Blog: 2007-10

Modeling Tips

I shoot portraits and dance as a hobby, separate from news photography. I decided to write up some of the things I've been telling models in person, on phone, and in emails: How To Be a Model (with Me)

Money As Debt

Paul Grignon's Money As Debt video is good.

It's 47 minutes, so I hadn't planned to watch the entire thing, but it was accessible and interesting enough that I took an extended breakfast this morning to finish it.

The video is pretty well done, and would be one of the better educational 'filmstrips' you see in school, were it a tiny bit less subversive in tone.

What the video does not do is suggest viable ways the system could be reformed in the US without destroying the economy or meeting overwhelmingly powerful resistance from entrenched interests.

While I think viable reform would be a good thing in theory, I'm imagining that active demand for reform in the US is limited to college revolutionaries-til-graduation whose participation in the economy mostly involves products of the hemp plant.

Canuckian Peso Passes Dollar

Roma Luciw, "Canadian dollar tops $1.03 (U.S.)," Globe and Mail Update, 2007-10-19

Photos from Boston Esplanade Association (TEA) 5K Run

I got some pretty images at the TEA 5K run on September 30th, but the paper to which I submitted them didn't do a story. So...

If you are one of the following named people who later finds this page through a Web search, I have a photo of you running in the event, but I don't have an easy means of contacting you. Email me your bib number and shirt color, to aid finding you in the photo archive, and I'll send you a free high-res digital copy.

Alexander Krantz, Angela Miller, Carol Jackson, Celine Brill, Christine McMahon, Claire Walton, Corey Schenck, Denise Detz, Desmong O'Reilly, Eamonn Reynolds-Mohler, Edward Dombroski, Elaine Sullivan, Elizabeth Sailhamer, Elizabeth Tyminski, Ferdinand Hellweger, Gabrielle Guagliano, Jacqueline McBribe (?), Jacqueline Newmyer, Jessica Molleur, Jill Lund, Julie Manzi, Katy Oconnor, Ken MacLaurin, Laurie Pessack, Leah Gourley (?), Lisa Rigano, Maria Denslow (?), Mat Thoresen, Melody Feo, Molly Perkins, Nikolay Gaykov, Peter Gottschalk, Ryan Donovan , Sarahlee McCaffrey, Sven Meier, Taraneh Naghieh, Tom Batar, Tracy Andrade

Cracked.com: 9 Manliest Names in the World

#9 Lance Armstrong [...] Some will argue that we should have gone with the guy who walked on the moon instead of the guy who rides bikes for a living. But, come on. Neil? Please. Come back when you've got a man's name, space cowboy.

—Stuart Layt, "9 Manliest Names in the World," Cracked.com

So says Stuart Layt.

Photojournalism Time, Publications, Viability, Fashion

Even when submitting raw, unedited, news photos, I'm finding that the picking of images, captioning, and misc. tasks are still taking longer than it took to go out and shoot the photos. I have more experience at the shooting part, and I'm told one gets much faster at the submitting part.

Despite my slowness, in addition to now having my news photos published in newsprint, I just sold an unpublished news photo from last year for use in a political science college textbook.

For anyone out there who knows I have more experience in "technology," rest assured that photojournalism is only a part-time job for me, and is in fact complementary to some of my research and product ideas. I take photojournalism very seriously, but I know I couldn't make a living at it (very few can nowadays), and I'm not about to abandon my decades of experience in other areas.

Besides, the main reason to be a photojournalist was that you got to wear the cool vest with all the pockets. But, now that everyone's gone digital, I don't see any photojournalists with the vests. In fact, the only person I know who wears such a vest is Marvin Minsky.