Category Archives: Events

Archiving The Freer/Sackler Museums Collection

The Freer/Sackler Museums of Asian Art are a hidden jewel in the Smithsonian complex on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Yearly visitors at the Freer/Sackler number about a half of a million compared to the neighboring Air and Space Museum that exceeds 6.7 million visitors a year.

Several recent announcements from the museum are worth mentioning in this blog.

Huangshan Anhui
Lois Conner

Mirror of Human Nature:
The Photograph 1878 Toyohara Kunichika

The Freer/Sackler are the first Smithsonian museums to scan their entire collection (40,000 items) and place it on line in high resolution. The link is called Open F|S and it is the result of a massive staff effort to photograph and create digital records for all Freer|Sackler objects. It took over 6,000 staff hours in 2014 alone and resulted in over 10 terabytes of data. The program began in 1998.

All objects in the collection are digitally photographed and metadata is included in the search results. Unfortunately, all three-dimensional objects are reduced to a two-dimensional view. For instance there are 7,591 vessels, all photographed from one angle.

Why couldn’t the Smithsonian use a simple technique such as QuickTime VR? (Use your mouse or finger to spin the camera.) The Smithsonian produced “Cosmic Buddha” at the Freer using Autodesk 3D imaging , but where did this technique go?

On their website, the Museum says it hopes to create new features—such as 360-degree images and 3D models of every three-dimensional artwork—over the next few years, but times-a-wasting. As the public becomes more sophisticated and demands a “movie” of each object showing it in it’s entirety, they will have to trot out all the 3D objects in the near future and do it over again.

Flower Series Bahman Jalali

Of course this is not applicable with two-dimensional photography and art. The collection contains historic photographs of Asia. Shown here are a few of the more interesting images. If the artist is still alive, hi res images can’t be downloaded. Several photographers have work shown in low res and are dead, notably Raghubir Singh (1942-1999), so the collection needs to be updated.

For non-commercial purposes you can download any image in the collection and do whatever you want to do with it. The website even suggests that if you want to cut the images up and make shower curtains out of them, the Smithsonian is not only open to this, but wants a photograph of your “creation” sent to their website.

Sir Pratap Singh of Idar
1900-1920

Fortunately we will have this online collection at our disposal, as in January 2016 the Freer/Sackler will close for a complete building renovation and will not open again until the summer of 2017.

So why a post about the Freer/Sackler Museums in my photography blog?

How are your images archived? Are they in folders or projects in a application like Adobe Lightroom? What kind of meta data is included?

Not to belittle the photographic mission of the Freer/Sackler, but to record still images of 40,000 items with the same lighting setup was a small part of the project. Researching and adding the metadata (descriptive information) to the photographs was the most time-consuming effort.

I once was sent a booklet of original albumen prints with funny captions written across each image by Peter Spang, curator of the Historic Deerfield Museum. When I expressed surprise at using the originals in such a way, Peter said, “We don’t know who took them or who the subject is, so they are worthless.”

Steve McCurry and the National Geographic went on an exhaustive search to find the famous “Afghan Girl” 20 years later. As I said to Steve, if he had taken better caption information, the search would have been much shorter!

Archive your images!

The MOMA Exhibit OBJECT:PHOTO

Recently I saw the photographic exhibit “OBJECT:PHOTO at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. It is essentially the Thomas Walther Collection, a selection of 341 ”modern” photographs by 148 artists made from 1909–1949.

The prospectus says that the collection “represents the innovative vision of the 1920s and ’30s, a transformative period of modern photography and the foundation of our photo-based world.”

As presented by MOMA, it is much more.

Lore Feininger “Erich Solomon” 1929

In 2010, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation gave the Museum a grant to encourage deep scholarly study of the Walther Collection and to support publication of the results.

The MOMA coined the study “The Project” and spent several years developing new ways to relate to a collection of photographs. This exhibit is not a leisurely stroll through rooms of prints with arrogant captions written by the curator.

From the website: “Creating new standards for the consideration of photographs as original objects and of photography as an art form of unusually rich historical dimensions, the project affords both experts and those less familiar with its history new avenues for the appreciation of the medium.”

