901. Ernesto Lopez | Your latest edition

  Date: Fri, Mar 5, 1999, 5:38 PM   Congratulations on the Fathers and Son exhibit and the letters that were part of it. I have written Ed a note congratulating him and so I thought I would write you to thank you for making it happen. Once again, I find zonezero the place to visit. The Con was also an exhibit worth visiting.   Thanks again -- Ernesto Lopez  

Friday, 05 March 1999

903. Alfredo E. Benito

  Date: Wed, Mar 3, 1999, 10:07 PM   Me dirijo a ustedes porque vi una publicidad en una revista mexicana, luna nueva, me intereza ante todo saber si esta registracion tiene costo, si es asi conocer los servicios que ustedes brindan, cabe destacar que he incursionado en la digitalización de imagenes desde 1984 con los recursos disponible en aquel entonces, hoy cuento con camaras digitales, scanners de alta resolucion tanto para papel como para negativos y/o filminas; como medio de impresin utilizo films recordes y/o impresoras de inyeccion de tinta epson (stylus photo, etc) y una fargo sublimal. Desde ya gracias por su atención.   Alfredo E Benito PD: soy miembro activo de: Asociacion de fotografos profesionales de Cordoba (Argentina) desde 1983 Asociacion de fotografos profesionales de la Republica Argentina, desde 1997 Photomarketing Association, desde 1998 Digital Image Association, desde 1998 entre otras.  

Wednesday, 03 March 1999

905. Roxanna Frias | A chicana in Paris

  Date: Fri, Feb 26, 1999, 9:20 AM   I've been reading your ideas with much interest . I am a chicana from los Angeles living and working in Paris, France for the past 12 years. I have been preparing over the last 5 years a documentary that is almost about what I have read on your pages. So pou understand why it has taken me so long to produce. My project, sin duda, is too vast, too comples, I must zero (huh, zone zero!) in on one story to tell a larger story. In any case the French are quite interested in my chicano stories. I have been producing tv & radio reports called "Ritmos Chicanos" here in France. What I have read in Zone Zero has re-inspired me to continue on..   Gracias, Merci, thanks Roxanna  

Friday, 26 February 1999

907. Darrel Couturier

  Date: Tue, Feb 23, 1999, 9:33 PM   I would like to be kept up to date with what is happening with ZoneZero. As I mentioned in my email to Pedro, it is one of the most elegant sites I have yet seen on the internet!   Darrel Couturier  

Tuesday, 23 February 1999

909. Mike Sweeney | Web site design

  Date: Fri, Feb 19, 1999, 2:21 PM   Dear Pedro, ZoneZero is awesome! I've never seen that much good photography in one place, so it is a good resource for all the people here at Western Kentucky University studying photojournalism. I have a question: would you mind if I borrowed the style of displaying photographs for my own web page I'm working on? I could link ZoneZero directly on the first page since it is my inspiration.   Thanks, Mike Sweeney  

Friday, 19 February 1999

911. M. J. Benson | In the Eyes of the Beholder

  Date: Mon, Feb 8, 1999, 11:38 AM   P.M.: I was so inspired by your new article that I decided to try something new - I'm a purist in terms of my need for gelatin, plastics, chemistry, glass and the like for image making, but I decided to turn my scanner into a camera, creating a new primary source.... The Photoshop-rinsed result is attached.   Thanks for your great ideas and generosity. M.J.  

Monday, 08 February 1999

913. Jonathan Sierra | An appreciation and an invitation from Israel

  Date: Mon, Feb 8, 1999, 5:01 PM   Dear Mr. Meyer, during the last years, I followed after your personal work and after the work you do as a pioneer and an "evangelist" of the relationships between photography and the digital realm: I want to express my sincere appreciation for what you do and to thank you -as an artist and as a teacher- for all the energies you spend in advancing those fields.   I would like to invite you to a visit and point your attention to the on-line exhibition I just "hanged" at:   The exhibition will be accessible until the end of October 1999.   If you will find the work to be interesting, any critics from you and/or a link from one of your sites will be very much appreciated.   Thanks, with sympathy, Jonathan Sierra  

