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By Wired, on April 5th, 2011%
> > View all Gone in the blink of an eye but captured by the release of a shutter, Stephan Tillmans ‘ photographs of Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) televisions powering down are unexpected and elegant; analog moments preserved by digital trial and error. Through tedious, button-pushing coordination on both TV and camera, Tillmans has perfected a surprisingly difficult task. It turns out photographing CRT image decay and making it look like art is as hard as it is strange. “Capturing the same picture twice is almost impossible. Timing really would have to be perfect,” says the German photographer, who is based in Berlin. “Not only does the moment the TV is switched off and the moment I take the picture matter, but also the duration of the TV being turned on. I take the pictures manually and Iʼve never shot two images alike.” To complete the images for his project, Leuchtpunktordnungen ( Luminant Point Arrays ), Tillmans set up a tent in his apartment to avoid getting dust or hair on the TV screen. His images are so precise that it’s almost impossible to retouch any stray elements after the photo has been taken. The tent also provides complete darkness and eradicates reflection. Sitting in his apartment, in his tent, between TV and camera, Tillmans would keep one hand on the TV power switch and the other on the shutter release. “I stayed like this for a couple of days, trying out different TVs and camera settings,” he says, “It can take up to 800 pictures until you get a sharp, crisp and good image.” One of the biggest hurdles was perfecting the depth of focus on the camera lens to find the exact plane on which the desired activity existed. “The TVʼs tube has a certain depth, which makes it difficult to focus on the right layer. If you set the focus of the camera to the fluorescent screen for instance, you also have to catch the light on that particular layer. But when the light is deeper in the tube you may have focused on the TVʼs shadow mask, but not on the light.” As the project progressed, Tillmans improved his timing and would use single frames instead of continuous shooting. He describes each unique arrangement of light as a “breakdown of reference.” “I press the release when the picture breaks down,” he says. “If I took the picture earlier, you would still see an image. You would see noise or even a signal. I am however interested in the moment these indications disappear and when the photo turns from referential to non-referential and from abstract to concrete.” Photos: Stephan Tillmans – – – The work of Stephan Tillmans and eight other photographers will be on show at The Goethe Institute in Washington DC, June 9th – Sept. 2nd. The exhibit Gute Aussichten: Young German Photography 2010/2011 showcases the award winning photography of German graduate students.
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Analog TV Quirk Made Into Art Through Tedium
By Wired, on April 4th, 2011%
By now many people know of former Queen rocker Brian May’s Ph.D. in Astrophysics , but less well-known is May’s passion for stereoscopy . He’s now combined these two loves and plans to release a series of astronomy-focused stereoscopic cards for low-fi, 3-D star-gazing. May told NPR’s Terry Gross in an interview last year: “All throughout those days when we were in Queen on tour, I would get up and think, ‘Hmm. I’m in Philadelphia for one of few times in my life. What will I do?’ Very often I would go out and try to find someone who would sell me some stereoscopic photographs, because it was always a passion.” These new cards allow anyone with an appropriate viewer to see the planets and stars depicted on them in visual stereo, a sort of static 3-D. Developed in the mid-19th century, stereoscopic cards present two offset images separately to the left and right eyes, creating the illusion of depth for the viewer. Such is May’s commitment to the antiquated process that in 2008, he and business partner Elena Vidal resurrected the London Stereoscopic Company to reacquaint the public with “the magic of stereoscopy.” The relentless May designed and put started manufacturing the OWL Stereoscope in 2009. May’s book A Village Lost and Found was published the same year. It presented his own research on 59 stereo cards by photographer Thomas Richard Williams. Facts about Williams’ work had been obscured until May, a Poirot of photo-history, found that the previously unidentified village in Williams’ stereo cards was Hinton Waldrist in Oxfordshire. View some of May’s stereoscopic images . See Also: Galileo, Galileo… Queen’s Guitarist Turns Astrophysicist Queen Guitarist Studies the Night Skies
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Queen Guitarist Shares Love for Astronomy Through Stereoscope
By Wired, on April 1st, 2011%
