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226. Portraits
Author:Zonezero
  "Portraits" by Pedro Meyer There was a face attached to body Curated by Pablo Ortiz Monasterio   Dur: 4:19 min   "Portraits" is now available for iPod video
Wednesday, 13 January 2010
Author:Zonezero
  "Cuba Imagined" by Pedro Meyer Marginal Notes on Cuban Photography Curated by Juan Antonio Molina   Dur: 4:48 min   "Cuba Imagined" is now available for iPod video
Wednesday, 13 January 2010
Author:Zonezero
  "Religious Imagery" by Pedro Meyer Culminating Moments of Existence Curated by Elizabeth Ferrer   Dur: 4 min   "Religious Imagery" is now available for iPod video
Wednesday, 13 January 2010
Author:Zonezero
"I Photograph to Remember" by Pedro Meyer The Art of Storytelling Curated by Jonathan Green Dur: 33min.   "I Photograph to remember" is now available for iPod video  
Wednesday, 13 January 2010
Author:Hans Durrer
    "This lively and idiosyncratic collection of writings from the diverse thinkings about photography will bring encouragement and insight to all of those engaged in lens-based media in the twenty-first century. From the early twentieth-century masters to the postmoderns and on to today's incisive visionaries, this thought-provoking book will navigate the reader through the varied landscape of photography, eloquently expressing what it means to be a photographer" one reads on the backside cover and that is, essentially, true save for the fact that not all authors express themselves as clearly and eloquently as, say, John Szarkowski or Berenice Abbott. Moreover, I really wonder what makes somebody an "incisive visionary"? Anyway, these are details to be neglected for this tome is definitely worth spending time with because the reader will find in it lots of stimulating thoughts. For instance:   In an open letter, dated 1928, Alexander Rodchenko responds to the skepticism of the critic and theorist Boris Kushner regarding the value of experimental photography by stating that "in order to accustom people to seeing from new viewpoints it is essential to take photographs of everyday, familiar subjects from completely unexpected vantage points and in completetly unexpected positions. New subjects should also be photographed from various points, so as to present a complete impression of the subject." Isn't that pretty obvious? one feels tempted to ask yet it certainly was not when Rodchenko was writing his letter and, more often than not, it is still not today. Rodchenko elaborates: "Look at the history of art or the history of painting of all countries, and you'll see that all paintings, with some very minor exceptions, have been painted either form the belly button level or from eye level".   Then there's "Photography at the Crossroads", a magazine article from 1951 by Berenice Abbott in which she makes the point that photography - among other things - is essentially concerned with "realism - the real life - the now." Right, I couldn't agree more: the essence of photography is to be present. Let me give you two quotes from this piece that I've found particularly inspiring:   "Many photographers spend too much time in the darkroom, with the result that creative camera work is seriously interfered with".   "Let us first say what photography is not. A photograph is not a painting, a poem, a symphony, a dance. It is not just a pretty picture, not an exercise in contortionist techniques and sheer print quality,. It is or should be a significant document, a penetrating statement, which can be described in a very simple term - selectivity.   To define selection, one may say that it should be focused on the kind of subject matter which hits you hard with its impact and excites your imagination to the extent that you are forced to take it. Pictures are wasted unless the motive power which impelled you to action is strong and stirring. The motives or points of view are bound to differ with each photographer, and herein lies the important difference which separates one approach from the other. Selection of proper picture content comes from a fine union of trained eye and imaginative mind".   In "Untitled", an essay by Cartier-Bresson, I came across this: "Photography implies the recognition of a rhythm in the world of real things." I take this to mean that to be a good photographer one needs to understand that the real world is in constant flux. And, to discover the movements (the rhythm - how wonderfully put!) of this flux. Very true indeed!.   And then there is this smart statement by Susan Meiselas: "A lot of people buy cameras and film, and a lot of people buy photo books of a certain kind. The obvious example is the "Day in the Life of" series. Now, what's the problem? Why aren't people interested in what we documentarians are passionate about? Why are we in such a small ghetto?" Good question, isn't it? Actually, I liked her response even more: "We have to find ways of taking people someplace they don't expect to go."   What makes this book special, and recommendable, is that it looks at photography from a variety of perspectives - from reflections of photographers to how critics and educators see them, from thoughts on taking pictures by writers (although this is a rather poor section with a longer text by Wendell Berry, and two very short ones by Cynthia Ozick and Dave Eggers) to interviews with the ones who make it possible that photos find an audience (art directors, gallerists, visual editors etc).   I especially enjoyed the one with Robert Pledge, President and Co-Founder of Contact Press Images ("When I met Salgado in 1974 he was twenty-nine years old and only just starting photography. He hasd an idea of what the business was like. He took some hits early on. But he really knew where he wanted to go. The first time I met him we went to a café and he told me what he wanted to do, and I walked out of there thinking that this guy would become a giant. But he also had an education, which is essential to his work. He studied economics and geography. So, he was aware of many things. When you look back at what he's done, you see he knew where he was headed."). I was also impressed how Elisabeth Biondi, the Visuals Editor of The New Yorker, summed up what I would call 'a thoughtful approach to picture taking' (which isn't exactly the rule, I'd say): "I think of our photographs as 'intelligent' photographs, i.e., it starts out with an intelligent photographer thinking about what information, both concrete and implied, should be incorporated in the image, Once this has been established, it is the photographer's talent and esthetics that determine the quality of the resulting picture. Along the way, of course, we need the cooperation and goodwill of the subject as the best thought-out plan can go awry without it."). And then there is Charlotte Cotton, Director of Cultural Programming at Art + Commerce, who underlines the importance of looking: "It was a pivotal moment for me - I switched from being someone who was coming to photography from an academic standpoint where, often, photographs are illustrations of arguments rather than the objects at the center of your thinking. I learned how to look. I don't take photographs, I don't buy photographs, I don't accept photographs as gifts.""   "Photography is nothing - it's life that interests me", Cartier Bresson once said. And while I share this view, I feel like adding with Dorothea Lange: "The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera".     http://www.zonezero.com/magazine/dcorner/traub/index.php    
Thursday, 29 October 2009
Author:Zonezero
  "Selfportraits" by Pedro Meyer Pedro Meyer’s Self-Portraits Curated by Vesta Mónica Herrerías   Dur: 4:21 min. "Selfportraits" is now available for iPod video