Monday, 08 February 1999

915. Dick Swanson | Fathers and son

  Date: Sun, Feb 7, 1999, 1:46 PM   hi...i direct your attention to: http://www.swansonphotography.com/photos/dairies/diarypage.html   it has been up for two years and averages 10 hits a day...the father and son written catharsis does seem to strike a nerve....a good nerve to be sure...regards, dick swanson  

Sunday, 07 February 1999

917. Juan Jose Herrera

  Date: Thu, Feb 4, 1999, 10:57 AM   Pedro, Muchas felicidades, no me canso de repetirlo, Zone Zero cada vez esta mejor. Es una experiencia extasiante navegar por las paginas que realiza tu equipo. Te envio una foto que tome en diciembre, y que uso de background en mi nueva pc. Un BMP... Saludos a todos y el mejor de los exitos para 1999!!!   Un abrazo, Juanjo Herrera  

Thursday, 04 February 1999

919. The Eye

    Even though the picture above is only of the eye, it is intended to be a self portrait. There is nothing to suggest that a self portrait has to include all of the face, is there? The reason that I wanted to explore this image of the eye, is that it led me down the road to several topics which I found would be worthy of exploration.   If we look at self portraits through out the history of painting, we will discover that they strongly reflected the presence of mirrors. In this self portrait of Rembrandt, for instance we are told that the painter made an interesting mistake which he later corrected. An x-ray of the canvas reveals the artist holding the his brush and pallete in the wrong hand in other words as they would have appeared in the mirror that he would have consulted in order to paint the picture.   From the history of photography, we can see that self-portraits were not made as often with the aid of mirrors as they did for painters. These self-portraits were more often than not just made by tripping a cable connected to the shutter, or a self timing device so prevalent in modern cameras. It is obvious that the process was inevitably one of chance. Did one trigger the shutter at the right moment?   Today with the advent of certain digital cameras the process is starting to take a new direction. Some of these cameras have a small screen that swivels around and which the photographer can now consult in order to judge the image being created, much as the painter did with the aid of mirrors. The construction of these models departs radically from that which was available up to now, and as with the advent of each new tool throughout the history of art, new creative options emerge. However as with so many tools that come out from this digital era, here we have yet another instance whereby a new tool allows us to accomplish something that was possible before ( with the use of mirrors) but then also takes it a few steps forward. The ease of use introduces many subtle differences in how we create, and that is the step forward.   What are some of the reasons behind making a self-portrait other than the narcissistic inclination some might consider to be the main motivation. I would venture to say it's self exploration. Why does someone keep a diary for instance, if not for a similar reason?   As I inspect an image of myself, all sort of discoveries could take place. Aside from the obvious: " is this how I really look?", I might become captivated for instance by thoughts related to mortality as I review such a self-portrait. Or as in this case which leads me to examine sections of my body. The eye became increasingly more interesting as I narrowed down the possibilities for a self-portrait.   But why the eye? It occurred to me that this portal to our brain is at the very center of all photography. What more significant element than to capture the eye of the photographer? Without the eye, there is no photography. I am clear we can have pictures taken without a photographer, the cameras in a bank do that, but then with out the eye of the viewer to inspect what those cameras had captured, there would be no photography. The loop has to be closed, in one form or another by the presence of the eye.   As I looked upon the picture I had just taken with the aid of the digital camera. I was struck by the little white square in the eye, reflecting the light that was directed at my face. It reminded me to images described by Jonathan Miller in his wonderful book/catalogue: On Reflection, which traces such reflections in the eye all the way back to the Hellenistic artists in Egypt "who recognized the importance of showing the reflected luster in the human eye." As Miller suggests, "without such specks of white the gaze of the subject would seem dead and inattentive".   Many have thought up to now that the act of placing that little white patch of light in the eye -as Jonathan Miller describes-, was a deliberate act by the painter, while in the case of the photographer, well, it just fell into place when you made the photograph. In thinking like this, the effort by the photographer is obviously devalued giving higher merit to the work performed by the painter given that it was a deliberate creative act and did not just happen, as allegedly is the case with the photograph.   However today with the presence of digital technologies, we can longer make such assumptions when it comes to photography. How would you know that the little white patch was not placed there by the photographer? Either before making the image, by placing some lights strategically to produce such an effect, or by deft digital alteration much as the painter did to his image. The case is that the presence of that little white patch can no longer be thought off as being there by without the intervention of the photographer. Much has been gained for photographers by seeding this doubt as to what if anything has been altered within the image.   Granted, the innovation for creating that white patch within the eye should to go to the artists in Egypt of long ago, however today we have our own contemporary contributions that we can think of and which advance the artistic discourse as well.   For instance the image of my eye is a typical image created with the aid of a camera, in other words, we don't see with such detail with our ordinary vision. It requires a close up inspection for our eye to train in on the detail, however at that moment we also stop seeing the overall, the entire face; we can not do both at the same time.   The pupil of our eye, is a lens that is either fat or slim, as the case may be, it is not a pinhole. The adjustments made by the eye allow us to focus either on the close up or on a distant scene. Muscles inside the eye have to thicken the lens to focus nearby objects or flatten it to focus on a far away object. The photograph however allows us to have access to viewing the close up and the far at the same time. That is a distinct contribution brought about by a photographic vision.   In closing let me just remind you that what you are seeing before your very eyes at this moment, are not actually seen as such by your eye. The image that the lens in your eye is able to construct, is no different than that which we can see on the back of a view finder camera, in other words, it will be upside down.     It is only in our brain where that image gets turned around and adjusted in all sorts of manners to enable us to identify the objects "seen". At that moment the specific color, texture, or light as well as shadows, give us the ability to determine the space and identity of that with which we are dealing with. The question is do we see with the eye, or with the brain? Is the eye the equivalent of a scanner, and the brain of the computer? Will a computer someday be able to decide on it's own to create it's self-portrait?     Pedro Meyer January 1999   P.S.: The picture of the eye was taken with a Nikon Coolpix 900 camera. We have found this camera to be one of the best ones in the market today (this can change in a week). Not only is the digital format it uses well balanced for good color rendition, but also the swivel perspective that is gained through the digital viewfinder empowers the photographer to create interesting angles and perspectives from those generally associated with regular cameras. And last but not least, as a tool to see him or herself in a "mirror" image to make self-portraits.     For comments please write in our forum section at ZoneZero         http://zonezero.com/editorial/enero99/january.html    