New legislation in Sweden designed to protect bystanders against acts of voyeurism mixes ambiguously broad language with commonsense edicts, prompting one photographer to test the laws’ limits with hidden-camera portraits. Parts of the new law define spaces such as bedrooms and changing areas as “private,” but also ban photography that “irrespective of place, occurs in a way which is obtrusive, intrusive, or hidden and that is meant to be a serious violation of a person’s privacy as an individual.” With cryptic portraits of unknowing passersby captured through a one-way mirror, Moa Karlberg ’s Watching You Watch Me treads the fine line of these legal distinctions. While Sweden has better laws than many countries when it comes to safeguarding the activity of well-intentioned street and journalist photographers, Karlberg is worried that new laws may engender a culture of suspicion. “It can be hard to define when you are in a private space,” says Karlberg. “The law can easily be over-interpreted and affect other types of photography.” The Swedish government was pressed into action following a series of disturbing cases of peeping-tom intrusion, including a landlord filming a tenant changing and a teenager who distributed images of his naked girlfriend without his partner’s knowledge. The previous lack of actionable law meant the digital-voyeurs went uncharged and unpunished. Authorities were left red-faced. As Swedish English-language news site, The Local, reports, the law attempts to address photographers’ motives beyond its legal definition of “private space,” by referring to photos that are “meant to be a serious violation of a person’s privacy as an individual.” Proving or suspecting this intention seems particularly slippery. There can be no argument with the protection of individuals’ modesty and right to privacy, especially in bedrooms and changing areas, but critics of the legislation argue it may inhibit the work of legitimate journalists in the field. “It may seem trivial to worry about my rights as a street photographer, but I consider it important to discuss this issue before our rights get limited,” says Karlberg. “Until now, the laws have only restricted what you can publish. This new proposition puts the responsibility on the photographer […] This may lead to self-censorship among professional photographers.” Karlberg set up her equipment in a storefront window behind a one-way mirror, blurring the line between street photography and an act now considered intrusive and criminally suspect. “The store was dark and the street was light, so I was able to capture people looking at their reflection,” says Karlberg. “As I took the pictures, it felt weird standing two meters from somebody staring right at me without knowing I was there. As if I actually stole something from their integrity.” “I consider them an investigation of self-image,” she continues. “I have always wanted to know how people look when they see only themselves – a look that is almost impossible to get if you show the camera.” Watching You Watch Me can be viewed on Karlberg’s website and was recently exhibited in Sweden. This gave her subjects the opportunity for feedback. One subject was a photographer and supportive of the project, but one female subject was uneasy, says Karlberg. “She came to the opening and found it very uncomfortable seeing herself exhibited in a gallery and not knowing in what contexts her picture would be later published. I suggested I could cover her picture if she insisted.” Photos: Moa Karlberg
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Stealth Portraits Fuel Debate Over Privacy Laws
By Wired, on March 29th, 2011%
Statue in Laos. Photo: Tomas van Houtryve A month after the launch of the new crowd funding platform for photojournalism, Emphas.is, one of its users reports from the road. Belgian photographer and Emphas.is fundraiser Tomas van Houtryve tells us about the good, the bad and the future of this work in progress. “It’s a bit like being a test pilot for an exotic new aircraft,” says van Houtryve. “I can feel the huge potential and the power of the platform, but I’ve also had to adapt and cope as the site engineers have worked through fixing the early technical glitches.” Van Houtryve is referring to coding issues that delayed the official launch of Emphas.is. As developers raced to finish the site, the launch was pushed back; first days, then weeks. Set to launch in January, Emphas.is went live March 7th. When Emphas.is was proposed last year, fanfare rang out among new media evangelists and photography bloggers alike. Like a Kickstarter for photographers, the site offered exclusive access to photojournalists and their projects in exchange for small contributions. Nieman Labs , The British Journal of Photography , New York Times , Fast Company , BBC and even we here at Raw File all lined up to spread the gospel of crowd-funding. “I really wanted to be one of the first photographers to give Emphas.is a try,” says van Houtryve. “Based on the launch dates that they initially announced, I cleared my schedule for several weeks to dedicate to fundraising, followed by a trip to Laos timed with key events on the ground.” Van Houtryve’s ongoing project 21st Century Communism documents the remaining Red nations in the world. Laos will be his final chapter. Unwilling to wait for the Emphas.is launch and risk missing events in Laos, van Houtryve took matters into his own hands and posted a project synopsis, video and an early