I am participating in this year’s Art Con event:
Leica, anyone?!?
Seriously, who wouldn’t want to try this out?
I’m not sure I could bring myself to spend $23k for a body and $5k per lens, but the camera system seems pretty sweet!
Artistic accident…
Is this my latest work of fine art, depicting my innermost thoughts and feelings, carefully composed to take the viewer on an emotional ride of contrast and color? Nope. I accidentally took a picture while adjusting the camera settings at a photo shoot tonight. I thought it looked pretty cool, though. What an interesting accident!
Bridezillas? No thanks…
I was out at a nightclub shoot and a camera crew was following around this obnoxious couple. I talked to one of the guys and found out they were filming an episode of Bridezillas. I am so glad that I don’t have to work for that show. It must be such a beating, being around all that negativity. The people on Bridezillas often seem so annoying, mean, whiny, nasty, etc. I wouldn’t want to film that kind of stuff all day. It would be too depressing.
My wife and I used to watch the first season or so, back when they actually documented the real struggles and stress of planning a wedding. However, we stopped watching when it turned into a sort of Jerry Springer fest…
Yet another reason to NOT become a photojournalist…
The newspaper industry doesn’t look too hot at the moment:
Mario Lopez…
Someone said November was national Post a Blog a Day Month. Whether that’s true or not, I’ll try my best to do it. We’ll see how far I actually get. To start things out, I’ll post a link to my picture of Saved By The Bell actor Mario Lopez:
America’s Next Top Drama?!?
I normally try to stay away from talking about television shows, but this one relates to a photo shoot, so…
I’m not sure what to think of this story, regarding America’s Next Top Model:
It basically states that the media is furious over a recent episode of ANTM, where the models are asked to be “transformed into different races” and photographed. Then, the story compares this action to a recent Australian “blackface” television performance that upset Harry Connick, Jr. and much of America.
Now, I haven’t watched the full episode of ANTM, so I may be way off here. Maybe there was a secret scene where Tyra Banks requested the models to mock and degrade the race they are portraying?!? As you can tell by that sarcastic remark, I seriously doubt it.
This is NOTHING like the Australian blackface incident (they were obviously over the line, as they made fun of the Jackson 5’s skin color). From the segment I saw on the internet, this ANTM episode seems to be more of a teaching experience and a focus on awareness. How in the heck can AOL TV complain that Tyra is putting her models in blackface?!? These images look sincere and the clip appears to be teaching a sort of “walk a mile in my shoes” sort of lesson.
I work in the media and have to wonder if these few publications trying to demonize Tyra Banks have gone mad? Most legitimate publications wouldn’t even dare to call this episode racially-charged. Is this another case of a few dubious media outlets trying to gain ratings by causing a big stink?
For those of you shooting news abroad…
Check it out:
Youtube, and why I hate it so very much…
So, everyone knows how easy youtube is to use. You make a video, click a few buttons, and it is up for the world to see. I prefer using it and embedding the video in the blogs I do for clients over wrestling with all the steps each different client has to put the video directly on their server.
Well, I covered a concert for a client recently, and I needed to get the text, pics and video up right away. So, what do I do? I toss the 42 seconds of video on youtube and embed the video into the blog. What happens? A couple days later, the video gets flagged and locked down for copyright infringement!
By the way, I’m not going to mention the artists or the publication, because they are innocent in all of this. Youtube is the evil entity here and Motown Records is semi-moronic for flagging the video to begin with. And, I know what you are thinking… How is Motown stupid for flagging a video, if they had no clue it was embedded in a legitimate publication that had approval to shoot the content in the first place? Let me answer that with a common sense statement…
The video was professionally shot (it sure didn’t look like a camera phone took it), it was only one verse of one song and they could’ve EASILY sent an email or inquiry to me first. The fact that it was obviously shot from the photo/video pit and not the crowd, should’ve been their first clue. The fact that I was following normal editorial guidelines and publishing an incomplete song (normally media is allowed to shoot and display 30 to 45 second snippets of songs, so it doesn’t interfere with regular album and video sales) should’ve been the second clue. And the third… what ever happened to civility? A quick email asking about the video would’ve been much quicker than going through the hoops of a copyright infringement claim and then a counter-claim.
So, now I’ve started my counter-claim, which is filled with steps to complete and hoops to jump through. I thought about just pulling the video and uploading it to the publication’s server, but at this point I’m on a mission against Youtube. It’s the point of the matter that I uploaded legal video and they blocked it without asking questions first. Then they make it an uphill battle to get it unblocked. This is why I’m fighting it. It shouldn’t be so hard for their users to prove their innocence.
Maybe I should just mess with the extra hassle of uploading the videos directly to my clients’ servers? Or, maybe I should check out Vimeo.com and the other video hosting sites that people seem to like more than youtube?
A year of covers…
Quick took a look back at the last year in covers, after going from daily to weekly last October. The cool thing is that 31 out of the 52 covers were my photos! Pretty cool, huh?!?
