927. Jaime Boites

  Date: 9/12/98 9:24 PM Received: 9/12/98 11:02 PM   Felicidades es un gran espacio para la fotografÌa, todos los proyectos son en verdad muy buenos. Es muy estimulante para los fotoperiodÌstas porque aprendemos como formular un proyecto . Mi nombre es Jaime Boites y trabajo para el periodico Reforma y todos los Sabados entro a consultar cada uno de los proyectos. Bueno realmente un saludo y que interesante tener estos espacio. Hasta la vista estare muy antento de lo nuevo.  

Saturday, 12 September 1998

929. Khaled Al-Melifi

  Date: 9/4/98 6:10 AM Received: 9/4/98 9:01 AM   Dear Sir ,,, I'm intresting so much of your great magazine , please sir if you dont mind to send to me sample of it , I'll be thanks . Thank you any way Yours   khaled Al-Melifi PO.box 7295 Salmya State of Kuwait  

Friday, 04 September 1998

931. Jorge Barahona Ch.

  Date: 8/29/98 2:53 PM Received: 9/1/98 3:35 PM   Que grato encuentro he tenido hoy... Abro mi correo y encuentro uno de Proyecto Rayuela que me llega periódicamente, ahí aparece un link a tu sitio... Lo demás es que ye estoy escribiendote! Por favor incluyeme en tu mailing list. Soy diseñador gráfico especializado en tecnología. Hago clases en la Escuela de Arquitectura de la Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Chile. Hago foto desde hace 15 años. Tenemos un sitio con unos amigos desde hace dos años + o -.   La verdad que estamos buscando, descubriendo e inventando igual que muchos en el mundo el Web. Nos interesa el web como nuevo medio donde el diseño está por inventarse...siempre decimos que es como cuando Gutemberg estaba frente a la prensa sin saber qué vendría luego... Ahi estamos en Internet sólo con un ejemplar de la Biblia en la mano...sólo eso! Buenas Salenas amigos.  