call for support on his own website. He followed that with a “flurry of emails and Facebook postings.” His guile paid off – within three days he raised $1935. “It was short of the total $8800 budget that I need to finance the project,” says van Houtryve, “but I had enough [money] to book my plane ticket for Laos.” As it happened, the Emphas.is site went live the day before van Houtryve’s departure for the small Communist nation. Upon launch, Emphas.is site’s code sputtered; backers were unable to make donations. Three days later van Houtryve arrived at a town in Laos with an internet connection and saw contributions were starting to add up. The teething problems were being addressed. Van Houtryve sent out his first exclusive dispatch to the project backers, with details about crossing the border and a “shady Chinese casino in the Golden Triangle.” Then it was back on the road. The pressure of time has been the hardest challenge for van Houtryve, “I would not recommend tight schedules where one has to juggle shooting, fundraising and a withering travel schedule. It’s been very intense keeping all the elements on track.” Despite travails, van Houtryve sees a lot of promise. “It’s an intuitive model,” he says. “Backers have started to pose relevant questions. As my project proposal has made its way through social networks and attracted support from strangers, I’ve made some really fruitful new connections. In addition to generous funding contributions, several individuals have stepped forward with key contacts and very precise and helpful advice. I have already managed to make stronger photos due to their input. This is a pleasant shift over the lone-wolf existence.” The attraction of an initiatives such as Emphas.is are their transparency. As it skips, stumbles and grows up in public, we are witness to its successes and failures; funders learn at the same pace as the developers and the photographers. “Emphas.is isn’t a magic bullet that will solve every problem plaguing visual journalism, but I think it is turning out to be a good model for long-term documentary projects,” says van Houtryve. “I have a crowd of very supportive people behind me, and it is clear that they have a stake in the project’s success. It’s very inspiring.” – – – Check out Tomas van Houtryve’s Emphas.is pitch – 21st Century Communism – Laos and all the Emphas.is projects seeking funding.
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Crowd Funding for Photography Gets Off to Shaky Start
By Wired, on March 28th, 2011%
A Manchester-based photographer spends hours in the studio bringing you well-known cities — but as you’ve never seen them before. When Andrew Brooks learned the skills needed to manouvre the high-end post-production equipment used in advertising photography, his creativity and eye for detail lead him to completely new worlds. These panoramic and mystical images have been created from hundreds, and in some cases, thousands, of detailed photographs of urban scenes that have been meticulously spliced together. Speaking to Wired.co.uk, Brooks explained his work process: “They are all composite images, made of at least 40, if not hundreds of, individual photos. I don’t try to capture the image in one go, but prefer to gain as much detail as possible and then piece it together in Photoshop and post-production.” Brooks insists that, despite the amount of images he processes, his is not a mathematical process and boycotts the tripod when he’s out shooting: “It’s not about having the camera in one position. I shot the image of Pudong from ten different points in the tower. Afterwards, I build it how I want.” This “jigsawing” of multiple shots often produces staggering results. But sometimes a stunning view alone is inspiration enough: “I know when I’m in front of a view that’s really interesting,” says Brooks. “In these cases, I need to catch as much information as possible and then try to go back and try to define what it was that made that scene interesting; whether it was the detail or the light, for example.” Detail is still incredibly important to Brooks, despite the huge area his photographs cover, and he encourages viewers to explore the hi-res images of downtown New York and the fantasy scene of Sealand on his website. The latter image is made up of pictures of a pier in Holland, oil refineries and industry in Liverpool and tower blocks in Manchester and explores the story behind Sealand , a fort off the Essex coast which has been deemed its own country. Similarly, while the New York image may seem familiar, Brooks has worked his magic on some major landmarks. “You hardly ever see a picture where you can capture the real geography of Manhattan,” he explains, “but as I put it together I made downtown 30 percent larger than it is in real life and increased the size of the Statue of Liberty by 50 percent.” Although he arguably makes it look rather different, the world’s scenery remains Brooks’ inspiration: “I love using my photography as a way of travelling. It’s almost a framework for how I see the world.” Next on his list are the Aura Borealis and underwater shots of coral reefs. Check out a gallery of Brooks’ composites at Wired.co.uk .
