On what is supposed to be a life-changing day for five couples and their families instantly evolves into a life-altering moment in history. Within a flash of Wang Qiang’s shutter, the Church of the Annunciation, the site where many brides are photographed with their grooms outside the antique seminary doors, was reduced to ashes. A relic built under the direction of French priests 100 years ago, the Church of the Annunciation, which is a Catholic seminary outside the city of Pengzhou, collapsed just ten seconds after the 7.9-magnitude earthquake that affected 15 million in central China, felt its first tremble on the morning of May 12th. The white, castle-like structure, spotted with acid-rain scars and bruised from the many landslides it outlived, an anomaly to the mountainous greenery surrounding it, stands as an ominous forewarning dressing the background of Wang’s first photographs documenting the disaster. “I shouted to people, ‘Run! Run!”‘ Wang said to the Associated Press Thursday night by phone. “The ground shook and we couldn’t see anything in the dust.”

He began photographing the couples, still in their fineries, speckled with dust from the rubble and wearing expressions of scared surprise. “When the dust had settled, everyone stood up and realized they were all safe,” Wang said. He captured images of residents escaping the avalanche of debris, relief workers driving people to safety, and the many buildings quickly crumbling into brown clouds of powder. The photographs can be viewed on the CNN website www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/05/22/quake.wedding.ap/index.html?iref=mpstoryview#cnnSTCText

And like his bleak surroundings, Wang too was instantly transformed from wedding photographer to photojournalist. “I shot these photos out of the instinct of a photographer,” he said.
An instinct that, in the face of danger, confusion, and personal tragedy, turns towards the disaster, and armed with little more than a camera and a pair of eyes, freezes that moment in the hope of enlightening the larger public with an empathetic awareness that can only be gotten through art and the human subject—a motivation that, inspiring all photographers, makes them an integral part of creating a collective memory, a personal history, and a cultural consciousness.

The need to capture and document a human experience as it is unfolding, lives within every photographer whether a portrait artist, a commercial shooter, or a photojournalist. I chose this item, because I think it defines what a photographer is: A storyteller who explains a process that took place in real time, and thus makes tangible the reality of our own time.
–Tara Propper

You can never have too many megapixels — or can you?

Ask the consumers who may soon get to test-drive the Gigapan, the world’s first 1-billion-pixel camera.

Yes, you heard correctly — 1 billion pixels.

Call it the Iron Man of imaging. A tripod-mounted robot commands the uber-camera to capture several hundred photographs of a single scene, all from a slightly different angle. This creates, in effect, a panoramic 3D experience that’s unmatched by any other camera on the market. An image taken with the Gigapan retains phenomenal sharpness even as you zoom in and out of different parts of the image (think Google Earth).

Not that the beta product is without its detractors — early grumblers are commenting on everything from the time involved (it could take 10 to 15 minutes to capture 350 mini-images needed to pull together the composite final) to how the camera deals with moving objects to the fact that less-glamorous prototypes with motorized mounts have been used for years (and probably for a lot less money than the Gigapan’s likely price tag — though the word is that the camera will be less than what existing current high-res panoramic cameras go for).

Who came up with this piece of technical wonderment? It may sound like something straight out of a Marvel comic book, but it’s NASA, Google, and National Geographic who receive the kudos in this case.

Now if they could only get Robert Downey Jr. to endorse it, they’d have an unstoppable sell. No official word yet on the Gigapan’s price or release.

Speaking of celebrity endorsements, I’ve caught a few of Nikon’s new TV spots starring easy-on-the-eyes actor Ashton Kutcher. Nikon’s products have always been hot in my book, but the heat just got turned up with the appearance of Mr. Demi Moore in the ad campaign hawking the stylish, fashionable COOLPIX compact digicam line.

Let’s just hope viewers don’t think they’re being Punk’d. If they can take their eyes off Ashton’s sexy stubble for 1/250th of a second, they’ll see that the underlying message is not just about the trendy COOLPIX colors — it also emphasizes the cameras’ performance, simplicity, and quality.

In other words, there is substance beneath the veneer — something that’s sometimes lacking in a world where anyone can buy Photoshop and go to town on a photo.

Ever hear of photographic profiling? Similar to the reprehensible action–street racial profiling–it concerns rousing suspicions over certain people holding cameras and taking pictures on the street. And it’s happening in the cosmopolitan city of London.

A recent article in the London Times described a poster in the tube (American version of the subway) asking commuters to call a special hotline “if they don’t like the look of a photographer.” I didn’t “like the look” of the cop who wrote me a ticket last week. Is there a number I can call? (couldn’t resist)

Anyway, this is an official, government-funded campaign sponsored by its Metropolitan Police department. The poster text states:

Thousands of people take photos every day. What if one of them seems odd?

The poster goes to say that terrorists use cameras for surveillance. It gives a number to call.

Besides perptuating a climate of fear, there’s another thing the organizers of this campaign don’t realize. That most of the great photographers were street photographers–Robert Frank, Robert Doisneau, Cartier Bresson, Brassai, Diane Arbus, among others. How many of the campaign organizers have a Doisneau print hanging on one of the walls of their home? I bet at least of few do.

In New York, street photography is very popular among both tourists and the pros. When I began shooting in the early 1990s, my “genre” was to be in a car, ride in the passenger’s seat and ride slowly though the streets of New York taking pictures of unknown strangers in unique or gritty surroundings. I was in my 20s then and was trying to capture a feeling solitude and lonliness. This technique, combined with movement, was my art at the time. None of my subjects ever suspected a thing or they really didn’t care. It didn’t hurt anyone or even bother anyone.
This style is still among my favorite work today.