Monday, 28 September 2009
Author:ZoneZero
  Zonezero would like to join the celebration of Bangladeshi photography on this landmark year that amounts to 20 years of Drik Picture Agency and 11 years of the Pathshala, South Asian Institute of Photography. We would like to specially congratulate the outstanding job that Shahidul Alam has done not only in organizing, teaching, and providing visibility to photographers in Bangladesh, but in doing it so successfully.   We know that accomplishing such a paramount task has been the result of collaboration. We would also like to congratulate Shahidul's colleagues and staff at Drik and Pathsala for their vision and commitment.   We also thank Andy Levin and 100Eyes for sharing this magnificent selection of work done by Bangladeshi photographers portraying their own land and people.   Our best wishes on this anniversary of achievement and success From all of us at zonezero.com   Visit the complete article  
Sunday, 20 September 2009
Author:Ulises Castellanos
          Christian Poveda, a photographer born in Algeria, had devoted his work to portraying conflicts in almost all of Ibero-America. In the 1980s his lens focused on the ups and downs of El Salvador, a country that he loved and that captivated his soul.             The international community has been moved by the recent murder of French-Spanish photojournalist Christian Poveda. Who killed him and why? It seems to have been the work of at least four of the protagonists of his last documentary, La vida loca, which deals with the Maras and gangs in El Salvador. The world will have to wait for the results of the investigation, while his body is repatriated to Spain.   But, who was Poveda? Here we’ll try to render a semblance of this singular journalist. It is always difficult to be objective when a colleague dies, particularly when he is assassinated at one of the best moments of his life, when he was on the verge of premiering his most recent work in Paris and Mexico.   Christian Poveda was in Mexico only 72 hours before he was killed by unidentified individuals in a land that he deeply loved, El Salvador. He had come to Mexico only a few days earlier to give a week-long workshop as part of the third photography meeting, organized by Mauricio Palos and held in San Luis Potosí. This was his first and last course given to a group of professionals, including a staff member of Excélsior, Abdel Meza, a photojournalist who shared his final days with him.   Abdel told me that in that workshop, Christian insisted on transmitting the idea of how we should get involved in our work and always be honest with the individuals that were the object of our obsessions. And he practiced this to its utmost. He presented his complete documentary to the workshop participants.   Christian went to El Salvador with the Nikon cameras and lenses that he had bought from Sebastián Salgado (a special edition made for the Brazilian photographer), according to what he told me years ago at the photojournalism festival in Perpignan. Poveda spent more than three years in El Salvador and close to two working with the Maras and the 18, rival gangs who killed each other daily. He proposed to document their human side and their everyday life, including birthdays, romances, visits to doctors, and arrests. During the course of his work with them, several of them died and he even documented their funerals and the community’s pain each time they lost a member.     He used to say that it was that dedication that led him to become a paternal figure for the gangs; kids, who were mostly orphans or abandoned by their parents, found a generous person and an authority figure in him. Christian visited them every day, even at times without intending to film anything, just to stop by and see them to see how they were going and thus to establish a unique bond of intimacy. There in San Luis, he said that Bambam, one of the Maras, had called him on the phone to ask him for some sneakers when he went back to San Salvador.   Poveda was one of the founders and a curator of ES Photo, an annual program for collective photography exhibitions in El Salvador. Its fifth exhibition was planned to start this weekend.   Christian Poveda’s parents were Republicans and they were exiled during the Spanish Civil War.   He was born in Algeria during the French occupation, at the end of which he went back to Paris for refuge six years later. He gained fame for his coverage of the Polisario Front in the Western Sahara. He also worked on the U.S. invasion of Granada, and historical events in Argentina, Chile, and El Salvador during the civil war more than twenty years ago.   He began his career as a filmmaker in 1977, dealing with conflicts as well as customs and upbeat events in African countries and throughout most of Ibero-America. During the 1980s, Poveda formed part of the contingents of war correspondents who covered the news and documented combat between the forces of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front and the Salvadorian Army.   After the peace accords were signed in Mexico on January 16, 1992, Poveda became interested in the complex problems that arose after the war and he decided to investigate the phenomenon of violent antisocial groups that called themselves “the Maras.” He spent his last three years in El Salvador filming a documentary, La vida loca. During the course of eighteen months, he documented the daily life of the criminal bands, particularly the members of the gang known as the Mara 18.   The documentary is a faithful and committed record on the gang phenomenon. It was presented at the San Sebastián Film Festival in September 2008 and at professional meetings, such as the ones held in Morelia, Havana, San Luis Potosí, and Helsinki.   On September 2, 2009, he died after he was shot in the Salvadorian barrio of Tonacatepeque, some 16 kilometers to the north of the capital, where he had been working on his film.   Here it is worth pointing out that when he finished the final cut and secured the respective funding, including the support of Canal 22 [the cultural channel] in Mexico, he decided to premiere the film at a university in El Salvador, an event that was attended by at least a dozen of the gang members who appeared in the documentary. They say that when the film was over, the members of the Mara left in silence and filled with the rage documented from their own lives. A few days later, as a result of what they had seen on that screen, they lashed out against their eternal enemies. A small war broke out while Poveda was in Mexico.   El Salvador has a population of 5.5 million people. It is a nation where more than ten people die each day from gang disputes, which leave a total of close to 300 dead per month. The deep roots of that violent culture that seeks resolution through the death of the other should come as no surprise to us.     According to statements made by Édgar Romero, a photojournalist and joint-organizer along with Poveda of the Fourth ES Photo Festival, a line of investigation that has to do with the fact that La vida loca was on bootleg DVD stands in only three days, and it was being sold at a dollar per copy, but the gang who was featured in the film added a tax of three dollars, and they spread the rumor that Poveda was economically benefiting from it. When he returned from Mexico, he went to see them to deny it and also to defend his work, because he was very careful about copyright, according to Romero.   An article from the Spanish newspaper El País coincides with this. Citing Salvadorian sources, it implies that the documentary filmmaker had had differences and even faced threats from the gang members, as a result of the illegal distribution of the audiovisual material in the streets of the capital. According to the paper, Poveda attempted to resolve these differences.   