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In Pictures: How Andrew Brooks is Photoshopping the World
By Wired, on March 24th, 2011%
Firefighter Zheng Zhanhong (entering water) attempts to rescue colleagues Zhang Liang (top left) and Han Xiao Xiong (top right). Zhang Liang went under the oil soon after this photo was taken and drowned. Zhang and Xiao Ziong were attempting to fix an underwater pump during the oil spill clean-up operations at Dalian’s Port on July 20, 2010. Photo: Lu Guang/Greenpeace Last July, while America was coming to terms with the fallout from the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill , China itself was dealing with the largest oil spill in its history in the city of Dalian. During the disaster, a fatal act of bravery was caught on film by a nearby photographer. Assigned by Greenpeace to the area, Chinese photographer Lu Guang documented the environmental destruction and the clean-up effort in Dalian. While he was photographing the city’s harbor for his assignment, a 25 year-old firefighter named Zhang Liang waded into the harbor to clear a water pump but lost his footing. Despite efforts by rescuers, Liang drowned. With shaking hands, Lu Guang photographed Liang’s death on 47 digital files. The episode lasted less than six minutes. A second firefighter, Han Xiao Xiong lost consciousness beneath the slick but was rescued. The tragic series of photos later won third prize in the 2011 World Press Photo awards’ spot news category. “Had I not taken these picture of Zhang Liang, his sacrifice would have perhaps gone unnoticed and people would not have been aware of the extent of the oil spill,” says Lu Guang in Through the Lens: the Dalian Oil Spill , a short video produced by Greenpeace. The film aims to bring continued attention to the environmental disaster, pay tribute to Zhang Liang and give the photographer, who also photographed Liang’s memorial service, an opportunity to describe his experience as a witness to death. The spill started on July 17th, 2010, when two oil pipelines exploded in Dalian, sending flames hundreds of feet into the air. The pipelines burned for over 15 hours and released thousands of gallons of oil into the harbor and the Yellow Sea. Five days after the disaster the oil slick covered 165 sq. miles. The Chinese government reported the leak at 1,500 tons. Speaking to Greenpeace, Dr. Richard Steiner, professor at The University of Alaska and a specialist in oil spills, estimated the Dalian spill at 90,000 tons . Nevertheless, less than two weeks after the spill Greenpeace assessed the response by Chinese authorities and thousands of volunteer fishermen as “timely and generally effective.” As with the BP spill in the U.S., the long-term effects remain to be seen. – – – More pictures of the spill at The Big Picture.