This is a turn-about from 1960, where as an example, in the United Kingdom photography was not recognized as a fine art. Dr. S.D. Jouhar said, when he formed the Photographic Fine Art Association at that time – “At the moment photography is not generally recognized as anything more than a craft.”.

The Thomas Walther collection consists of 347 photographs. Each photo contributes to an appreciation of the excitement that these 148 artists must have felt at the time. Loring Knoblauch at the Collector Daily (a great reference to locations and information on all current major photography exhibits) has this to say about the images in OBJECT:PHOTOGRAPHY:

Herbert Bayer – “Humanly Impossible” 1932

“For those enamored with the burst of innovation we have recently seen with the digital revolution, the 1920s and 1930s were an equally exciting and disruptive time for photography. Those years saw the introduction of the hand held camera (and the flexibility it offered), the broadening of photojournalism (and the magazines that featured it), the growth of filmmaking, and the expansion of the avant garde. It was a time of intense experimentation both in Europe and America, with new technical developments quickly opening up new areas of artistic exploration and new visual vocabularies. Photographers from across the globe were connecting and cross pollinating in exhibitions, publications, and face to face meetings, taking advantage of their new found freedoms.”

Although the visceral quality of the images is the real way to see the art (why they are displayed in museums), many of you will not make it to the MOMA for this exhibit. However, all photographs are available on the OBJECT:PHOTO website. And there one can experience the Mellon Foundation study in many ways.

On the site there is a collection of essays on aspects of the exhibit, there is a section on Mapping the Photographs, on Comparing the Photographs, on Connecting the Artists and on Mapping the Artist’s Lives. All organized to enrich one’s appreciation of the Thomas Walther collection.

Mapping Artist Bernice Abbott

Here is a visualization mapping Bernice Abbott’s life to other artists. The website says,” This visualization illustrates the artists’ relationships with the various meeting points — influential exhibitions, publications, schools, studios, and industrial and cultural centers — that linked them in this era.”

So who is Thomas Walther? MOMA provides little information. I found a piece by Vince Aletti in the NYC Village Voice where he interviewed Walther.

“Walther, heir to a German machine-tool manufacturing fortune, is publicity-shy and evasive about the extent of his larger collection—he estimates its number at “somewhere between 1000 and 2000 pictures.

For now, the place he’s found is New York. Walther still describes himself as a Berliner, but he’s lived here since the early ’80s—he’s currently in a Soho loft—and feels at home the way he no longer does in Europe.

…he regularly adds rarities to what he calls his “core collection”—including a sublime, mid-19th-century daguerreotype of clouds by Southworth and Hawes that he snapped up at Sotheby’s last spring (1999) for $354,500…Speaking of his core collection, he says, “I was attracted to peculiar emanations of the human spirit,”

Thank you, Thomas for making your wonderful collection available to us.

My interpretation of museum print. George Hoyningen-Huene – “Henri Cartier Bresson” 1935

George Platt Lynes – “Henri Cartier-Bresson” 1935

Review of My 2014 Blogs

Recently I looked back at the archive of blogs that I posted in 2014. Although there were a couple of outliers, most blogs fit into specific photographic themes. Please click on the links to revisit these blogs.

Objects in Disguise

White Mountains Sunset

In the month of July I concentrated on tutorials on photographing things above the earth’s surface staring with fireworks just before the Fourth and followed up with the moon (a super moon in July), the sun and a rather complicated blog on star photography. Much fun and hopefully helpful.

Photojournalists
As I consider myself one, photojournalists that literally put their life on the line enamor me. These blogs on Tyler Hicks (January) and Bob Edelman and his civil rights coverage (April) attempted to explore their vision and their bravery while photographing difficult subjects.

Thoughts for Photojournalists
These blogs explored methods and suggestions for budding photojournalists and included one on finding locals to help you (October), and returning to a location that one senses will make good images (Also in October).

Technological Advances in Photography
2014 saw new innovations on many fronts, from new cameras (July) to new software solutions by Getty Images (March). I also highlighted what social media is doing with our previously private information (February), and talked about good digital practices by backing up (January) and the value of having a tablet (February).

