My Daily Commute through the Web.

Alright, I gotta get started on that blog.

Hmmmmm, alright www.blogger.cooomm. Username.. password.. ok.

Uhhhhmmm, crap, what should I write about? ...Uhh... ahhhhhh.... hmmmmm.. I wonder if I got any comments on myspace.

Alright, username.. password.. ok.

Crap, really? Nothing? Huh.. I wonder if there is anything new on Magnum

Ahh the Magnum Photo Agency. A great website for an amazing photo agency, and wow such great photography. This prestigious photo agency was founded by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, David Seymour, William Vandivert, and George Rodger in 1947. Today the agency leads in multimedia, the new face of photo reportage. The Magnum in Motion portion of the website offers over 15 pages of multimedia photo essays, taken by some of the greatest photographers of our time and history.

Okay, www.blogger... I wonder if theres anything new on VII.

The VII Photo Agency also has its share of great photographers. James Nachtwey, Marcus Bleasdale, Christopher Morris, and Ron Haviv just to name a few. This website's got a good multimedia section too, with photo essays and interviews of their photographers. Check out their photographers' portfolios, essays, and more. Portfolio, I should update mine.

www.lightstalkers.org, log in, alright.

Lightstalkers is a great networking site for photojournalists. Anyone can create a profile and can upload their photos to make a flash slideshow. The slideshows look very professional, the format reminds me of the flash slideshow used by the New York Times website. I use it to display my portfolio. I should probably update my Sports Shooter portfolio too.

double you, double you, double yoou, DOT, sportsshooter.com.

Don't let the name deceive you. Although there is a lot of sports photography on this website, it covers photojournalism in general. Sports Shooter offers a bunch of stuff for its members. Contests, message boards, networking tools, classifieds, and a profile page. But not everyone can be a member. To become a member you must have a senior member sponsor you, which will then qualify you to be evaluated by the review board. It's not too difficult of a process, and if you think you have what it takes as a photographer then you should definitely give it a shot. The website also offers interesting reads and videos that non-members can access. Great resource for anyone interested in photography.

Woah, look at the time, I gotta get started on that blog. Alright, enough procrastinating, I gotta get on this... I wonder if I got anything on facebook..

Check out photo websites mentioned above:
Magnum Photo Agency
VII Photo Agency
Light Stalkers
Sports Shooter

while you're here, share the photo websites you go to on your daily commute to the web.

I Love Lightroom

Don't tell Photoshop, but I am in love with Adobe Lightroom2. It's beautiful, it's easy, it's.. it's just awesome. Lightroom is the brainchild Mark Hamburg's "Shadowland" project. Unlike past Adobe image processing programs such as Photoshop, Lightroom focuses on RAW processing and a very user-interactive interface.

Adobe Lightroom 2 Interface. Thumbnails on the bottom,
editing controls on the right, navigator on the left.

Lightroom's beautiful interface is what got me to consider using it, but using it is what I fell in love with. What makes Lightroom so interactive is how adjustments can be made directly on the image rather than just through drag bars on seperate panels. This makes adjustments like white balance, tonal curves, and dodge/burn more than just trial and error. The user can directly adjust the image and see results as adjustments are being made. Its like putting paint on canvas, except better; the paint can be taken clean off if need be. Adobe Lightroom 2 is a non-destructive image processing program, meaning that adjustments don't directly alter the original image file. Anything can be undone because the original integrity of the image is left unaltered. So go crazy! Experiment with adjustments without worrying about damaging the original image.

Anyway, lets get back to some of Lightroom's direct adjustment features.

White Balance:







White Balance is EASY! I didn't think that I could ever say that, but Lightroom's "eye drop" white balance feature makes it possible. To adjust white balance you simply grab the white balance eye drop tool and drag it over the image. The eye drop tool then turns into gridded loupe which allows you to pick a neutral point from the image to base the white balance on. Okay, but how do you know which point is neutral? Well you actually don't really even need to know; with Lightroom's real time preview panel you can see exactly what the image will look like if you were to select a particular point.