Friday, 01 January 1999

921. Las Vegas - Where does reality reside?

    Why am I so fascinated by this city? Probably because it is the only place where I can make a photograph in which the outcome is an unaltered image which looks like a text book rendition of a layered digital fabrication created on a computer. A picture that is, to use a term very much appreciated by documentary photographers: a strictly "straight image." However this photograph is a deception in that it appears to be like a composite of several ones. Essentially it looks "fake." However, what do you call an image in which the subject matter to begin with is what is fake? So we go back to those basic dilemmas about photography, wherein does the deception lie? In the original or the reproduction? Or is it maybe our interpretation of it all? It was 25 years ago that a little known professor, Robert Venturi, dared in to Las Vegas with two dozen of his students from Yale, and stayed at the Stardust. The result of that trip would become his influential 1972 book, Learning from Las Vegas, which would introduce the world of high culture to the notion of what in time, became known as Post-Modernist architecture. Today every big-city downtown has new skyscrapers that attempt to look like old skyscrapers. Almost every suburb has a shopping center decorated with phony arches, fake pediments, and imitation columns. Venturis' manifesto stating that Las Vegas could become a beacon for the architecture of the future, in particular in the United States, transformed such esthetic thinking through out the world. Today we can see such buildings from Mexico City to London aside from major metropolitan cities all over the US landscape.       Being built now In Las Vegas, is a reproduction (scale 1:1) of the Piazza di San Marco in Venice, with all the surrounding world famous architectural landmarks. Consider the famous Campanile tower: While it's a handsome construction, and the subject of high praise by many critics, including John Ruskin in his exalted book The Stones of Venice, the one now standing in Venice isn't even the real tower. The original one collapsed in 1902, and a new tower was built in 1912. A reproduction. Not the authentic article. You get the picture?     As we enter the digital age, Las Vegas will not only extend it's influence the way it did for architecture; our notions of what passes as "reality" itself will also increasingly become the subject of many agonizing thoughts.     Bugs Bunny presides from a Roman chariot over a collective of cartoon characters dressed themselves as Romans at the entrance to the Warner Bros. studio store. One is able to observe as the famous bunny stands there, off to the left on a niche, dressed like any Roman of substance, is the Road Runner character all geared up and presenting us with his shield as any good soldier standing in such a niche would do. Such stores are for children (I would assume) yet they are located amidst hundreds of slot machines leading towards their very entrance.     At the opposite end of the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace, a sort of baroque moon colony completely sealed off from the outside world, with computer-controlled sky effects that cycle from rosy-fingered dawn to purple dusk on the roof vaults above, and pastiche Roman statuary, you will find Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck looking their best in their Roman attire. They are feasting under an inscription that reads The Ides of March. The feast is reminiscent of a Last Supper. Now why would Mickey and Donald celebrate with such relish just when Julius Caesar was about to be murdered, as the painting suggests? Can this be the decoration for a children's store?     