Photography Exhibits

Cloud Gate Sculpture

I have personally entered a number of shows and exhibits and with a blog tried to impart some knowledge about how they are organized in May, but also highlighted exhibits in Mexico that show differences in approach with photography (March).

This Fragile Earth
Two blogs covered the international land grab (November), and how the Bureau of Land Management in the US is trying to mitigate the hordes of visitors that descend on sensitive areas (January). These blogs bookended 2014.

“The Second Wave”, Arizona

I hope you enjoyed these ruminations and find that my future blogs in 2015 are of value. Before I put one up, I think about the photographic community at large, and try to decide if the blog may be of interest to them.

If you enjoy the site and find something of interest, please let me know.

Whose Land Is It Anyway?

A small bit of history to tether the current phenomena of land acquisition around the world.

Indian Reservation Map

In 1803, the United States bought what became known as the Louisiana Purchase from France. It consisted of 530,000,000 acres of land bought for about $15 million dollars (about 42 cents an acre in today’s dollars.). Although France reaped this income, the approximately 600,000 Native Americans, whose ancestors had lived on these lands for thousands of years, got nothing. Soon, their numbers would decline with the onslaught of European diseases.

Manifest Destiny (the belief that settlers were destined to expand across the country) put more pressure on the native population. Between 1800 and 1875 the US government sold off 400 million acres of Native American land (that had been “re-given” to them). See the map by Sam B. Hilliard of LSU here.

Much of this was accelerated by the Dawes Act of 1857 that created “checkerboards” of land allotted to the Native Americans. The act was created by reformers to achieve the primary goal of the breaking up of tribes as a social unit and opening the remainder of the land to white settlers for profit.

Indian Lands for Sale

The checkerboards were 640-acre plots of Native American land interspersed with 640-acre plots of US government land. Finally, the US government sequestered the remaining Native Americans on reservations.

Different Perspectives Regarding Land

Land is an economic commodity. The major reasons for ownership are access and worth. While this concept is accepted by administrators and economists, much is an antithesis to the beliefs of indigenous people. For them, land rights are important for many reasons including ancestral inheritance, spiritual development and social status. Being sacred, the bounty of their lands is given to them by their gods. Losing their lands causes a loss of identity for indigenous people, affecting their worldviews and belief systems – a loss of contact with Mother Earth.

“Public lands” are administrated by sovereign states. They are designated as national parks, reserves, national forests, wilderness areas, domains of the king, etc. All have definitions and legal status, which can change depending on the political climate and needs of the state. Pressure is applied if the economic value of the land outstrips its designated value.

Today, we are witnessing major land grabs throughout the world. These include acquisitions and encroachment in national parks, ancestral lands, farmland and wilderness areas. The purpose of this blog is to highlight some of the more egregious violations occurring in areas where there are historically indigenous populations.

Case Studies

Maasai Hut

• Big Hunting Authorities in Tanzania have ordered the eviction of 40,000 Maasai people so their ancestral home can be turned into a hunting ground for Middle Eastern royals. A 1,500sq/km ‘wildlife corridor’ around Loliondo, next to the Serengeti national park, will be handed over to a commercial hunting and safari company based in the United Arab Emirates.

Activists have accused the government of reneging on a promise after it last year said it had backed down on the plans following intense global public opposition. Go here to connect with an organization that was opposed last year and may be currently involved. It’s possible that in 2014 they have given up.

Unlike last year, the government is offering compensation of 1 billion shillings ($460,000), not to be paid directly but to be channeled into socio-economic development projects. The Maasai have dismissed the offer. See a longer story on this issue in The Guardian.

“I feel betrayed,” said Samwel Nangiria, co-coordinator of the local Ngonett civil society group. “One billion is very little and you cannot compare that with land. It’s inherited. Their mothers and grandmothers are buried in that land. There’s nothing you can compare with it.

• Big Agriculture Ethiopian authorities since 2010 have embarked on a plan known as “villagization” to move some 45,000 households. The plan takes scattered families and consolidates them into fewer settlements. It is sold as a scheme for better schools, clinics, cleaner water, and, authorities say, more democracy.