We will never know the motives of whoever took Poveda’s life with four shots, three of them in the face.   In the neighborhood of La Campanera, in Soyapango, La vida loca, filmed with a camera held on his shoulder, captured the daily life of members of one of the main gangs in El Salvador, the Mara 18. The gang is characterized by its own language, tattoos, codes, and high levels of aggression, violence, and criminal activity.   This group and the Mara Salvatrucha are equals in cruelty. Moved by the utter denial of everything including death, they are living a merciless war. Some of these young people were killed in the course of the filming, which is captured in the documentary.   They are known as Maras in Central America and they are a copy of the model of Los Angeles gangs, created by the Salvadorians who migrated there during the civil war at the beginning of the 1980s. The Mara Salvatrucha and the Mara 18 arose there. These are the two main rival gangs that oppose each other today, although there is no ideological or religious difference between them that might explain this fight to death that pits poor against poor.   Salvadorian journalist Edu Ponces describes the reality of his country in this way: “El Salvador is the example for the world of everything that should not be done when it comes to violence.”   A couple of years ago, Christian Poveda spoke out against plagiarism that, he claimed, Isabel Muñoz (a Spanish photographer) had perpetrated against him, by copying the subject, style, and focus that he had used to begin his work in El Salvador. To date, that dispute has continued without reaching any resolution.   At the closing of this edition, five individuals have been accused in El Salvador in the course of the investigation of the murder of French-Spanish photojournalist and filmmaker Christian Poveda. According to the local media, the suspects are a member of the police force, Juan Napoleón Espinoza, and four alleged members of the Mara 18, José Alejandro Melara, "El Puma"; Luis Romero Vázquez, "El Tiger"; Calixto Rigoberto Escobar, "El Toro"; and Nelson Lazo Rivera, "El Molleja", the group of gang members portrayed by Poveda in his documentary La vida loca.   May condolences go to his family and to the community of professional photojournalists who today mourn his death.   Ulises Castellanos September 13, 2009     Other links in Zone Zero: La Vida Loca (Posthumous Homage) In Memoriam       http://www.zonezero.com/magazine/articles/castellanos/index.php    
Sunday, 13 September 2009
Author:Nick Fraser
  Documentary film-maker and photojournalist unfazed by danger or difficulty.     Christian Poveda, who was shot dead in El Salvador last week aged 52, was one of the most talented photojournalists of his generation. He was also a brave documentary film-maker, specialising in politically contentious or dangerous subjects that others wouldn't touch. Christian was born in Algiers. His grandfathers, one an anarchist, the other a communist, were exiles from Franco's Spain, and Christian often said how much he admired them for their political engagement. After Algerian independence, the family moved again, to France. Untrained, with a highly developed eye, Christian began to sell photos at the age of 19, and for the next decade he covered wars throughout the world, specialising in Latin America. His break came when he covered the civil war in El Salvador, a country that he came to love.
Sunday, 06 September 2009 | Read more
Author:The Black Snapper
  The Black Snapper, an online magazine for talented photographers from all over the world, dedicates a week to talented young photographers from Brazil, selected by Joana Mazza, exhibitions coordinator of the FotoRio photo festival.   Featured artists are: Gustavo Malheiros, Gabriel Jaruegui and Micaela Vermelho, Guy Veloso, Anna Kahn, Thiago Barros, Luiza Burlamaqui and André Arruda.   The Black Snapper supports the FotoRio exhibitions of these emerging photographers by showcasing them online to viewers in more than 120 countries worldwide.   The Brazilian photography week starts on September 11, at 13:00 (Amsterdam time). Don't miss it!   The magazine website presents a new artist every day, in a dedicated slideshow comprising of 8 to 20 images. Weekly selections are made by guest curators.   A worldwide community of photography professionals and experts supports the project. Website url: www.theblacksnapper.com       About The Black Snapper   The Black Snapper is a showcase for emerging talent from around the world. Our basic philosophy is to utilize the dynamism of the internet to facilitate the presentation and hopefully the discovery of talented photographers. The diversity of guest curators makes a selection process more objective; there will not be a single person whose individual taste and preferences dominate the content.   Guest editors discuss their motivation behind their selection. The presentation of each photographer includes an introduction and caption texts for all relevant photos. Each photographer may publish links to their own website and/or relevant agency, gallery if applicable. The accompanying text and comments will provide context and a deeper insight into the presentation.   Presenting one photographer each day and contextualizing the work sets our project apart from many others, it is a unique feature and one, we believe, is very appealing to visitors and photographers.   One of the primary aims of this project is to support the emancipation and promotion of photography in Africa, Asia and South America.   The website refreshes daily at 00:00 on the international dateline and has an archive section. This allows viewers that are more interested in an in-depth approach to browse through back issues that keep curators’ selections (weeks) complete.   Our mission statement and background   The Black Snapper is a project created by designer Frank Kloos and documentary photographer Diederik Meijer, based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The Black Snapper aims to create an online community that will inspire photography professionals and photography enthusiasts worldwide. The Black Snapper is entirely built on our passion for photography. We want it to find its own place as a medium that is instrumental in the development of contemporary photography.   The Black Snapper is supported by a growing community, amongst whom:   • Abbas (Magnum Photos) • Aleksandr Glyadyelov, Ukraine • Aperture Foundation, USA • Bamako Encounters, African Photography Biennial, Mali • Candlestar, UK (curator for Iran) • Canvas International Art, The Netherlands • Centro de la Imagen, Peru • Centro de la Imagen, Mexico • Chobimela International Photo Festival, Bangladesh • Jorg Colberg, USA • Dutch Fund for Visual Arts, The Netherlands • Eye Curious, France (2nd curator for Japan) • FotoRio, Brazil • Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts, Japan • LatinStock, Argentina • Mannheim Ludwigshaven Heidelberg Photo Festival, Germany • Gilles Mora, independant curator, Spain • Moscow House of Photography, Russian Federation • NRC Next newspaper, The Netherlands • Photo Museum Province Antwerpen, Belgium • Photoworks, UK • Sittcom, stage for Central European Photography, Slovakia • Stills Gallery, Australia • Taiwan International Visual Arts Center, Taiwan • The Guardian Weekend magazine, UK • Photoworks, UK • The Museum of Photography Seoul, Korea • The New York Times Magazine, USA • Three Shadows Photography Art Center, China • Hercules Papaiaonnou, curator of the Thessaloniki Museum of Photography, Greece • Vrij Nederland magazine, The Netherlands   Amsterdam, September 6, 2009       http://zonezero.com/magazine/articles/blacksnapper/index.php    
