Dive into the archives.
- Portraits of Power
The New Yorker has a fantastic photo feature on their site right now. It’s called ‘Portraits of Power’ and features the work of Platon. Here’s the story:
This past September, when nearly all the world’s leaders were in New York for a meeting of the United Nations, Platon, a staff photographer for this magazine, set up a tiny studio off the floor of the General Assembly, and tried to hustle as many of them in front of his lens as possible. For months, members of the magazine’s staff had been writing letters to various governments and embassies, but the project was a five-day-long improvisation, with Platon doing his best to lure the likes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chávez, and Muammar Qaddafi to his camera.
A great concept, expertly executed. Even better, the feature is interactive and multimedia, complete with short clips of Platon describing the circumstances around every session. (Obama refused to sit, Berlusconi was loving it, Khadafi has ‘no eyes’.) Check it here.
There's 50 leaders featured in total, but here's one personal favorite, Mohamed Nasheed, President of Maldives, who Platon apparently photographed twice without realizing it. The Maldives is a collection of over a thousand tiny islands located in the Laccadive Sea off the coast of Sri Lanka. 80% of its islands are less than a meter above sea level, making Maldives the front line of climate change. Some estimates say that rising sea levels will make it uninhabitable by the end of the century.
To draw attention to his country’s plight, earlier this year Nasheed organized the world’s first underwater cabinet meeting.
In explaining his reasoning behind it, he issued my favorite quote of 2009:
“What do we hope to achieve? We hope not to die.”
More on that story here.
Thanks to lovely Lee for the link…
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- Pic of the day
Vila Cruzeiro, Rio de Janeiro. Many more to come…
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- Wall Street
September 29 2008, 4:30-5:00 PM EST
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- Nice to see you.
One of the most interesting and cutest stories I read this week was the case of a guy from the UK who bought an iphone that came preloaded with photos of the factory workstress who put it together. This one was apparently already chosen as phone’s desktop.
Sweet. Anyway, this got me thinking about all the photo essays and documentaries on Chinese sweatshop labor I’ve seen and how you rarely get a chance to see images of the workers as they would choose to present themselves. You’re aggressively encouraged to pity them and to admire the intrepid journalists who bring their stories to light. You see much fatigue and administrative neglect, but simple mundane and seemingly happy moments like the one above somehow never get included. And I think that’s a shame, because the default assumption of most of us is that Chinese factories are horrible as are the producers that subcontract to them. Knowing several people who manufacture in China, I know this is usually not the case, and I’m glad this girl shined light on that part through her adorable little piece of exhibitionism.
Given the hyped-up, scandal-centric nature of media these days, it’s important that people get a chance to present themselves on their terms, not exclusively through the distorting Babel Fish translation of outsiders who either paid to be there or are being paid to be there. That’s happening more and more of course, but there’s still a lot more to be done, and thankfully a lot of smart and generous people are working on it. Here a few recent examples: (As always, this is a random and thoroughly unprofessional inventory. If you know of any more please school me…)
“Touch Sight” Camera for the Blind
A little while ago I made a post about blind photography. All of the photographers featured in that were using more or less standard SLR cameras. I didn’t really question that until I saw an article about Samsung’s “Touch Sight”, a prototype camera for the blind that includes some ingenious features like a Braille display instead of LCD so the photographer can review her shots.
Here’s the project blurb from designer Chueh Lee:
Touch Sight is a revolutionary digital camera designed for visually impaired people. Simple features make it easy to use, including a unique feature which records sound for three seconds after pressing the shutter button. The user can then use the sound as reference when reviewing and managing the photos. Touch Sight does not have an LCD but instead has a lightweight, flexible Braille display sheet which displays a 3D image by embossing the surface, allowing the user to touch their photo. The sound file and picture document combine to become a touchable photo that is saved in the device and can be uploaded to share with others–and downloaded to other Touch Sight cameras.
The Scope Camera for Kids
Says the TED website where I found out about this project:
Inspired by James Nachtwey’s TED Prize wish, designer Bas Groenendaal shares this prototype camera with TED. The Scope camera has a fresh look and a singular purpose, he says:
To be used as a therapeutic instrument for underprivileged children, e.g. children living in (former) warzones. Children can take photographs and self-portraits in order to rediscover their environment and identity, and share their point of view with others.
With its open-steering-wheel design (you click the shutter by squeezing the sides), Scope invites a new perspective on picture-taking, removing the distance between the photographer and her subject.
Groenendaal took the Scope prototype to an asylum-seekers center in the Netherlands, where the kids quickly figured it out: “A funny observation was that the children used Scope to frame their own heads: hold the camera really close to their face and — while talking — look at everybody around them. The children seemed very conscious of themselves, their position, what they were seeing.”
Check out more of his work on his site basgroenendaal.nl
CatCam Camera for Cats
This is a simplest and most next level one of the bunch. CatCam is the genius stroke of Jürgen Perthold. Here’s his description of how the idea came about from his very detailed website Mr. Lee Cat Cam
Sometimes I have some challenging ideas, or crazy like some other people would say. This time I thought about our cat who is the whole day out, returning sometimes hungry sometimes not, sometimes with traces of fights, sometimes he stay also the night out.
When he finally returns, I wonder where he was and what he did during his day. This brought me to the idea to equip the cat with a camera. The plan was to put a little camera around his neck which takes every few minutes a picture. After he is returning, the camera would show his day. First I thought about transmitting live pictures from a remote RF camera, but the equipment is too expensive and battery consumption is too high.So the idea was born and split into these parts:
* find small, lightweight, inexpensive digital camera
* develop a controller for the camera
* protect the camera from cat attack
* mount equipment to catHere are a few snapshots from his cat Mr. Lee’s day:
And you might think this is a joke, but this project has blown (the fuck) up. They’ve got crazy press from all over the world on the site. Here’s a piece from a German news show: (Only in German, but I think it has universal appeal)
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- Take me out to the ballgame
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- The Big Picture
Today while I was spending time on the Boston Globe site checking on the local coverage of my Celtics (who are currently engaged in a life-death struggle with their arch enemies, the villainous Los Angles Lakers) I stumbled on a really cool photo blog compiled by Alan Taylor.
It’s called The Big Picture and, far as I can tell, is mostly concentrated on large-format photos of news stories from around the world. It only started in May, but they’ve already got some amazing things on there. Here’s a sample (click to enlarge):
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