Yet simultaneously Ethiopia is trying to lease up to 42 percent of Gambella – a state the size of the Netherlands – for agricultural investors. India’s Karutui Global Ltd and Saudi Star are the most prominent. Both have started huge farms for export of rice and other crops. Saudi Star is owned by Ethiopian-born Saudi billionaire Mohamed al-Amoudi and is the nation’s largest single investor. See a story on this issue in the Christian Science Monitor.

Distorted Map

Distorted world map according to the relative amount of land grabs on each country. The rescaling in this map is in proportion to the amount of land acquired by foreign investors after 2006. See the original map here.

• Big Oil In 2013 Ecuador’s President Correa announced an end to the moratorium on oil drilling in the Yasuni National Park, opening it – and lands inhabited by Huaorani (the indigenous population) – to oil drilling once again. The stage is set for an oil invasion by companies from China, Brazil, Argentina and the USA in conjunction with the state oil company Petroamazonas. US company Halliburton has signed long-term contracts to construct roads and camps, recover oil from existing wells and discover new reserves. Oil production is planned to commence in 2016. Most of the oil is destined for the U.S. (previous oil reserves discovered on Huaorani land were estimated to be worth $1.5 billion – enough to keep cars rolling in the U.S. for 13 days).

Twenty years ago Christopher Walker, Gordon Durnin and Tony Avirgan were filmmakers and told the story of the fight against Big Oil in the Amazon basin of Ecuador. Filmed over three years, it covered the fight by the Huaorani people to remove the oil companies from their lands and preserve the Yasuni Park – one of the most biologically diverse regions of the world. The resultant film, TRINKETS & BEADS won many major prizes worldwide, highlighting the Huaorani’s struggle around the world.

They are now engaged in a sequel to TRINKETS and BEADS and are soliciting donations here.

Martin Carbonell, a spokesman for the Yasunidos, (a collection of groups fighting the plan to exploit oil in Yasuni) said: “It’s very worrying what has happened. It is the end of the facade of democracy in Ecuador. Since the beginning of the process we have been subject to physical and verbal attacks, so this was not unexpected.”

These are just a few instances of worldwide pressure on indigenous locales.

What’s Next?

When takeovers of public lands occurs, the indigenous people of the area for the most part are not informed of what is about to happen, and ill-equipped to fight it. Internet transparency helps identify these land grabs that are fueled by state corruption, avaricious individuals and companies with their own economic agendas, but rarely has had an affect on the final outcome. The details of the land deals – made among high-ranking government officials with little consultation of local people – are often nebulous. And in many cases, land that officials have said was “unused” was actually managed in traditional ways.

Red Cloud

After the decimation of the Native Americans, the famous Oglala Lakota Red Cloud now an old man on a reservation said: “They made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they never kept but one; they promised to take our land, and they took it.”

The percentage of the Native American population in the US is now .08 percent.

If you personally feel as I do that indigenous populations are underrepresented, please donate to one of the causes cited above, or when learning about similar indignations, find out how you can help.

Local Knowledge Enhances Your Travel Photos

Many times when we are traveling we are in someone else’s control. This can be a good thing, as when we are on a vacation we are not interested in dealing with the minutia of our trip. On the other hand, if a tour is “prepackaged”, chances for unique photography are diminished.

Here is my take on packages. You pay an extra 15 to 20 % to have a company put together a tour for you. Normally, on this tour you will be with others that you do not know (sometimes, in the case of cruise ships, thousands that you do not know).

The tour operators set an “all inclusive” agenda and include the major sites, but usually this means that you will be informed of where you will stay, when to get up, when the transportation leaves the hotel, when the transportation leaves the attraction, etc. You could customize the trip with the tour operators, but the cost may be prohibitive, as they are able to get “group rates” with larger numbers of tourists following the same itinerary. A guided tour is usually homogenized and abbreviated to fit what the tour operator feels is best for their clients, with little input from the client.