Sunday, 06 September 2009
236. Awards
Author:Ehekatl
 
Wednesday, 02 September 2009
237. Staff
Author:Ehekatl
  Founder Director Pedro Meyer pedro@zonezero.com Pedro Meyer is one of the pioneers and most recognized representatives of contemporary photography. He was the founder and president of the Consejo Mexicano de Fotografía (Mexican Council of Photography) and organizer of the first three Latin American Photography Colloquiums. Besides his artistic photographic work, Pedro Meyer has been a teacher in various prestigious institutions, as well as the curator, editor, founder and director of the renowned photography website ZoneZero. He was awarded the prestigious Guggenheim grant in 1987, the Internazionale di Cultura Citta di Anghiari in 1985, in 1993 he received the National Endowment for the Arts in conjunction with Jonathan Green and the California Museum of Photography in Riverside. He has also received numerous awards in Mexican Photography Biennales and the very first grant destined to a Web project, awarded by the Rockefeller Foundation.   In 1991 he published the very first CD ROM in the world that combined images and sound titled “I Photograph to Remember. He is also the author of the books “Tiempos de América” (American Times), “Espejo de Espinas” (Mirror of Thorns), “Los Cohetes duraron todo el día” (The Fireworks Lasted All Day). His book “Truths and Fictions: A journey of documentary photography to digital” edited by Aperture, was also made later into a CD ROM by Voyager in 1995. “The Real and the True” published by Peach Pitt Press came out in 2005. His latest book “Heresies” was published by Editorial House Lunwerg as part of his world-wide retrospective which was shown in over 60 museums simultaneously in October 2008. For more information visit: pedromeyer.com   Technology Coordinator ZoneZero Board Member Alejandro Malo alejandro@zonezero.com Alejandro Malo was born in Mexico City in 1972. He studied Electromechanical Engineering and Communication at the UNAM. He has participated as a promoter and director of several cultural and editorial projects since 1993. His articles and essays have been published, both in printed and electronic publications, amongst which the now extinct “Park & Read” edited by the Dusseldorf University, stands out for being the fist multi-lingual online literary magazine. Since 1997 he has been a professional information technology consultant, specializing himself on cultural projects, amongst these the most important being Fundación para las Letras Mexicanas, Internacional de Cultura, and 17, Instituto de Estudios Críticos. He joined the zonezero.com staff fist as an external consultant, and as of november 2009 as webmaster. Multimedia Design  Programmer Ehekatl Hernández ehekatl@zonezero.com Ehekatl Hernández has a B.F.A on Graphic Design form the National School of the Arts in Mexico City and a Masters on Multimedia Applications from the Universidad Politécnica in Catalunya, Spain. He has been working as a graphic designer for over 15 years. He has also worked on the development and execution of various web and multimedia projects. He has taught courses on web design at UNAM. Currently he works as a consultant for various institutions and directs two projects: Design-lab and Radio-b.org. For the last eight years he was worked as a designer an web programmer for Zonezero.com and Pedro Meyer Fundation. Art Director Webmaster Elisa Rugo webmaster@zonezero.com Elisa has a B.A on Visual Communication, with specialization on Creative Visualization from the University of Communication in Mexico City. She has also studied Photography and Publicity and has attended workshops on Painting, Art History, and Commercial Photography. She has been collaborating as a graphic designer at zonezero.com since 2005, and has been in charge of administration of several of the site’s sections since then. She also helped bring to life Pedro Meyer’s Hersies Project in 2008, participating in different tasks related to the organization, design, and communication aspects of the project. As a freelance, she has been part of a wide range of diverse creative projects where she has worked as a web designer, art director, and as a photographer. She helped to conceptualize and execute a workshop on photography and identity with indigenous communities of La Sierra Norte de Puebla. She also worked on the catalogue that documented the results of the workshop.
Wednesday, 02 September 2009
238. About Us
Author:Ehekatl
  Welcome!   ZoneZero ® is a site dedicated to image making & photography. Founded in 1995 by Pedro Meyer, ZoneZero ® has been both witness and active participant of the ongoing digital (r)evolution. ZoneZero ® first appeared online when the internet became a public resource, making it the oldest website dedicated to photography that is still standing and growing. We are proud to acknowledge that ZoneZero ® paved the way for thinking that viewing photography on a computer screen was a legitimate platform. Its name originated from a metaphor for the coming-off-age transformation that photography underwent from analog to digital. The name references Ansel Adam's "Zone System", as a starting point in the analog tradition and the ones and zeros that have become the basic DNA for everything digital. There is also the notion that ZoneZero ® has been at the very center, the starting point if you will, from which photography has taken many different directions. To use the words of the French poet Louis Aragon, in his preface to Modern Mythology, "Light is meaningful only in relation to darkness, and truth presupposes error. It is these mingled opposites which people our life, which make it pungent, intoxicating. We only exist in terms of conflict, in the zone where black and white clash." Hence ZoneZero ®. To mark ZoneZero ®'s 15th Anniversary the site has undergone major reconstruction. Virtual communities have become mainstream, bigger in population, in some cases, to most countries in the world. Social, cultural, academic, and even financial activities have migrated to the internet. The journey from analog to digital is no longer mere speculation but a confirmed fact. Acknowledging this, our objectives at ZoneZero ® needed to be re-drawn.   We believe in two fundamental premises: 1. Image making will continue to be, and incresingly so, a central activity of our creative and cultural expressions. 2. Digital technology will also continue its incredibly rapid transformation, providing us with newer and presumably better tools to express and share our ideas. ZoneZero ® aim is to offer a platform for intelligent photography. That is, photography that offers sensible, informed insight of what is happening in our world and that understands the relevance of technology in the creative process. We also aim to offer the necessary tools for dialogue and idea exchange regarding these matters, therefore offering fertile ground for an international community interested in viewing, thinking, creating, sharing and, discussing images.  
Wednesday, 02 September 2009
239. Time Line
Author:Ehekatl
Aquí va la Linea de tiempo de Zonezero durante los últimos 12 años
Wednesday, 02 September 2009
Author:Pedro Meyer
    I am sitting here, in front of my computer screen thinking about my editorial for this month. I think of a subject, and soon enough I cross that idea out, then think of another idea, and the same thing happens again, and so hours go by, without me finding a suitable topic. I must ask myself, what is happening?.  