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Photog Reflects on Images of Oil Spill Drowning
By Wired, on March 23rd, 2011%
> Pakistan Ordnance Factory demonstrates machine guns and automatic rifles. > View all As Hollywood describes them, Middle Eastern arms deals are nefarious meet-ups in the middle of a desert with black SUVs, automatic weapons and metal briefcases, but the reality is more like a sterile, home-appliance trade show. Photographer Spencer Murphy visited Abu Dhabi’s 2007 International Defence Exhibition and Conference , or IDEX. Governments and contractors at the biennial expo fill their shopping carts with the latest weapons. Its show floor is packed with trade booths, but instead of iPad cases or videogames, they are populated by bored arms dealers in bad lighting. There’s “an absence of death and destruction, and in their place [are] suited salesmen and plastic plants,” says Murphy. His resulting photo series is titled Architects of War . As popular uprisings unfold across North Africa and the Middle East, understanding the conflicts requires not just a knowledge of who is fighting but who is providing the weapons. Egyptian protesters on Jan. 27 tweeted pictures of an American-made tear gas canister fired on them. A pressured British government revoked dozens of arms-trading agreements with Bahrain and Libya on Feb. 18. During his four day tour of Egypt last month, British Prime Minister David Cameron was forced to defend himself against accusations of courting Egypt’s interim military leadership and drumming up future business for British defense companies. Murphy’s photos are from 2007’s IDEX, but are imbued with new meaning in light of this year’s trade show, held Feb. 20 to Feb. 24, just as the ongoing Libyan standoff with Gadhafi loyalists was in its infancy. In a turn of cultural cognitive dissonance, governments and contractors filled their shopping carts with the hottest weapons in Abu Dhabi while the world anxiously watched the violence unfold in Libya. “Most people [at IDEX] were more than happy to let me photograph their stands and pose alongside their wares,” says Murphy of 2007’s show. “I have since been twice to a similar event in London, and it did not provide the same wealth of images. Stands were less photography-friendly and people seemed a lot more wary. In Abu Dhabi, there are banners up advertising IDEX and no evidence of the same kind of peace demonstrations that go on outside the London equivalent.” IDEX, hosted every two years, is the “largest defense and security event in the Middle East and North African region,” according to the event’s website. It has grown steadily since the first arms show in 2005, now boasting 900 exhibitors from more than 50 countries. Big guns are big business. A congressional report set the value of worldwide arms deals in 2009 as $57.5 billion. American companies accounted for 39 percent of the worldwide market with $22.6 billion of sales. IDEX is not open to members of the public, and access is strictly managed. Attendees must pass through airport-like security. Murphy says his series “is not a statement about the countries or individuals that appear in the images, as they simply had the best stands and allowed me to take pictures.” “Countries from all around the globe are present and offer everything from pepper spray to tanks and aircraft,” he says. “I do not want to make an intentional moral statement but merely present to the viewer a world that most of us don’t get to see.” It’s been four years since he attended IDEX, but Murphy doubts that much has changed. “I imagine it will still look very similar, the people will still be the same. The only differences are the technologies on offer,” he says. — Photographs from Murphy’s Architects of War are included in The Spectacle of War exhibit at The Empty Quarter Gallery, Abu Dhabi, March 14 to April 30, 2011. Murphy is not the only photographer to have visited IDEX. Martin Parr said of the 2009 event, “I have photographed many fairs in my time, but this is the strangest of them all.” For more on IDEX 2011, Raw File recommends Abu Dhabi’s English-language publication The National . See also BagNewsNotes’ response to IDEX 2011 . All images © Spencer Murphy
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Middle East Arms Expo an Oddly Peaceful Scene
By Wired, on March 1st, 2011%
> Heart Attack, Male, 50 years old, I. 2010. > View all When we think about death not many of us consider the actual gunk that bodies leave behind — the fluids and gases of decomposition. In the case of murder, suicide or unexpectedly fatal illness, things are not likely to be pleasant or tidy. See Also: Photographer Exposes Crime Scenes, With a Dash of Chemistry Slaughterhouse Blood Forms Eerie Artwork Sarah Sudhoff takes portraits of these messes. She shoots swatches of material collected at death-site cleanups in a series called At the Hour of Our Death . “My intention with the images is not to be shocking or gory,” says Sudhoff. “I can understand how some people might see them as being so; especially those who have never witnessed a severe injury or illness or the death of