Many people think that Bed and Breakfasts are sub-par to hotels. Au contraire! They will help integrate you into the general community at the locale where you are staying. The proprietors will give you tips on places to eat, what cultural events are taking place, etc. Best of all, if you want them to, they will engage you at breakfast or in the evening to discuss history and local politics, problems in their country and the perceived differences between their county and yours. The conversation will also help break down the stereotypes that you may have about their city/country. Invigorating!

Look for Local Connections

“My daughter is in the Peace Corps in Bangwanaland, and loves it!” This comes from an acquaintance of yours. So, what is her email address? Would she mind if you contacted her about local conditions/customs? Does she know a local guide and/or a great place to stay?

A friend says, “I climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro two years ago”. You say, I am going in October. Can I have lunch with you and find out some of the “dos and don’ts”? Perhaps you can stay with a friend that they know. Implicit in your request can be the possibility that they can stay with you while visiting your town.

Personal Examples

Following are several illustrations of how a local helped me in my quest for unique subject matter to photograph.

All Night Tango Dancing

We arrived at our Bed and Breakfast in Buenos Aires and during the course of the conversation with our host, we asked about a particular café that featured tango dancing. He said that he knew of the place, but it was a bit touristy. “Tonight, I am going to a community center where I am learning how to dance the milonga, and they also teach tango. Why don’t you ride the local bus with me and take a class? A tango band arrives at 11:00 PM and we dance until 4:00AM” Of course it was marvelous.

Suck ‘Em Up Lava Tube

I was on assignment in Hawaii and I needed to photograph a lava tube that entered the water. Ancient Hawaiians used these caves for rituals and burials. Where could I find a tube that had a somewhat restricted entrance but had plenty of light? My local contact said that I should check out the “Suck ‘Em Up” lava tube. Hmmm..Why do they call it that? Come to find out that if you are too close to the surface in a particular area of the tube, you get sucked out through the blowhole at the top! A fine image, but you had to know where to go.

Lion Cubs in the Serengeti

On a recent Photo Safari, we were watching a lioness and her cubs for nearly an hour. She started to lick them, one at a time. The guide from Duma Explorer, Wilson Shange, said that because of that behavior, she was either going to take them down to the river, or bring them over to lie in the shade of our truck. Within two minutes, she got up and took them to the river.

Blue Whale Blowing

We were searching for blue whales in the Loreto Bay in Baja, Mexico. After some time, we found a male and moved near him, only to watch him sound. The boatman/guide immediately set his watch for 10 minutes. He then moved our small panga into the general area where he thought the whale would surface and killed the boat engine. After 9 and half minutes from when he set his watch, he started the engine. At the ten-minute mark, the whale surfaced nearby and we raced to the location for several minutes of photography until the whale sounded. The guide set his watch for 10 minutes, and we moved to where he thought the whale would surface.

Sunrise in Patagonia

In Patagonia, we were on the last day of the famous “W” hike in Torres del Paine National Park. The hutmaster said that we needed to get up at 4:30AM and he would have a cold breakfast set for us. Then we needed to climb about 2,500 feet to arrive at a viewpoint overlooking the mountain and a glacial pool. At 6:05 AM we completed the climb and five minutes later were rewarded with a spectacular sunrise.

Many tourists who are succumbing to a package tour, or do not engage the locals are not able to capture images that are not hidden, but local knowledge is necessary for a stranger to find them.

Engage the population to enhance your travel photography experiences.

Better Pictures When Shooting the Moon

About once a month in the evening, barring clouds, a full moon appears in the Eastern sky. The sighting inspires poets, astronomers, lovers and photographers.

This blog is appropriate, as on July 12 we experienced a “Super Moon”, where the elliptical orbit of the moon brings it closest to earth and, according to NASA, a full moon at perigee (closest point) is up to 14% larger and 30% brighter than one at its farthest point, or apogee. We will have an even bigger Super Moon to photograph on August 10, 2014.

Here are some tips for shooting the moon:

Seascape in Outer Banks NC

1. The full moon is bright. For your camera exposure, use a similar one to what you would use when you photograph something on earth in bright sunlight. The natural color of the moon is a light grey and reflects sunlight very well.