Sunday, 09 August 2009 | Read more
Author:Open Society Source
  Call for Work: Moving Walls 17 Deadline: Friday, October 23, 2009. The Open Society Institute invites photographers to submit a proposal and completed body of work for consideration in the Moving Walls 17 group exhibition. Since its inception in 1998, theMoving Walls exhibition series has featured nearly 100 photographers whose work addresses a variety of social justice and human rights issues that coincide with OSI's mission.   Please note that this year’s exhibition program will also include a new Emerging Photographer Travel Grant to support the professional advancement of select Moving Walls photographers who have not received much exposure.   Call for Work: The Aftermath Project Deadline: Monday, November 2, 2009. The Aftermath Project, a grantee of the Documentary Photography Project, seeks submissions for a yearly grant competition open to photographers worldwide covering the aftermath of conflict.   Save the Date: Moving Walls 16 Opening Reception Location: OSI-New York Date and Time: September 29, 2009, 6:00 - 8:30 p.m. RSVP to this event The Open Society Institute Documentary Photography Project is hosting an opening reception for Moving Walls 16, featuring work by Stefano De Luigi, Benjamin Lowy, Eugene Richards, Tomas van Houtryve, Paolo Woods, and Zalmaï.       Open Society Institute Summer 2009       http://zonezero.com/magazine/articles/osi/index.php    
Saturday, 08 August 2009
Author:Atarde on Line
  Photographer Mario Cravo Neto dies     The body of the Bahia-born photographer, Mario Cravo Neto, was cremated in the morning of Monday, August 10, 2009, at the Garden Cemetery Saudade in the neighborhood of Brotas. The ceremony was attended by friends, family, and fellow visual artists who came to bid a last farewell to the renowned artist.   Deeply upset, his family did not wish to talk to the press about the death of the photographer, who passed away of skin cancer on Sunday afternoon, August 9, at the age of 62. He was hospitalized after his condition worsened, about two weeks before he died at the Hospital of the Alliance.   Son of the sculptor Mario Cravo Junior, Mario Cravo Neto was born in Salvador on April 20, 1947. His career as a photographer began at an early age, when he was 17. In addition to recognition in Brazil for the importance of his work, the photographer took part in exhibitions in various countries around the world.   In 1980 and 1995 Cravo Neto, received the award for Best Photographer of the Year from the Paulista Association of Art Critics (APCA), in 1996 received the National Prize of Photography Funarte and in 2004 the Mario Pedrosa Award from the Brazilian Association of Art Critics.   Atarde on Line.     • We recommend reading the article: The photographic work of Mario Cravo Neto by Fernando Castro.     August, 2009           http://zonezero.com/magazine/obituaries/cravo/index.php    
Friday, 31 July 2009
Author:Steven Leckart
    Boingboing.net | Mon July 20, 2009     This is, perhaps, the most famous photo from the Apollo Moon landing. It was taken by Neil Armstrong, who shot most of the pics taken on the Lunar surface using a Hasselblad 500EL camera outfitted with a Zeiss Biogon f-5.6/60 mm lens and 70mm Kodak film that was "thin-based and thin emulsion double-perforated.     Called the Data Camera, the 500EL used on the Moon was modded with a special silver finish to boost the hardware's ability to withstand extreme thermal variations (the middle camera pictured here has the silver finish). The Data Camera also featured a glass Reseau plate, which produced a 5x5 grid of little crosses you can still see on the image. NASA used the markings to help account for film distortion and calculate the angular distance(s) between specific points in the image.   Pictured above is Buzz Aldrin, who appears in the bulk of the Moon landing pics. In fact, there's essentially only one photo of Armstrong taken while on the Moon, a blurry close-up of his reflection in Aldrin's visor.   Although a lot of brainpower went into creating the camera taken to the Moon, Aldrin says little planning went into the photography itself, which is why he became the unofficial star of the Moon.   From Aldrin's book Magnificent Desolation:   "Neil shot most of the photos on the moon, having the camera attached to a fitting on his spacesuit much of the time while I was doing a variety of experiments. I didn't have such a camera holder on my suit, so it just made sense that Neil should handle the photography. He took some fantastic photographs, too, especially when one considers that there was no viewfinder on the intricate Hasselblad camera. We were basically "pointing and shooting." Imagine taking such historic photographs and not even being able to tell what image you were getting. Unlike the digital camera era of today, in 1969 we were shooting on film, typically looking through a small optical opening on the back of the camera that corresponded with what the camera's lens was "seeing." But with our large space helmets, such a viewfinder would have done little good anyhow. So, similar to cowboys shooting their sixguns from their hips, we aimed the camera in the direction of what we wanted to photograph, and squeezed the trigger. Given that ambiguity, it is even more of a credit to Neil that we brought back such stunning photographs from the moon. if you look more carefully at the reflection in the gold visor on my helmet, you can see the Eagle with its landing pad, my shadow with the sun's halo effect, several of the experiments we had set up, and even Neil taking the picture. It is a truly astounding shot, and was the result of an entirely serendipitous moment on Neil's part. Later, pundits and others would wonder why most of the photographs on the moon were of me. It wasn't because I was the more photogenic of the two helmet-clad guys on the moon. Some even conjectured that it must have been a purposeful attempt on my part to shun Neil in the photos. That, of course, was ridiculous. We had our assigned tasks, and since Neil had the camera most of the time we were on the surface, it simply made sense that he would photograph our activities and the panoramas of the lunar landscape. And since I was the only other person there . . . Ironically, the photography on the moon was one of those things that we had not laid out exactly prior to our launch. NASA's Public Affairs people didn't say, "Hey, you've got to take a lot of pictures of this or that." Everyone was interested in the science. So we did the science and the rest of it was sort of gee-whiz. We had not really planned a lot of the gee-whiz stuff that, in retrospect, proved quite important."     You can purchase a 16x20 print of the above pic and other Apollo-11 shots from Moonpans.com           http://zonezero.com/magazine/articles/leckart/index.php    
Monday, 20 July 2009
Author:Maggie Fox
      WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The original recordings of the first humans landing on the moon 40 years ago were erased and re-used, but newly restored copies of the original broadcast look even better, NASA officials said on Thursday.   NASA released the first glimpses of a complete digital make-over of the original landing footage that clarifies the blurry and grainy images of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the surface of the moon.   The full set of recordings, being cleaned up by Burbank, California-based Lowry Digital, will be released in September. The preview is available at www.nasa.gov.   NASA admitted in 2006 that no one could find the original video recordings of the July 20, 1969, landing.   Since then, Richard Nafzger, an engineer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, who oversaw television processing at the ground-tracking sites during the Apollo 11 mission, has been looking for them.     The good news is he found where they went. The bad news is they were part of a batch of 200,000 tapes that were degaussed -- magnetically erased -- and re-used to save money.   "The goal was live TV," Nafzger told a news conference.   "We should have had a historian running around saying 'I don't care if you are ever going to use them -- we are going to keep them'," he said.   They found good copies in the archives of CBS news and some recordings called kinescopes found in film vaults at Johnson Space Center.   Lowry, best known for restoring old Hollywood films, has been digitizing these along with some other bits and pieces to make a new rendering of the original landing.   Nafzger does not worry that using a Hollywood-based company might fuel the fire of conspiracy theorists who believe the entire lunar program that landed people on the moon six times between 1969 and 1972 was staged on a movie set or secret military base.   "This company is restoring historic video. It mattered not to me where the company was from," Nafzger said.   "The conspiracy theorists are going to believe what they are going to believe," added Lowry Digital Chief Operating Officer Mike Inchalik.   And there may be some unofficial copies of the original broadcast out there somewhere that were taken from a NASA video switching center in Sydney, Australia, the space agency said. Nafzger said someone else in Sydney made recordings too.   "These tapes are not in the system," Nafzger said. "We are certainly open to finding them."   Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor (Editing by Philip Barbara)                 http://zonezero.com/magazine/articles/fox/index.php    
Monday, 20 July 2009
Author:Richard Butler
    Dpreview.com - July 15, 2009   It’s very easy, when you spend any amount of time learning and writing about one area, to focus in on that niche. We may spend most of our waking lives thinking or talking about digital cameras in the dpreview office but it’s worth remembering that there’s a whole world beyond digital cameras – there are camera phones, for example.   Finnish handset giant Nokia contacted us because it considers it latest phone/camera/music player, the N86 8MP, to be its most sophisticated photographic device yet and thought we’d be interested. It was always likely that there would be some convergence between compact cameras and camera phones so we thought we’d take a quick look, to see how close this 8 megapixel camera phone brings us.   Damian Dinning has previously been a product manager and product development manager for Minolta and Kodak and has been made responsible for fine-tuning the image performance and future product guidance at Nokia. He spoke to us about the work Nokia has been doing to develop the N86: “We’ve been focussing on low-light performance and the speed of the device. The prime mission is to record the moment in a wide range of situations.   It’s at this point that Dinning makes his first use of the term ‘24/7,’ which occurs frequently enough in our conversation that it sound remarkably as if it might be part of the product’s ‘key messaging’: ‘As part of a 24/7 lifestyle, you never know what situation you’ll find yourself wanting to shoot in.’ What the company has done to make the phone’s camera useful at any time is to offer a bright, wide-angle lens: 28mm equivalent with a maximum aperture of F2.4.   ‘We’ve also increased the speed of the camera. We’d like to go even further with this but we’re getting pretty close to average digital compact camera responsiveness, in terms of autofocus speed, shutter lag and shot-to-shot time.’   Despite the admirably fast autofocus and the provision of a dedicated zoom rocker, our experience of the phone is that its camera mode is considerably less easy to use than a major brand compact. However, you can customise the menu to include options such as exposure compensation, which is not something you can say about many telephones.   The company’s size as, the world’s largest handset maker, does give it the luxury of being able to shop around for sensors: ‘we’re not tied to one company, our size means we can work with many different vendors and work with multiple suppliers,' he says: ‘The sensor is 1/2.5”, it’s the same as in a typical compact camera. It’s one of the latest generation CMOS sensors and is the most sensitive on the market.’   The result is a phone that suggests using its 8MP mode for producing A3 sized prints. Dinning explains: ‘We’re using noise reduction which means the files end up being smaller – the compression is about the same as a typical compact camera.’ However, we have doubts about this claim, given that the Nokia’s images tended to average around 1.2MB – rather than the roughly 3.5MB images produced by the eight megapixel compacts we looked back at.   However, it is clear that concessions have been made to ensure the images can be sensibly transferred off the camera. ‘We’ve had some 20x30” prints made and, when viewed from a normal viewing distance, they’re amazing. There’s a limit to how many poster-sized prints you can fit in your walls though. A lot of these images will be used on community and sharing sites such as Facebook, Flickr and MySpace. It comes back to usage – we have a pretty good balance between image quality and having a small file size to increase the uploading speed.’   ‘Image quality is always a balance between multiple parameters,’ Dinning concedes: ‘We choose to prioritise vibrancy of colour, even though we may have compromised other areas to offer that vibrancy. We’ve conducted extensive benchmarking and have found that punchy, vibrant colour is something that people prioritise highly’.     Despite these limitations, the company clearly understands the importance of a good lens. The Carl Zeiss-branded lens module is made of four aspherical elements that are aligned during manufacture using the sensor’s image output. Each module is then calibrated individually, to take into account its alignment and this calibration data is stored on the phone. ‘It’s been quite a challenge’ says Dinning: ‘It took us two years to develop. We work with Carl Zeiss, who have been involved right from concept through to production, pushing the quality of the lens forward.’   However, the use of a prime lens, albeit one with a useful focal length ‘for the 24/7 user’, means that the 3X zoom offered is entirely digital, which has a devastating effect on the camera’s resolution. The zoomed images are up-sampled back to 8MP, with rather interesting results.     ‘There’s no optical zoom yet,’ says Dinning: ‘there have been previous models with optical zoom but they were more of a camcorder in your pocket. The N86 8MP offers personal navigation and a really good music player as well as a camera – a broad range of capabilities. If we were to throw all those away we could perhaps free some space up for an optical zoom but we need the technology to develop a bit further before we can offer them all together.’     Despite this, Dinning feels the N86 8MP is ready to replace compact cameras in most situations. ‘We’re not suggesting they should be a replacement for DSLRs but in terms of where you can take it and where you’d want to take it, it has a lot to offer the 24/7 photo enthusiast. I think there’s a lot of evidence that people have been using their phones in the place of compact cameras already.’         http://www.zonezero.com/magazine/articles/butler/index.php      
Wednesday, 15 July 2009
Author:Terri Stone
