publicarlos en su pagina.   Gracias  

Wednesday, 10 January 2001

719. Pedro Luis Godoy | Despues de mucha horas...

  Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2001 15:28:39 -0400   Hace unas cuantas horas les envié un E-mail felicitándolos por su pagina, descubierta por casualidad, fue solo el entusiasmo, por un par de galerías visitadas, el problema es que todavía no é podido salir de su pagina y eso que no lo é podido ver todo, ni leer todo, es imposible, los editoriales no se pueden simplemente leerlos, hay que releerlos para poder saborearlos a fondo, para estar seguro que no se me escapo algo, para asimilar bien la idea de que alguien mas se dio cuenta que el mundo cambio, que el ayer se fue, que hoy por fin alcanzamos el futuro, y es mejor que aprendamos a vivir en el.   Tengo una sugerencia, pongan en el Cover "warnig this page can be produce addition, if you dont'have enough time dont enter" no es broma hoy tenia pensado hacer muchas cosas y lo peor es que sé que mañana volveré.   En mi primer E-mail les pregunte de donde eran, (todavía no había leído los editoriales) la duda era por los dos idiomas, hay muy pocos países con una visión fotográfica de tanta calidad, tenia que ser México, una pagina Americana no hubiera sido bilingüe, no en español por lo menos. Tienen un sitio de trabajo maravilloso de verdad se los envidio, y ahora conozco sus caras y sus nombres, la única duda que me queda is who is who, que cara pertenece a que nombre, sobre todo quien de ellos es Pedro Meyer.   Parecen personas maravillosas, y creo que contrariamente a casi toda la humanidad estén haciendo lo que les gusta   Cordialmente Pedro Luis Godoy  

Sunday, 07 January 2001

721. Rubén Romano

  Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2000 23:46:48 -0300   Sr. Meyer: ZoneZero me parece el mejor espacio dedicado a la fotografía. He navegado bastante buscando sitios relacionados con el tema, y sin dudas me parece el mejor. Antes de tener acceso a internet yo ya había recibido elogiosos comentarios sobre este sitio. Me interesa muchísimo la fotografía documental y el retrato. Tengo aquí en la ciudad de La PLata (Buenos Aires) - Argentina, una escuela de fotografía con numerosos alumnos ( este año la matrícula fue de 420 alumnos) y continuamente recibo pedidos de ellos sobre sitios de internet que resulten interesantes. ZoneZero es lo primero que recomiendo, sobre todo por la gran diversidad temática que abarca y el alto nivel del discurso teórico. Felicitaciones.   Rubén Romano Fotógrafo - Docente  

Wednesday, 13 December 2000

723. Nicoletta Kalatha

  Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2000 17:39:41 +0200   I am writing to register on your mailing list. Yet, I will take this oportunity to congradulate you for your amazing website. I am visiting your website at list ones a week. There are so many things to view that I need to visit it a lot.   Keep it going!   Best regards, Nicoletta Kalatha   Nicosia CYPRUS  

Saturday, 09 December 2000

725. David H. Brown | Saludos

  Date: Fri, 08 Dec 2000 18:01:04 -0500   Dear Zone Zero, I have been enjoying the site for several years since Atlanta photographer Ron Lee alerted me to it.   The format and quality are exceptional, and the works profound.  

Friday, 08 December 2000