2. Make sure you take your exposure setting off the moon, not the surroundings. If you don’t, the moon will appear as a white “hole” in the sky. Do not use auto exposure here!

3. Photograph the moon the night before the actual full moon. I call this night the “photographer’s moon”. The reason for doing this is that the moon looks full, but rises right after sunset, At this time, there is enough ambient light on “earth objects”, and the moon will be about the same exposure as these objects. Now the moon is located in a position showing where you are taking the picture. Note the seascape and mountains in the illustrations here. Don’t worry about the moon not being a full moon – it will look full in your photographs.

500mm Lens – Hawaii

4. Long super telephoto lenses increase the relative size of the moon compared to the landscape and can add to dramatic effect. Make sure you have a small enough aperture (f stop) to have both the stuff on earth and the moon in focus. Obviously, the moon will be focused at “infinity”. You will need a sturdy tripod when using these lenses.

5. Make sure your shutter speed is at least a thirtieth of a second, preferably faster. The moon moves more quickly than you think, and with slower shutter speeds you will experience blurring moons in your pictures.

6. When it is on the horizon, the color of the moon varies. We refer to “harvest moons” or “red moons”, etc. This is because you are looking at the moon through much more atmosphere than when the moon is overhead. Dust in the air or just after a rain can affect the color of the moon dramatically.

Smart Phone App

7. So where will the moon rise? You can use apps or websites on your smart phone to figure this out. I use the app The Photographer’s Ephemeris, where I can designate my location and seen not only the latitude, longitude and elevation where I am at, but immediately see times of sunrise, sunset, moonrise, moonset and the compass directions of each.

Then I use the compass in my smart phone to visually locate where on the horizon the moon will rise on that particular evening. I look through the camera and move back and forth, right and left, so that the spot on the horizon where moonrise will happen is composed within my “earth” frame. I’m ready! Also note that the moonrise on each successive night is quite a few compass points away from the previous one.

8. What if your foreground subject is facing to the west? Look at your moonset direction and get up early in the morning and photograph the moonset at dawn.

Want to have a hands-on photographic experience? Join me on one of my international photography tours. Go here, or back to the menu bar and select “Workshops”.

Smith Island Maryland

Fireworks on the Fourth – A Photo “How To”

Tomorrow will be the annual “fireworks fest” as we celebrate the country’s anniversary.

Here are some quick tips on taking pictures of fireworks.

1. Put the camera on the “manual” setting so you can dictate a slow shutter speed (below an eighth of a second – better a least a half a second). This will keep the fireworks from getting “clipped”, where the burst is not allowed to finish and is truncated.

Bastille Day

2. With the slow shutter speed, you probably will need a tripod. Sometimes you can rest the camera on something and get away with a slightly shorter exposure, such as the one here of Bastille Day (France’s big fireworks day). The area was jammed with people, but I was standing next to a tree which helped steady the camera. Make sure you have “image stabilization” on.

3. The fireworks are a lot brighter than you think. You will probably be shooting at f11 or higher at an ISO of 100. After the first big burst, check your LCD and see whether you need to adjust your f stop.

4. To be very steady, use a remote trigger, or if you don’t have one, set the camera timer on 2 seconds so you can get away from the shutter button and allow the camera to stop vibrating.

5. If there is a steady bright light in your frame (like a streetlight), try to keep it out. A very bright, constant light can ruin your picture.

6. Try to include silhouettes of people or lit buildings in your image for locators.

7. Experiment. Most all fireworks images look similar. This one, by David Harp, was shot off a tripod, but from a anchored boat. The resultant image looks like palm trees!

From a Boat

Want to tap the expertise of a National Geographic photographer? Consider joining me on my upcoming workshop in Tanzania.

Photo Contests and Museum Submissions

Recently, I have had some success with several photo contests and acceptances for museum exhibits. Besides the price of the entry fee, entering these venues involves a bit of effort. Whether it is a contest or a submission, it is important to read the rules. Then read them again.
Here is my take on contests and museums.