  It just got a little easier to keep yourself honest online.   By checking a few boxes in the "Usage rights" section of Google's Advanced Image Search page, you can now tell Google to show only files tagged with a license that allows re-use of the image. You can even narrow the search to see only images you can use commercially, or -- my favorite -- images you can modify and then use for commercial purposes.   The search engine recognizes images in the public domain and those tagged with Creative Commons and GNU Free Documentation licenses.   You'll have to verify the license's accuracy, of course, and follow the license restrictions; for example, some Creative Commons licenses state that you include artist attribution. But it's still a heck of a lot better than the wide-open image search that was the norm before this improvement.   Terri Stone © Creativeprose July 15, 2009     For more information, read:   Safely Find and Use Images Via Google A change to Google's Image Search means you can more easily find images online that the creators have OK'd for commercial use without compensation In a July 9 blog post, Google software engineers Lance Huang and George Ruban quietly and calmly unveiled a change to Google's Image Search that could save countless designers from violating image copyrights.   By checking a few boxes in the "Usage rights" section of the advanced image search page, you can now filter every image Google has ever indexed so that you see only files tagged with a license that allows re-use of the image.   Copyright-savvy designers know that a basic "OK to re-use" tag may not be enough when you want to use an image commercially. And what if you need to modify the image and then use it for commercial purposes? No problem -- just select which level of usage rights you need in a drop-down menu, and Google will narrow the search even further.   The search engine recognizes images tagged with Creative Commons and GNU Free Documentation licenses, and those that are in the public domain.   Of course, as Huang and Ruban themselves point out, just because someone slaps a license on an image doesn't mean that someone truly has the legal rights to do so. You'll have to do some digging to verify the license's accuracy. You'll also have to abide by the restrictions imposed by the particular license; for example, some Creative Commons licenses state that you must include artist attribution. But at least you're farther down the road toward doing the right thing than you were before!   Here's what the process looks like:   1. Go to the advanced image search page. Fill out as many of the fields as you wish, but be sure select the appropriate choice in the Usage Rights dropdown menu.     2. Google will return search results that meet your criteria.     3. When you find one, you like, click on it.     Terri Stone © Creativeprose July 13, 2009     http://zonezero.com/magazine/articles/stone/index.php    
Wednesday, 15 July 2009
Author:Pedro Meyer
    Making a case for "photographic intelligence" is the purpose of this editorial. One of the clear changes in the digital era, is how intelligent photography has become.   Imagine, today our pictures are pregnant with every conceivable piece of information as to how, where and what the image was made with. What lens and what f stop was used, what camera, what exposure speed, if one used flash or not, or better yet, if the flash went off at the time of shooting, let alone that you had a flash connected. The latitude and longitude of the place the image was taken, the hour of day or night it was taken. The serial number of the camera you used and a myriad of other pertinent information.   And now the images are being cataloged according to the smiles, the faces within the image. In other words, all the pictures of each one of my sons, for instance, gets separated and placed into their corresponding folder with their name on it. And all of this, automatically of course.   You can go into Google and search for a specific image, let us think of a sunset for example. And then lo and behold, you can make further selections according by color. The browser will respond offering you a wide assortment of pink sunsets, if that is what you were looking for. You want to compare it to green images? then a click away and you have such an alternative being displayed on your monitor.   One can of course add to the images, not only key words to make the picture easily retrievable at a later date, but you can also add sounds. You can add a verbal message to your image, or a sound track which might be relevant. You can add to the image a URL address on the internet, to connect the image to further information to that what is strictly contained within the picture taken.   If you compare all this wealth of data contained within the digital file of a photograph, to just the plain negative or slide of the past, one can start to visualize that a new form of photography has clearly emerged. And we have not even touched upon the intelligence of the cameras themselves and how they have been changing photography, that will be for another editorial.   Photographers have yet to understand what the implications are of all this abundance of information. Of course it does not make a single image any better due to such an array of data. But that would be like dismissing a library with all of it's volumes because it does not make you wiser by walking past the book shelves. I think you get the point, you also have to read the books, and not only that but make sense of the content as well.   We need to begin and make sense of the potential that lies dormant in the information that our digital photographic archives contain. As I go through my digital archive, and look at all the feedback coming from those images, and then compare it to my autistic negatives, I find that we have a lot of exciting times ahead.   Please let us hear what you have done with your intelligent photographs, and what you believe will be taking place in the future with all this potential.   Pedro Meyer July 2009 Mexico City, Coyoacán         http://zonezero.com/editorial/july09/july09.php    
Monday, 13 July 2009
Author:Pedro Meyer
                                          Creative acts can differ notably depending on the tool one has on hand. The other day I was walking down the street, after leaving a physical therapy session for my chronic back problems (the matter becomes relevant as we shall see shortly). While walking down the street, the image just as we see in the above right struck my eye.   The camera that I was carrying in my pocket was my iPhone, which even though it does not take photos at more than 2 megapixels in the model that I have (the new iPhone S can shoot images at 3 megapixels), these photos are good enough for most things we present on the internet. Another one of the things worth mentioning is that the idea of a format of certain dimensions so much part of the analog era, in which film came basically in two sizes, 35 mm (a measurement based on the fact that the film was mostly produced for the movie industry) and 6 x 6 centimeters. Of course there were some cameras that could take a half frame in one roll or another. But the width was indeed fairly standard. The point is that in the digital era, all of this has changed. Now each manufacturer can decide on the size of its sensor. It’s as if each manufacturer of photographic equipment in the analog era decided on the dimensions of the film for their camera.   So, I tend to carry my iPhone around with me all the time, since this telephone/camera is so light, as opposed to lugging around a traditional camera all the time with all the weight it entails. I take the other cameras “out for a walk” for specific things that I intend to photograph, and then I have to make plans to carry the weight of that camera and its lenses. I had to get used to this to deal with my back problems. In this case, I chose the Sony Alpha 900, because it has a complete 35 mm sensor, so it captures a total of 25 million pixels. This camera is wonderful for me, except for the fact that the lens that I have for this camera weighs a ton. The lens is a Sony Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonnar. It has a 24 to 70 mm zoom and a continuous aperture of 2.8.   