Saturday, 29 August 1998

933. Searched at UK Border for Net Porn on an Apple

  Pedro, Thank you for the invitation to share this article with ZoneZero readers about my experience getting searched by UK customs for pornography. In a recent editorial, you spoke of scars and the photographers' responsibility: at once to the individual being shot as well as to a higher calling -- the art itself. What of those invisible scars, you ask, so tough to capture in 35mm? It is a question that writers face, too. In our case, the words are the traces of experience we leave in our wake. They are less tangible than the photographers' print, yet they leave different imprints. How to capture the scar in ink? Those invisible scars that must be discovered in introspection, in the silence facing blank paper, a computer screen. Whithin a few hours after the following was story was posted on the Internet, I received an incredible number of e-mails from people who've extended their support. It's a digital form of nature's healing, I am certain. I'm pleased that the story may now find an even greater audience with ZoneZero readers, of which I also count myself one. It is especially important for the artist, not just the politician, to think through these issues. If we are to be spared from silly governmental policies, I place my faith in the photographer -- the recorder of scars -- before today's bureaucrates. Cheers, Kenn Some days its a bad hair day, other days you see the suite of Western values since the Enlightenment quashed in an instant by a single, soulless, civil servant. Here's what happened to me last Friday when I arrived in London from Paris on the channel tunnel train: As I walked through UK immigration, two guys pulled me aside, flashed badges, and said: "UK Customs. Come with us." They walked me behind a wall where they handed me off to one of a fleet of waiting agents. A customs officer told me to lay my computer bag on the table, and inspected my ticket and passport. After learning I was a reporter, she demanded to see my press card (issued by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs), and asked about where I was going in London, why, and for how long. "Do you know there are things that are illegal to bring into the UK?" she asked. "Uh, yeah.... There are *many* things that are illegal to bring across borders -- do you have in mind any thing in particular?," I said. "Illegal drugs, fire arms, bomb making materials, lewd and obscene pornographic material...." I felt a rush of relief. I was late and now was assured I could get on with my journey. "I am carrying none of that," I replied, staring directly at her, with a tone of earnest seriousness. "Is that a computer in your bag?" "Yes." "Does it have Internet on in?" Here, I confess, I really didn't know how to answer. What does one say to a question like that?? I was struck dumb. "I use the computer to access the Internet, yes," I said, rather proud of myself for my accuracy. "Is there any pornography on it?" she said, stoically. Here, I figured out what's going on. But I'm mentally paralyzed from all the synapses sparkling all at once in my head: Does she not understand that Internet content is distributed around the world? That I'm just dialing a local number, be it in France or the UK, and that whether I cross a border is moot to what I'm able to access? "There is no pornography stored on the hard drive," I stated. "Do you mind if I check." she says rather than asks, and begins to take the computer out of the bag. "I'm just going to hook it up over there and scan the hard drive..." she continues. And then her face turns dour. "Oh! It's an Apple," she says, dejectedly. "Our scanner doesn't work on Apples." At this point, it's all a little bit too much, too fast, for me to handle. From seeing my personal privacy ripped out from under me with a computer-enema to an immediate about-face and witnessing my oppressors flounder in the pap of their own incompetence was just too much to bear. Then, of course, I sort of relished the irony of it all. I swung into naive-mode: "Oh. Oh well," I said and began packing up. "Why not?" "I dunno -- it just doesn't," she said. "Is this a common thing that you do? Scan PCs?" "It happens quite often," she said. (Note: I wrote this entire dialogue immediately after the incident, but that particular quote I wrote the moment we parted, to have it exactly right.) "Do you catch a lot?" "Sometimes," she says, cautiously. What's the fine? The penalty?" I asked. She started to become uncomfortable and tried to move me along. "It depends. Every case is different. It depends what they have." "What about if I had encryption -- do you check for that too?" I said, disdaining the risk that she might want to check the computer "by hand" since I'd mentioned the dreaded C-word.... "Huh?! I don't know about that...." "You don't know what cryptography is?" I asked. "No. Thank you, you can go now," she said. And thus ended my experience with inspector "K. PARE_," whose name tag was partially torn at the final one or two letters of her last name. Of course I was burning up. Lots of thoughts raced through me. For example, would I have really let her inspect my hard drive, even knowing I was "innocent." That, of course, was entirely irrelevant to me -- it's about a principle. I thought of my editor -- or ex-editor -- if I didn't make the day-long meeting. And I immediately thought of John Gilmore, and how much I respected him when he refused to board a flight a few years ago when the airline demanded he present a form of identification. Had I acquiesced to their mental thuggery? As soon as I realized I was "safe" from being scanned, I was tempted to pull out my notepad, go into reporter mode, and make a small scene getting names and superiors and formal writs of whatever.... but suspected it would only get me locked in a room for a full day. Then I thought of how, despite in their kafakain zeal to abuse my privacy, they couldn't even get that right. Not only did they not have a clue what the Internet is, they confirmed their ignorance by not even being able to digitally pat me down. Insult to injury! It brought back something John Perry Barlow once told me about why he doesn't fear US intelligence agencies. "I've seen them from the inside," he said (as I recall), "they will suffer under the weight of their own ineptitude." What's at the heart of this is "thought crime"; and scanning one's computer is paramount to search and seizure of one's intellectual activity. What if they found subversive literature about the proper role of government authority in civil society? Would that have gotten me busted? And do they store what they scan? Are business executives with marketing plans willing to have their data inspected under the umbrella of public safety from porn? Just the night before I read in the memoirs of William Shirer, who wrote The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, about how he was blacklisted for a decade after his name was cited in Red Currents, a magazine that destroyed hundreds of careers during the McCarthy era. He was powerless to defend himself. I see parallels: We are approaching the point were we are incapable of reasonable discourse on Internet content. Refuse to boot up for inspection means you've got something to hide. Defend civil liberties of the accused means you condone guilty acts. Question the nature of the censorious policies in the first place means you are filthy, and as unhealthy as the wily-eyed porn devourer.... State the obvious: That a large part of the drive for Net content regulation is driven by hucksters seeking recognition, and that it is taken to idiotic extremes by a mass movement of simpletons ignorant of the history of hysteria in the US, and, well, you're just a typical lawless cyberlibertian. Finally, it dawned in me. This wasn't an aberration at all, but part of a much deeper trend. It's a British thing, really. "As might be supposed I have not had the time, not may I add the inclination to read through this book," wrote Sir Archibald Bodkin, the director of public prosecutions, on 29 December 1922. "I have, however, read pages 690 to 732 ... written as they are, as it composed by a more or less illiterate vulgar woman ... there is a great deal of unmitigated filth and obscenity." And so James Joyce's Ulysses was banned in Britain for 15 years. Interesting, that. The policy was made by a chap who didn't actually read the work he felt justified to prohibit others from reading. Wonder if the fellows who implemented Britain's scan-for-skin policy actually use the Net themselves...? Kenneth Neil Cukier Singapore, 11 August 1998 100736.3602@compuserve.com (No, I was not stopped by customs officials here. But this e-mail was sent out via government-mandated proxy servers) Kenneth Neil Cukier is a senior editor and Paris correspondent for Communications Week International, covering the architecture, economics, and public policy of the Internet. Prior to joining CWI in November 1996, he edited the Web site Sarajevo Online. From 1992 to 1996 he worked at the International Herald Tribune.       http://www.zonezero.com/magazine/articles/kcukier/searched.html    