Photo Contests

Best in Division, Ward Museum Photo Festival

There are many photo contests held by diverse groups that have a vested interest in the contest — communities, organizations, businesses, art associations, etc. Generally these contests have categories and within the categories a first, second, third and honorable mentions. And a “best of show” is generally given.

When entering any photo contest, it is very important to understand the intellectual property issues. Almost all contests declare that the submitter of the image owns the copyright (assuming that they created the picture).

The rub comes in the terms of entry. Most contests require the submitter to agree to allow the owners of the contest to license the image. Upon reading the restrictions of the license, you may be amazed. As an example, following is the National Wildlife Federation’s contestant entry agreement:

“Entrants retain ownership and all other rights to future use of the photographs they enter except for the following: Your entry to the contest constitutes your agreement to allow your entered photographs—and your name, occupation, city, state, country of residence and Entry Information. … you grant to NWF and its licensees the perpetual, worldwide non-exclusive license to reproduce, distribute, display and create derivative works of the

First Place, Portrait, KIFA

entry (along with a name credit) in connection with the NWPC and promotion for the NWPC, in any media now or hereafter known. Entrants also agree to the use oftheir entered photos in the National Wildlife magazine’s online Photo of the Week and Caption Contest features.”

Note that they do not discriminate the winners from the entrants. All entries have these restrictions.

Some contests have more egregious rules. Many want that “ perpetual, worldwide non-exclusive license to reproduce, distribute, display and create derivative works of the entry… in any media now or hereafter known” to be applied to any usage – in effect collecting images that they do not have to pay for. These pictures then become a repository that they are free to use- any way they want to with impunity.

Read these terms for all of your contest entries, just so you know where you stand.

Museums

Juried exhibits are the way the best museums amass a collective show, in contrast to a one-person show. These exhibits are usually themed (e.g. realism, abstraction, politics, landscapes, etc.)

MFA Gallery, Focal Point Photography

Submissions are similar to photo contests, with entry fees; rules of size; signed and numbered; etc. There are three major differences from photo contests: 1) The juror determines the show; 2) the museum honors your copyright and at most asks for permission to use the photo only to publicize the show; and 3) the awards are “Certificates of Distinction” and perhaps a best of show. All are “winners” and they are not ranked against one another.

Interestingly, I have found that in submitting to museums or entering photo contests, the value of my work depended on the juror or, in the case of photo contests, the judge. They have biases in art as do we all. Scoping out the judge before you enter is not a superfluous thing to do. It is imperative that you understand where they are coming from. In my experience, many museum jurors are experts in painting mediums but do not understand photographic art and consequently make some clichéd selections.

Some contests are erratic. Deal with it. I entered the plane crash picture that is featured on my homepage in the “Magazine Photographer of the Year” contest. It was thrown out because it was the only one in the “Spot News” category.

Mitchell Gallery, Less is More

Presentation is important . If the entry rules state that you should enter a jpg, make sure that it is in RGB and the resolution is 96 dpi or slightly more. Remember, this is where your piece will be judged.

The real value of these contests for you, the photographer, is recognition; and better than that, a pause in your photographic pursuits where you discover the images that you are proud of.

Photography and Civil Rights — Yesterday and Today

To commemorate 50 years since the passing of the Civil Rights Act, an exhibit called “The Movement: Bob Adelman and Civil Rights Era Photography” is at the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

The extent of Bob’s show is formidable, showing African American living conditions in the South in the 1960’s, voter registration efforts (left), freedom marches, sit-ins, and Martin Luther King‘s speech at the Washington Monument. Charlton Heston was in the audience!

I was reminded of a discussion between Julian Bond and Danny Lyon at the National Geographic seminar this year where Danny talked about his civil rights photography. Julian reiterated that Martin Luther King and other leaders of groups such as the Congress for Racial Equality (CORE), the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) actively recruited photographers to document the civil rights conditions in the United States. Julian told us that King said “We have enough lawyers, we need photographers.”