The weight of this lens is commensurate with its quality. In all my years as a photographer, I have never used a lens that has the luminosity and tonal quality of this lens and not only that, also the definition. In the reviews that I then read on the internet, I discovered to my great surprise, that more or less the same conclusion was reached by a good number of people. The lens reached them through certain twists of fate, and then they realized that this lens was the best they had ever used on any camera. I warn you that the lens is not cheap, but its quality has no rivals.   In the image above, one can see the quality of the photo, and it’s not by chance given that the purpose of each of these cameras is extremely different. On the one hand, the equivalent of an artist who carries his sketchbook to take notes is what I propose to do with the iPhone, and the finished work is done with the maximum quality with the other camera. Needless to say in photography, this is not always possible, to the extent that the supposed decisive moment has already passed, and it is impossible to repeat it.   Pedro Meyer Coyoacan, Mexico City July 10, 2009       http://zonezero.com/magazine/articles/meyer5/index.php    
Friday, 10 July 2009
Author:Daryl Lang
  UPDATE, 5:57 p.m. ET: The New York Times has published a new editors' note about the altered photo essay that was published in Sunday's Times Magazine. The newspaper says "most of the images did not wholly reflect the reality they purported to show." The note does not address which photos were altered, or whether the photographer misrepresented them to the editors. PDN has tried to reach Edgar Martins, the photographer, but has not heard from him. Here's the Times' note:     "A picture essay in The Times Magazine on Sunday and an expanded slide show on NYTimes.com entitled 'Ruins of the Second Gilded Age' showed large housing construction projects across the United States that came to a halt, often half-finished, when the housing market collapsed. The introduction said that the photographer, a freelancer based in Bedford, England, 'creates his images with long exposures but without digital manipulation.'   "A reader, however, discovered on close examination that one of the pictures was digitally altered, apparently for aesthetic reasons. Editors later confronted the photographer and determined that most of the images did not wholly reflect the reality they purported to show. Had the editors known that the photographs had been digitally manipulated, they would not have published the picture essay, which has been removed from NYTimes.com."   ----------------- UPDATE, 5:03 p.m. ET: The New York Times plans to run an editors' note about the altered photographs in tomorrow's paper, according to Kathy Ryan, photo editor at The New York Times Magazine. -----------------   EARLIER POST: The New York Times Magazine has withdrawn a photo essay by Edgar Martins — described in print as having been produced "without digital manipulation" — because several of the photographs show signs of digital manipulation. The photo essay, which ran in the July 5 issue of the magazine, shows abandoned real estate projects.   An editors' note now appears when you try to view the online version of the essay.   In the Sunday print edition, the Times Magazine made a big deal out of the fact that the pictures weren't digitally altered. Here's how the magazine described Martins' essay (emphasis ours):   "Last fall, The New York Times Magazine commissioned Edgar Martins, a 32-year-old Portuguese photographer based in London, to capture on film the physical evidence of the real estate bust in the United States. Martins, who creates his images with long exposures but without digital manipulation, traveled from rural Georgia to suburban California, visiting large construction projects that began during the speculative boom years and then came to a sudden halt, often half-finished, when the housing and securities markets collapsed."   Update: Working from a copy of the Times Magazine, PDN has identified evidence of manipulation in three of Martin's six published photos. A blogger first noticed the project was suspect based on a photo that ran online only.   In all four cases, unlikely repetitions of elements suggest that they are composites or have had some elements covered up.   One picture shows an evenly-lit room in an unsold mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut. The room appears near-perfect in its symmetry, down to have two identical thermostats and light switch plates facing each other on opposite walls. There are also repeating patterns in the leaves on the floor.     Another picture shows a Las Vegas development with construction fencing in the foreground. The piece of fence on the left is a perfect mirror of the one on the right.     A third picture, of a home in Dawsonville, Georgia, has a patch of trees repeating in the background.     The question of manipulation first surfaced on a message published Tuesday on Metafilter, a community blog, which accused the photographer of using a mirror effect in one of his photos of a house under construction. That photo ran only on the Times web site. A poster used an animation to show that the photo was too perfectly symmetrical—even the wood grains on boards matched perfectly.     Times Magazine photo editor Kathy Ryan confirmed that the Times learned of the alterations from a reader, and that altered photos appeared in print and online. She said an editors' note was planned for Thursday's paper. No one answered a phone number listed on Martins' Web site, and Martins did not immediately return an e-mail.   Martins' work has been described as free of manipulation before. The publisher's description of his 2008 book "Edgar Martins: Topologies" begins: "With artful composition and controlled framing—but no digital manipulation—Edgar Martins creates sublimely beautiful views of often un-beautiful sites."   by Daryl Lang July 2009 Photo District News       http://zonezero.com/magazine/articles/pdnpulse/index.php      
Tuesday, 07 July 2009
Author:Incisive Media Ltd
  French magazine Paris Match was the victim of a hoax, as this year's winners of its Photojournalism Award revealed they had faked their images.   Every year Paris Match, which remains one of the last weekly magazines to give predominant space to photography, organises its 'Grand Prix Paris Match du Photoreportage', dedicated to photojournalism projects. This year the award, which comes with EUR5000 cash prize and ten pages in Paris Match, was awarded to two students attending Strasbourg's university of decorative arts.   won with reportage chronicling the harsh poverty some students encounter while studying at university. Their images showed students living in basements or offering sex to pay their rent. Another image portrayed a young man falling asleep in a bus as he embarked on a two-hour commute to his university.   But as the two photographers received the coveted prize, they announced that the images had been faked. 'We thought it was a bit caricatural,' says one of the students to Le Monde newspaper. 'We thought it would never win.'   The contest's terms and conditions don't forbid faked reportages - something likely to change next year. However, Paris Match has withdrawn its cash prize, offering it to the two students' university instead. The weekly magazine, which is now warning readers that the images have been faked, has also announced that next year's cash prize will be increased to EUR10,000 as a result of this year's 'fraud'.       © Incisive Media Ltd. 2009         http://zonezero.com/magazine/articles/parismatch/index.php    
Wednesday, 24 June 2009

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