We got no food, we got no jobs, OUR PETS' HEADS ARE FALLING OFF

Yesterday the newsroom was buzzing about an upturn in this crap economy; even though last week we were handed out our fourth week of furloughs (and no raises…again).

I may be making less money now than when I started working for the paper 3-years ago, but staying positive is all we can do to stay sane. Otherwise, we would all be in the crazy den.

Those who lost their photo department jobs at BusinessWeek today, may positive thoughts be with you.

School Picture Day!

I can remember the fall season of every school year at Clarksville Elementary like it was yesterday. Standing in the gross vomit colored cafeteria, wearing some ridiculously heinous floral outfit my mother picked out for me that I had fought her on the morning of, and subsequently missing my bus.

[Photo by Elsa Dorfman - Self portrait]

A stay-at-home mom would come in to collect the checks and groom everyones hair with a plastic disposable comb, getting just the right kind of static electric look for that yearly portrait of awkward beginnings.

The photographer would then call your last name and you were ushered onto the stage. While your classmates watched, you would fake a smile at the unfunny Lifetouch photographer who treated you like a pedophiliac would treat their prey. After the temporary blindness wore off, you were sent back to class and had to wait a whole more year to do it all again.

Little did you know these pictures would be milestones frozen in time and the butt of your friend's jokes.

Years later, I worked as one of these photographers (not the pedophiliac kind). Our boss was an alright guy, tho he made it a point to remind the photographers of his unmatched accomplishments in the world of senior portraits ...

In the communal work room, he proudly displayed his finest work titled "Serenity" which was just a photo of ducks swimming. Regardless, he was a swell dude who treated the photogs with respect, knowing we were just looking to get some off hours use of the studio space.

In my little doge neon I would drive hours upon hours to schools and sports games with a backdrop pole cutting into my face every time I made a left hand turn. While making LESS than minimum wage, you also had to front your own gear (never do this) to be "published" in some random school yearbook.

So it was no secret - everyone hated being there

But we all had our reasons for sticking around

I for one learned how to take a mean portrait, and made a solid friend out of the deal. Also, it gave me the opportunity to shoot sports for my portfolio and take prom photos in the lobby of a HUD housing site. Neat!

I can't imagine not having the fond memories of portrait lighting diagrams, posing, figuring out how to shoot sports at 3fps (my gear really sucked), retouching, photo orders, and learning the virtue of patients.

Sadie, over at Jezebel.com writes:

According to a heartbreaking and alarming piece in The NY Times "Styles" section, the itinerant school photographer is a dying breed. Quoth the Gray Lady,

"About 5 to 10 years ago, class photos and individual student portraits were reflexive purchases for parents. Those 4-by-6 and 8-by-10 prints were the visual equivalents of the notches made on door frames to show how much Junior had grown since last year. Now, more parents are snapping their own digital pictures and declining the products of the pros. It's a situation akin to the disappearance of the formal engagement and wedding portraits, courtesy of Bachrach, that were once a staple of newspaper society pages. And, I'd argue, the world will be the poorer for it. Because the you your parents snap - relaxed, happy, candid - is a very different one from that immortalized in gaudy 8 x 10."

Where would us photographers be had we not gone through the grueling process of working (and leaving) that damn photo studio years ago? I can only hope future photographers beginning from the ground up have this left as an option to get a foot in the door and to discover their own "Serenity".

Needle In the Veins

[ Photo by Brit Worgan - Light in the Gutter ]

Male photographers are credited as the fathers of the medium, but let it be known, women photographers have been around just as long as the process, pre-1900s. Since the medium of photography was introduced in 1839, women have been creating images.

In eighteenth-century Europe, the academies were open to male artists (painters) to train and exhibit their work. But as a blatant denial to women, photography emerged as a form of artistic expression beyond still-life and portraiture. In the nineteenth-century photography became a socially acceptable profession for women, and respected as both bold and remarkable.

Regardless of gender, each photographer brings their own personality to their work. Does an image differ based on the gender of the photographer? After all, don't men and women view the world in different ways? Not necessarily. But personalities can (and will) shape the approach to a documentary.

This past year I started working on my first professional self-funded photo documentary which follows the lives of female strippers working at a rural small town go-go club.

When I first started work on this project I had to set myself up with a game plan; a mission statement. After thoughtful consideration of the lives and subject matter I was going to be documenting, I knew I had a duty to these women to approach this project in a sensitive and unique way. I wanted their stories to rise from the images. I did not want to take on an overly sexual - underlying negative perspective, or the opposite.

For this project to grow legs it had to be open, truthful, and nonjudgmental. With a few serious setbacks along the way, there is still a lot of work to be done. I'm really proud to be behind this project and I'm looking forward to its future. I will be posting updates as this project continues to evolve.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

[ Photos by Jessica Dimmock - The Ninth Floor]

Documentary photojournalist Jessica Dimmock is someone worth watching. Her work, The Ninth Floor, takes a serious and respectful look inside the lives of heroin addicts unlike ever before.

Propositioned by a drug dealer on the streets of New York, she was invited to tag along and take photos of his trade. As his clients and personal addiction started to unravel before her, Dimmock embarked on a powerful documentary piece.

Dimmock's situational photographs of the intimate and surreal will haunt your mind for days.

Uglified

[Photo from Connors934 on Flickr]

In less than a month I'm going to be in PARIS! Traveling with my gear is always a little nerve racking, and makes security check points a blast.....

Most importantly (all) the gear that's traveling with me.... needs to comes back with me.

Someone at Make had a similar conundrum and made their own theft proof device... check it out

This is ourselves, Under pressure

If you work in the publishing industry, you know

Nothing comes easy.

Everything needs to be your best product; every time. No excuses; your readers don’t want excuses. They want perfect, and they should expect nothing less. No pressure guy.

I feed off of this, as do many who work in editorial or any deadline driven industry. It’s something we can all agree on. There is no such thing as an excuse inside a newsroom, nor should there be.

Example:

If state police block off roadways, preventing you from getting a shot of the fatal car crash that is your page 1 story tomorrow … you better park your car at a gas station, pack up your gear, walk the 2.6 miles uphill through a foot of snow, and get at least 3 different angles before you go back to that newsroom.

Sometimes I wonder to myself, what is worse: the villainous 2.6 mile uphill snow journey or the grizzly despondence in my editor’s eyes if I was to come back with nothing.

the latter always wins.

A medical professional (or, your mom) would tell you it probably isn’t all that healthy to be held to such high expectations every day; you’re bound to fail someone. But it’s something I have learned to live with and it’s good to keep your ego in check. Being a photographer under these pressures makes me a stronger, more courageous, kinder, harder, driven, sassy, calm, appreciative, 23-year-old. And doggone it, people like me.

What do photographers love more than cinematography?

TALKING about cinematography.

Seriously, we get hard-ons for it.

My girlfriend Lindsey and I saw La passion de Jeanne d'Arc for her french film studies class. It's a silent film made in 1928, which in English translates to "The Passion of Joan of Arc". Throughout the years, the feminist pioneer's story has been written in hundreds of books and seen on the silver screen, depicted in many ways.

The cinematography was incredible. The simple lighting, set design, strong use of "the-rule-of-thirds", simple pans, and creative angles had me wide-eyed and note taking.

silent films are kinda awesome, who knew?!