Curves:


The Tonal Curve tool has always been a powerful tool in the Adobe Photoshop series. It allows for very selective tonal adjustments, and Lightroom's take on the curves function makes it even more selective. Lightroom's curve function features a selective tonal cursor. With it, you simply click a specific point on an image and adjust. Sky blown out? Simply click a point on the sky, and adjust that specific tonal range. For me personally, this new feature has made accurate skin tones a lot easier to achieve.

Brushes:
Lightroom's brush tool is extremely versatile. It can be used to adjust everything from exposure, brightness, clarity, contrast, saturation, and sharpness. Along with the brush tool's versatility, it is also easily adjustable, even after the brush has been set. Simply click the brush point and drag left or right to adjust the amount of effect. The brushed regions can easily be seen with a red highlight.


After using Lightroom, I no longer use Photoshop CS3's RAW processing feature. Lightroom's easy and interactive interface has made it easier for me to produce the final product that I had in mind. I would recommend it to anyone who primarily shoots RAW format. It is available through Adobe's website for $299, and a free trial is available for download.

Link to Adobe Lightroom Website

Bruce Gilden and Friends

"All these people that I photograph are like my friends, even if I don't know them, because I am drawn to them somehow." Bruce Gilden's "friends" are quite an assortment of peculiar characters, from Yakuza mobsters to the strange faces of bustling NYC streets. Although, Gilden may not prefer to call the faces of his photos strange, but rather beautiful. The generic definition of photogenic doesn't interest him, "people that have something different and special" do. "There is beauty in everything," says Gilden, and he finds beauty where others may turn away.


Where others turn away, Bruce Gilden gets close. His up close style puts the viewer right into the subject's face, flipping the viewer's role from simple observer to participant. Gilden takes Robert Capa's famous words "If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough" and pushes it as far as he can take it. The way he fills the frame with the subject and utilizes an off-camera flash reminds me of staged portrait photography. But unlike staged portraits, Gilden's photos capture the subject's natural self. He catches his subjects off guard. No face is put up for the camera, making vulnerable the subject's true self. Some say Gilden's photos are almost spiritual, so close to the subject that you can almost peer into their souls.


Bruce Gilden recently covered the Democrat and Republican National Conventions, but Obama and McCain weren't of importance to him. While cameras pointed at center stage, Gilden turned his camera towards the strange, if not eery, faces of nationalism/partisan surrounding it.

Check out more of Bruce Gilden:

Democrats VS Republicans, Magnum Photo Agency
The Rat Story, Magnum in Motion

Behind my eye

The stage was set. Lights and cameras were ready and waiting for Barack Obama,the presumptive democratic presidential candidate, to appear. The Silverado High School gymnasium was packed. A sense of almost gitty anticipation could be felt through out the crowd, the crowd I was stuck in. Obama's visit to this Las Vegas, Nevada high school was my first opportunity to cover a political event and I didn't have a press pass. I walked by the press booth in envy as I was escorted to behind the stage, where the general audience sat. It was the usual set up, general audience set up between the stage and a massive american flag. This is great for the cameras in the press booth, which could capture the candidate and his supporters together in front of the symbol that is America. Great for them, but it made things difficult for me. Along with having to constantly see Obama's back, the main source of light was pointed towards the front of the stage, making it difficult for me to get a decent shot of Obama during his speech. In spite of all this, I kept my eye on the viewfinder, telephoto lens pointed towards the stage. I wasn't expecting anything, but I figured since I'm here I should atleast keep an eye on the main attraction.

Then I noticed something. Obama would turn towards the audience behind him periodically, and in doing so, his profile glanced the spot light in front of him. I snapped a shot everytime he turned, and they turned out to be very high contrast, almost noir photographs. Out of all the frames I took, this particular one stood out. His identity is clear, with the light clashing up against the details of his profile from his face to every finger of his hand. His posture is that of someone who is attempting to mesmerize, and mesmerize he did.

Huh? F-stop?