In London, the campaign relates to “the look of” anyone, from global tourists carrying point and shoots, to pros carrying DSLRS and tripods. But I doubt someone will call the number when they see a gaggle of tourists all photographing the same London building. This is targeted at the pros.

In the article, New York street photographer Jeff Mermelstein, who has been snapping the streets of the city since the 1970s and published a well-received book Sidewalk on the subject, is concerned about the latest poster in London.

“I think that’s awful,” he tells the Times. “Street photography is an important part of the documentation of our time. If that’s discouraged, in the long term that will be a substantial loss.”

So three questions remain unanswered in my mind.

Did this “Big Brother-like” campaign within a U.S. democratic neighbor evolve because the paparazzi took it too far in regards to Princess Diana? If so, I don’t see Paris getting on that bandwagon.

Or was the conception of the new world we live in, and the fact that terrorists could be randomly hanging out with us on the streets and in the subways? I just don’t see them doing street photography.

Third, is this campaign likely to move across the ocean to the U.S.? I certainly hope not. Then we will have let our fear rule our lives. And New York city, so far, has not fallen victim to this.

Photography has become big business. From pricey ad campaigns by the leading camera manufacturers to get consumers to buy their wares, to the latest Vanity Fair/ Miley Cyrus debacle (does anyone actually believe that moralistic Graydon Carter’s motive was to exhibit Annie Leibovitz’s “artistic vision” – it wouldn’t have anything to do with luring consumers to the endcaps, would it?), manufacturers, media, and even photographers themselves can use (and sometimes abuse) photography to line their wallets.

Of course, that’s what business is all about, and no one faults anyone for trying to make a living. But for those toiling behind the lens, the effect of an artfully composed image often means so much more than a few thousand greenbacks, whether it’s an historic photograph of a natural artifact, or a photographic exhibit in a region of the world that is known more for suppressing the arts than promoting them.

Just ask the unknown photographer who captured what may be the world’s oldest photograph, as recently publicized in the U.K.’s Evening Post and the New York Times, among other newspapers of note. No sultry tween celebrities caught in compromising positions, or even a compelling photojournalistic shot in war-torn Fallujah – the possibly-200-year-old photo (once attributed to Henry Fox Talbot, but now cited as the possible creation of Thomas Wedgwood, 30 years earlier than Talbot’s photographic experiments) portrays a simple leaf, placed on light-sensitive paper and exposed in the sunlight.

Of course, even the discovery of such a momentous piece of photographic history can’t escape the money issue. A section of the Evening Post article is devoted to interviewing a Sotheby’s expert to determine how much the leaf photo went for in 1984, and how much it’s worth today if it is indeed the oldest photo (sky’s the limit, according to the auction guru). However, as historian Dr. Larry Schaaf explains, “”In the end, what is certain is perhaps the only factor that really matters in a work of art. This image of a leaf is extraordinary. It arrests our attention as much today as it has done for at least a century and a half, and just possibly for more than two centuries.”

In other news, the First International Photography Biennial of the Islamic World opened yesterday at Tehran’s Saba Art and Cultural Institute. The theme of the 150-photo Iranian exhibit (featuring photographers from 40 countries) is “The Muslim Family,” designed to showcase experiences and spiritual and cultural identity in the Muslim world. In our increasingly ethnocentric world, if photography ever had the opportunity to break down regional barriers and show the innards of a culture that may often be misunderstood, this is a start. Perhaps progress is indeed being made….

Let’s hash it out. We’ve all seen, heard, and dealt with Mileygate 2008. And although most of us are ready to forget it just as quickly as it has inundated our industry sphere, we must recognize that one of our own is undergoing unworthy media flagellation. As we all know, Annie Leibovitz is a world-renown American portrait photographer known for such images as the famous John Lennon and Yoko Ono Rolling Stone cover taken in 1980, as well as countless other celebrity portraits. Recently, Leibovitz photographed actress and singer Miley Cyrus for a spread in Vanity Fair magazine. The images produced from that shoot are the newest fodder for what has become a media upchuck of everything sensationalist and irrelevant. Leibovitz was lambasted by Disney, along with other media circuits denigrating the photographs as both provocative and mismanaged.
A photographer known for her close collaboration with subjects, it was no surprise when Leibovitz issued this statement: “I’m sorry that my portrait of Miley has been misinterpreted. Miley and I looked at fashion photographs together and we discussed the picture in that context before we shot it. The photograph is a simple, classic portrait, shot with very little makeup, and I think it is very beautiful.” Vanity Fair also defended the images, maintaining that “Miley’s parents and/or minders were on the set,” said a spokesperson for the magazine. The pictures are part of a full-length interview featuring the tween queen and her father, the country singer Billy Ray Cyrus who appears with his daughter in some of the photographs. A Disney insider told The New York Times that “unfortunately, as the article suggests, a situation was created to deliberately manipulate a 15-year-old in order to sell magazines.”
In response to the media outrage, Miley Cyrus issued this response: “I took part in a photo shoot that was supposed to be ‘artistic’ and now, seeing the photographs and reading the story, I feel so embarrassed. I never intended for any of this to happen and I apologize to my fans who I care so deeply about.” A starkly different tune than the one she sang a week earlier, praising Leibovitz’s artistic vision: “Annie took, like, a beautiful shot, and I thought it was really cool. That’s what she wanted me to do, and you can’t say no to Annie. I think it’s really artsy.”
However overblown this entire incident may seem in the grand scheme of things, it is necessary that we, as professionals, acknowledge the fact that we too are faced with similar issues in our own professional lives. Granted, we aren’t all photographing movie stars, but nonetheless: how do you gauge that fine line that separates what you deem art from what others might perceive as exploitative or even perverse? Can we learn anything from this media blitzkrieg befallen on an industry stalwart or is it all just one big waste of time?
– Tara Propper