Saturday, 22 August 1998

935. Vadim Wilniewczyc

  Date: 8/20/98 11:26 PM Received: 8/21/98 3:32 AM   hello. i'm a photographer from tallinn, estonia who had opened digital world not far than half a year ago. Now it's deep. Being still not familiar with PC i use internet mostly to see visual life 'outdoor' or just TO SEE. And to learn. Previous bookmark was showcase.   Now i'm glad to discover ZoneZero (kind of shoking, actually) where can't find anything seriously wrong. Great images with good page design and constructure. Even chat section looks clever done.   Clever, that's the word to describe the Zone. Thank You very much.   vadim wilniewczyc  

Thursday, 20 August 1998

937. Clive

  Date: 8/18/98 12:42 AM Received: 8/18/98 10:10 AM   Great content too, both by yourselves and you contributors. Im speechless cant think of anything else. Oh care to do a feature on me, Im an amatuer specialsing in Landscapes , Seascapes, that sort of thing, with a few close up bird pics thrown in for good measure Regards   Clive  

Tuesday, 18 August 1998

939. Antonio Castro

  Date: 8/9/98 1:32 AM Received: 8/9/98 12:36 PM   quiero enviarles mis más sinceras felicitaciones por la calidad de vuestro site. lamento haberlos encontrado ahora y no mucho antes. por mi trabajo en publicidad,hace tiempo que estoy en contacto con la fotografía, pero hasta ahora no había participado en forma activa. gracias por el empujón! congratulations!   antonio castro,montevideo,uruguay.  