Many young photographers took up the challenge, including Charles Moore, Dan Budnik, James Karales, Leonard Freed, and Danny and Bob. With several others, they created a legacy of the times. Many of these pictures are iconic — demonstrators blasted by water hoses in Birmingham, school desegregation in Montgomery, sit-ins in Greensboro, and aides pointing to where James Earl Ray fired the shot that killed Martin Luther King at the Lorraine Motel.

After I saw Bob Adelman’s exhibit, it dawned on me that we are witnessing a similar situation happening in the US today. Several Supreme Court decisions in the past two years have changed the landscape. One nullified the the 1965 law that required lawmakers in states with a history of discriminating against minority voters to get federal permission before changing voting rules. Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act had required federal review of new voting rules in 15 states, most of them in the South. Between 1982 and 2006, the Justice Department blocked more than 700 voting changes on the basis that the changes were discriminatory.

Mother Jones Magazine looked at how many of these 15 states passed or implemented voting restrictions after Section 5 was invalidated by the Supreme Court compared to the states that were not covered by the law. They found that 8 of the 15 states, or 53 percent, passed or implemented voting restrictions since June 25, 2013 compared to 3 of 35 states that were not covered under Section 5—or less than 9 percent.

The other Supreme Court decision upheld portions of the Arizona immigration law S.B. 1070 (specifically Section 2(B)) on whether the law unconstitutionally invaded the federal government’s exclusive prerogative to set immigration policy. The justices found that it was not clear whether Arizona was supplanting or supporting federal policy by requiring state law enforcement to demand immigration papers from anyone stopped, detained or arrested in the state whom officers reasonably suspect is in the country without authorization.

Many people (including some justices on the Supreme Court) believe that the civil rights battles of the 1960’s secured these rights for posterity. Civil rights organizations think otherwise and point out numerous recent state house reversals of our “inalienable rights”.

The photographs I see appearing in the media that relate to these recent decisions are mostly one-offs of demonstrations or politicians that are supposedly speaking about the issues. I say “supposedly” as it is impossible in a still photo to know what they are addressing – (Arizona S.B. 1070? Voting rights legislation in North Carolina?)

Where are the in-depth photo essays that give viewers visceral reactions to these subjects? I have searched the web for such photographic stories and have found none. If you, dear reader, know of any, please leave a comment and I will include them in this post.

Photographers of Mexico

Recently in La Paz, Mexico I saw two different exhibits of photography, one at the Archivo Historico that featured works of Nacho Lopez and the Casasola Photo Agency, and another nearby at the Teatro de la Ciudad where five photographers presented photo essays.

At the Archivo, the exhibit contrasted two styles of photography. One by Nacho Lopez, was entitled “Aqui esta la Vaciladora” (loosely translated as “Here with the Itinerants”). Perhaps the first Mexican photojournalist, López’s work (selected from the 1950’s) shows the everyday life that he preferred to focus on rather than the politicians and social scene that dominated the photography of the day. His exhibit at the Archivo was small and highlighted his work in the pulque bars (named for a local alcoholic brew).

Next to Lopez’s exhibit were selected images from the Casasola Photo Agency, taken from 1900 to 1930. All of these pictures were in the “line ’em up and shoot ’em down” style. Even pictures of revolutionaries were staged as seen here. They are quite the contrast from Lopez’s images where his underlying theme of social criticism is evident.

My discovery of the exhibit at the Teatro de la Ciudad was a visual treat. Called “del Asfalto a la Playa” (From the Asphalt to the Beach), it featured five prominent Mexican photographers, that to be honest, I had never heard of. All have photographed internationally for many years. Two photo essays stood out for me: One by Vida Yovanovich, a Cuban who fled to Mexico during the revolution of 1956, and another by Jose Hernandez-Claire.

Yovanovich’s images were small black and whites that featured everyday items well-used by their owners — a pair of shoes, a sink with a taped light socket over it, a stool, etc. All the pictures were on this theme and the overall effect was an appreciation of Yovanovich’s work, but also a respect for those who used these items.

Jose Hernandez-Claire’s essay was also in black and white — much larger — and featured religious celebrations throughout Mexico. They captured the emotional and physical connection of the participants in the images to their God.

Note to Bob: photo essays are alive and well in Mexico.