Is Las Vegas for children? Yes and maybe. In spite of the numerous families that arrive with their kids, I would hardly consider Las Vegas child oriented. At the very most it is tolerant of children, but only to a degree. Consider the sign at the entrance to the Treasure Island Casino or the Mirage Casinos, "only guests of the hotel can bring in their children sitting in strollers". Yet the Treasure Island has a free show every two hours which attracts thousands of families with children and the Mirage spent millions and millions of dollars to house a family of dolphins as well as creating a little zoo, allegedly for the entertainment and "education" of the younger ones.     Disney World is about tightly scripted fun for the kids; however Las Vegas as Kurt Andersen of Time magazine wrote, is something different: "Las Vegas in spite of all the theme-park entertainment, remains the epicenter of the American id, focused on the darker stirrings of chance, liquor and sex. If it is now acceptable for the whole family to come along to Las Vegas, that's because the values of America have changed, not those of Las Vegas."     The Mirage casino offers us a glimpse of the ever increasing ersatz realities that in time might become the "real" things. The lobby of the Mirage is offered to us as a tropical rain forest, never mind that this is the desert, or better said, it is there because this is the desert. From such a "rain forest" we should learn the importance that a rain forest holds for human life, at least that is what we are told by the promotional videos on the tram leading towards the casino. Who would want to loose those exquisite palm trees (made out of plastic) that turn into a promenade for all the guests of the Casino? The fact that these palm trees are all identically bent out of shape does not seem to be of any major concern to anyone. The precious bouganvilas are also fake, like the huge stones from which tons of water cascade into a river. Even the butterflies are mechanical or electronic reproductions set to flap their colorful wings with out interruption, day in and day out. Obviously not all there is artificial, it's a careful blend of the real with the unreal, real water with plastic stones, real plants with fake butterflies, real tourists with surrogate ones (these latter ones being security people).   Just as Las Vegas has been a forerunner for post-modernist architecture, I believe that this incredible city, which operates at full steam 24 hours a day, can in time become the cultural capital of the world. We already have Van Gogh, Monet, Cezanne and Picasso making their first appearances there, and cities like Paris, Venice, New York, Cairo and Rome, are well on their way to being re created, and the list surely to grow.     cannot wait for someone in the 21st century to make a city attempting to imitate Las Vegas, in Japan for instance. Just imagine they would now have to reproduce a large chunk of the world already reproduced in Las Vegas. A copy of the copy, now that is an idea. While all of this happens Las Vegas will remain a photographers paradise as well as a cultural frontier to explore the intellectual intricacies of where reality resides. Jorge Luis Borges had it right in his Aleph when he described the magical point where all places are seen from every angle. [ FYI: All images where taken with a Kodak Digital Science 260 camera]   Pedro Meyer December 1998   For comments please write in our forum section at ZoneZero       http://zonezero.com/editorial/december98/december.html      

Tuesday, 01 December 1998

923. Henriette

Date: 11/16/98 4:26 AM Received: 07/23/98 8:07 AM   I am a great fan of your site and would like to be kept informed about new developments, thank you and keep up the good work from all of us at nonstop, Henriette  

Monday, 16 November 1998

925. Raymundo Olvera Medrano

  Date: 8/6/98 5:10 PM Received: 8/6/98 5:32 PM   Los felicito por este gran espacio que zonezero y en especial al señor Pedro Meyer,que tuve la oportunidad y el privilegio de oirlo en una ponencia en el V coloquio latinoamericano de fotografía Sigan así,y muchas feleicidades.   L.D.G. Raymundo Olvera Medrano Coord. Despacho de Diseño de la Universidad del Noreste Tampico,Tamaulipas.  

Friday, 06 November 1998