Photography is popular and with good reason; its easy. Anybody can take a picture, especially with new camera features ranging from face detecting auto-focus to smarter automatic exposure options. Cameras are becoming more of a consumer electronic device and less of a tool for photographers. This can't be helped, the manufacturers are simply keeping up with the tides of the market. Those who are stubborn to this change are bound to fail. Just look at the iconic German camera company Leica, which fell into financial trouble in early 2005 primarily because of their slow pace in adapting to the new digital era. These innovations in camera technology may be great for company profits and the average consumer, but new photographers are becoming photographically illiterate by relying on these short-cuts rather than learning the basics.

Henri Cartier-Bresson said it best, "the actual handling of the camera, its stops, its exposure-speeds and all the rest of it are things which should be as automatic as the changing of gears in an automobile." Knowing how to shift and steer is as important to a Formula 1 driver as understanding the operation of a camera is to a photographer. Without understanding the basic operations of a camera, the important decisions of exposure, focus, and depth of field are then left to be made by programmed algorithms rather than the photographer's intent. This may be fine for someone who is simply trying to record a family outing, but by relying on computer programs to make these decisions the photographer loses control of the photograph. When the photographer takes the control of these important decisions the camera's actions become the reactions of the eye and mind rather than simple computations.

Subject Anonymous

Photography has always been used to record the faces of people from early daguerreotype portraits to the mundane passport pictures. We obsess about photographing the human face, and with good reason. The human face holds great photographic value. Its aesthetic symmetry and beauty makes it something worth gazing over, and it identifies the subject and expresses their emotions. However, as powerful as the human face can be in a photograph, it can sometimes be the least important aspect of the subject.

Sometimes a portrait doesn't need to include the face of a subject in order to tell the story. Omitting the face can realign the focus towards something less considered about the subject. In this case who the subject is becomes a minor aspect of the photograph. What then becomes important is the overlooked characteristics of the subject. It is almost a minimalistic approach to photographing people, cutting out anything that does not contribute to what you intend to show about the subject.

My America, Photographs by Christopher Morris, VII

Leaving the subject anonymous also creates a sense of obscurity. Who the person is will always be important to the viewer, but by not defining exactly who the subject actually is, the photograph then leaves it up to the viewer's imagination to construct the subject's identity with what is given. In this case uncertainty is a good thing. The anonymous subject is almost the photographic equivalent to a poetic device used in Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken."

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."

Frost's decision may have "made all the difference," but whether or not the difference was a good one is left up to the reader's imagination.

Chechnya. 1996. Ruins in the center of Grozny. Photograph by James Nachtwey, VII.

The photograph above was taken during the aftermath of the first Chechnya war. The identity of the subject is for the most part omitted, leaving only the fact that the subject is a child in the midst of destruction behind him. The message is clear, many children were victim to this war. Who the child actually is doesn't concern the photograph, that is left to be made up by the viewer. He could be anyone within the viewer's imagination, even someone close.

More of Christopher Morris and James Nachtwey at VII Photo

Where to begin..

Hey! This is Pen and Shutter, a blog dedicated to journalism, photography and the collaboration of the two. Photojournalism is a powerful medium, allowing information and visualization to work cooperatively to bring about awareness to issues around the globe, and this blog will discuss how it does so. Along with discussing photojournalism and its application in today's constantly evolving information age I will also regularly post tutorials, product reviews, discuss technique and ethics, and feature photos each week. While you're here leave a comment, suggest photos to be featured for the week, or submit your own! Blogs should be more than just the author, and I'd much rather have it be "we" rather than just me.

Speaking of me, uh, who am I? Well, to begin, I am a working photojournalist and a student currently majoring in Communications. I have covered events ranging from national professional paintball events to the 2008 presidential election. In terms of photography, I consider what I do hardly an art, but more of a disciplined observation of the world. The confines of a viewfinder help me, not so much to make clear of the obscure, but to understand and appreciate its place in reality. In terms of journalism, I consider its role in our democracy paramount. In a society where the people can potentially have just as much influence over policy as the policy makers, it is essential that the people have a source of objective information.

On that note, lets get this going.