Sunday, 09 August 1998

941. Are scars beautiful?

    Are scars beautiful? That depends on the beholder doesn't it. Scars invoke the memory of difficult moments. One could make the argument that society tries to avoid scars. In the first world a lot of women try to keep the scars of time away through the use of cosmetics and or surgery (now even men do) suggesting that they —the wrinkles— reveal age and ought to be something to vanish. However men are more willing to offer their scars as proof of having survived under duress, it's debatable that it exemplifies their maleness.   How our likeness appears within a picture is at times a difficult discussion. We all want to put the "best spin" on what we perceive to be the best "angle". I believe this is a very legitimate attitude, but it is not always well understood. That is because sometimes the subject is really mistaken as to what makes him or her "look good". Again, there is no universal correct response to such an issue either. No one can assure that presenting ones' scars (or wrinkles) is going to lead to anyone's approval; the ultimate measure is how does the subject feel about it all, regardless of the end result.   The struggle seems to be between the photographer and his creative impulses and that of the person depicted in the image. In more advanced societies the rights of the person photographed are protected through the use of "model release" forms which insure that the person in the image is actually comfortable with the photograph, before allowing it's publication.   But what happens to all those less protected by a legal system where there is no recourse? Photographers have traditionally traveled throughout the world considering it their God given right to imprint their film with anyone's image regardless of what his or her opinions about the subject might be. I have myself participated extensively in this double standard of asking permission when the circumstance demanded that I do, and neglecting to do the same towards those who were less understanding about the photographic process. I am not proud of this lopsided process, but the truth is that this is what has happened and most probably will continue in the future, as much as one would like to avoid it.   At stake in this debate is our freedom as photographers vs. the individual rights of those depicted. Freedom as in creative expression or documentary responsibility. There are no easy answers. Imagine a photographer documenting the atrocities perpetrated in a war zone. I can imagine that asking for permission to make pictures would be the last thing on his or her mind. Or what about photographing someone walking on the street. Is that a space that belongs to the public domain? And therefore asking to make pictures does not make sense, or are there exceptions to such situations.   For photographers, the argument has been that "if I asked", the photographic moment (decisive moment ?) would have been lost by the time I could have received permission. But in all fairness this argument is not quite as solid as it sounds, because there is no difference between the "photographic moment" which could have been lost when it happens in the first world to one in a third world situation. If photography can still be carried out within the framework where strict approval is required in the first world, then one also has to make the effort in situations that might be more relaxed about such questions. It's about justice, isn't it?   To take a short cut is very tempting for a photographer. Why ask for permission when it is not strictly required? And the answer is rather simple. Because when possible the courtesy of "asking rather than grabbing" is seen over the world as the preferable choice. The question then becomes, do we need or want to be courteous all the time? In a perfect world the response is quite obvious. That leaves the other half of the question unanswered, what about in an imperfect world, what should it be? I know, "grabbing" is unavoidable in an imperfect world. For instance in photojournalism, a scenario could be: while I would ask for permission, my competing colleague already grabbed the image. Solution? As in all such cases, there are no fast and easy answers. To establish rules that are universal would be shear folly as the diversity of how the image making process goes is too diverse to come up with one dimensional rules.   So let us get back to requesting permission to publish, which is not always possible, as in good conscience one can say that sometimes it is impossible to locate the people in an image. Also there are situations where the simple participation of the person or persons in a picture is tantamount to an informal "model release". This occurs as when a friend allows another to make a picture of her or him, or a relative participates willingly in the ritual of picture taking. One also has to recognize that many of the issues around "model release" have less to do with the issue of satisfying the person' s control over their image, than with shear economic issues of making money out the sale of a picture.   Most recently with the advances of digital technology I have been able to show those I photograph the results right away. My camera even has a small monitor to show the picture as soon as the shutter is pressed. I show the picture, and my subjects either like it or not, and we continue with our visual explorations. The subjects are hesitant when looking at themselves, no one seems to like how they look (and neither does anyone like how their voice sounds) and very often they are not quite sure as to how they really feel about the image. The photographer' s reassurance becomes very important during those moments of anxiety when a gaze is exchanged, suggesting the question: " I don't look good in that picture, do I?"   Yes, you look great ! Remember scars are the evidence of life. There are other scars however that are not external, and for the thoughtful photographer these can be seized as well. The challenge is to enter those spaces mostly with permission.   New images of your ZoneZero staff   Pedro Meyer August 1998             http://zonezero.com/editorial/august98/agosto.html      

Saturday, 01 August 1998

943. German Castro

  Date: 7/30/98 9:34 AM Received: 7/30/98 11:45 AM   Es la primera vez que me encuentro con su página gracias a yahoo, simplemente es excelente, tiene una inmejorable presentación y la información y archivos de fotos que poseen están muy completos, sobre todo me encantó que por fin haya encontrado un lugar donde poder ver fotos de Joel- Peter Witkin... en fin, de nuevo, felicidades por su página.   Germán.  

Thursday, 30 July 1998

945. Charles Corbit

  Date: 7/25/98 3:25 PM Received: 7/27/98 12:26 PM   Hello, I just wanted to say how much I am enjoying browsing thru zonezero. I was just reading some of the editorials and the are well done and thought provoking. That coupled with the excellent photography makes ZoneZero a smashing success. As a amateur photographer, I can learn quite a bit from you zine. Love it!   Charlie  

Saturday, 25 July 1998

947. Marcelo de la Torre

  Date: 7/18/98 6:39 PM Received: 7/18/98 11:51 PM   Es la primera vez que s los visito... llegue hasta aquí por una recomendación del Interlink (un periódico electrónico argentino) ... De vuestra fotos puedo decirles que me facina y en todo caso cuando rompa tal estado catatónico ñes amplaré ... Felicitaciones  

Saturday, 18 July 1998

949. Jamie Neil

  Date: 7/4/98 5:01 AM Received: 7/4/98 11:50 AM   i have just found this site and will be spending many hours here looking at the images! i am a b&w photographer in vancouver and am currently making a diary of my change from one sex to another.these images will all be in blackand white and i may expand this to include all the others that are going through transition in vancouver. the images i have seen by jose raul perez(mexican tarot) are very strong for me and have such a nice touch of humanity in them. anyway,i trust this is what you need for register! thanks for the images jamie  

Saturday, 04 July 1998