More Summertime Snippets

By relocating to Asia for much of the summer, we are undertaking something new to us. Some of the work I am doing here is specific to being here, whether researching an upcoming assignment in India or teaching a class in Singapore. Much of my time is spent on work that I could do anywhere, whether blogging or creating new podcasts. Since my life here is more slow-paced than back “home,” I have been enjoying the opportunity to ponder a few ideas that have been piling up in my “blogs-to-be” folder.

In no particular order:

An educational series of videos called “Ask an Art Buyer,” by Heather Morton, who is an art buyer in the advertising business can be found, starting at: http://vimeo.com/13301542

An interesting opportunity for Boston area artists can be found at: http://www.bcaonline.org/visualarts/programs/93-artists-residency-program.html The Boston Center for the Arts Artist Residency Program is described there as:

This non-traditional, ten-week residency program provides a unique support system for individual artists, including funding, studio assistance, and the opportunity to experiment and share one’s practice with an audience through three individually designed workshops. This residency seeks to help artists explore audience engagement outside of typical art education models. The residency may be especially appealing for artists who are interested in public programs but who have limited experience with them, or would like to take their current practice in a new, more public direction.

An amazing site with a “Motions of the Sun Simulator” can be found at: http://astro.unl.edu/naap/motion3/animations/sunmotions.html No matter where you will be going in the world, assuming you can find that location’s latitude, you can preview the play of the sun for any date, via the animations generated by this free tool. You can move the sun, the hands of the clock, etc. to see how the light will play out and how the shadows will fall.

A site with helpful information about copyright and licensing stock imagery can be found at http://www.stockphotorights.com/ After spending a few minutes looking at their videos, I realized why I found it so compelling. They are explaining the complexities (and potentially boring aspects) of stock photography but in a visual rather than text-based way. Because I am a visual learner, as I think most photographers are, I find the work very informative and it kept me awake. Be aware that the information is aimed at a British audience and mostly focuses on advertising rather than editorial imagery. Still, fundamentally it is a lot of useful information that is dynamically presented.

The folks at Photoshelter have released another one of their periodic interesting (and educational) guides, “The Photography Blog Handbook.” Download that by going to: http://www.photoshelter.com/mkt/research/photography-blog-handbook As they say on their site:

Whether you’re new to blogging or you’ve been doing it for years, our latest free business guide has information and tactics you can use immediately. Smart photographers of all kinds are using blogs to help grow their website traffic, deepen client relationships, and build a bigger following. This guide will look at different strategies, resources, and success stories to help make blogging work for you.

Finally, an insightful guide titled, “Photojournalism, Technology and Ethics: What’s Right and Wrong Today?” has been released as a free E-book by the photo agency Black Star. The folks at Black Star, most notably the late Howard Chapnick, know a thing or two about photojournalism, and ethics. As it says on their site:

Since its historic beginnings in the golden age of American photojournalism, the Black Star photographic agency has been committed to mentoring both its photographers and its clients.

The website, Black Star Rising, is an attempt to extend this ethos of teaching — and caring — to a broader audience. This is a group blog featuring articles to educate professional photographers, aspiring pros, and photography buyers alike.

The guide can be found starting at: http://rising.blackstar.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/photoethics.pdf It is an interesting read for anyone interested in photography, even if you are not a “photojournalist.”

I say that because we are all viewers of photojournalism and we are all influenced by the media images that we encounter. The better informed we are about what we view, the more likely we willfully understand what it is we are (or are not) seeing in a given image. That kind of understanding is VERY important in an ever more complex, media saturated world.