a loved one.” Originally Sudhoff planned to photograph scenes of death before and after the work of cleanup crews “juxtaposing the event with the absence of the event” but she was roundly ignored by the companies she contacted. The project took a new direction after Sudhoff met a clean-up crew returning with material from the scene of a suicide. “I was shown an oval shaped section of mattress which had been removed,” says Sudhoff. “Visually these smaller, concentrated fragments of evidence grabbed my attention. The stains from this person’s passing transformed the ordinary beige mattress into beautiful hues of yellow and red.” There’s a good chance Sarah Sudhoff has thought a little more about death than the average twenty-something. In 2004, she went through treatment for cervical cancer. In her series that followed, titled Repository (NSFW), Sudhoff viscerally photographs hospitals, morgues and medical museums with herself as a model. “My experiences with illness and death are not out of the ordinary,” says Sudhoff. “However, my understanding of my own mortality and those of my loved ones has been by effected by experiencing different manners in which people can and do die.” Without chemical intervention, dead bodies degrade rapidly. When a human heart stops, gravity pulls blood to the lowest points of the body, skin adopts a chalky pallor and, with the onset of rigor mortis, calcium ions move into muscle tissue. Bacteria within the corpse rapidly multiply and — if the mouth is not ajar — escaping gases push it open. Expect this noxious sigh about three hours after death. In the absence of embalming and/or refrigeration, putrefaction kicks in after 48 hours. The flesh — now a creamy consistency — turns black where it is exposed. Decomposition speeds up; the body collapses. As the body dries out, some surfaces may develop mold; cheese-like odors come to the fore. These are the realities that Sudhoff sees as whitewashed for the average person, with an alienating and dissociative effect on our view of death. She is not comfortable with the impersonal clean-up job that characterizes our funeral industry. Her photographs of stains on fabric – stains that are the result of exiting body fluids after death – are part memorial to the deceased and part protest against the denial shrouding death and decay in our culture. “People are no longer dying under the care of an immediate family member,” says Sudhoff. “This care and clean up is hired out. I am not making a judgment on this practice but rather suggesting that these actions remove us from the eventuality of what is to come.” It’s common practice, for example, to preserve a corpse in order to present it as if it were still living during an open-casket funeral. It gives us finality, but not reality. U.S. laws on the treatment of bodies are determined by individual states, though it is generally required that corpses are refrigerated and embalmed within 24 hours. Embalming on a large scale was first ordered by Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War to ensure families received well-preserved bodies of dead soldiers since transporting the dead home took weeks. And her own inevitable demise? Sudhoff is keenly aware of the business of death. “I have already communicated my final wishes to my family,” she says. “I do not wish to become the property of an undertaker. I do not wish my body to be drained and pumped full of chemicals and placed inside a fancy facade. Rather, I want my body to be cared for by those who knew and loved me. To be buried in a dirt grave or wooden box. Simple, straightforward and personal.” Filmmakers Mark and Angela Walley follow photographer Sarah Sudhoff as she works on her series titled At the Hour of Our Death . In the film, Sudhoff discusses the invisibility of death in our culture. All photos: Sarah Sudhoff – – – At the Hour of Death was shot on a Contax 645, 120mm Macro lens, Fujichrome Provia 100. Photography has long had an association with death. Post-mortem photography has existed since the birth of the medium. Walter Schels’ Life Before Death , made up of portraits of willing participants before and after their death, went on show recently in London. Of contemporary photographers dealing with the subject of death, Sudhoff lists Andres Serrano , Sam Taylor-Wood and Joel Peter-Witkin, but Sally Mann – an artist Sudhoff describes as showing “reverence and kindness to the deceased” – is her largest inspiration.
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Stained Fabrics Reveal Death’s Mess
By Wired, on February 25th, 2011%
> Miranda July > View all At first glance, Carlo Van de Roer ’s fuzzy color portraits appear to fall in line with the dreamy aesthetics of art-college photo portfolios, or fashion shooters playing around with bokeh, sun spots and toy cameras. But all is not as it seems. Van de Roer’s Portrait Machine Project is shot with a piece of controversial new-age technology called an AuraCam . The resulting “aura portraits” may be more at home in psychic fair stalls than in Soho studios. “The manufacturers of these cameras make the claim that their technology can depict what a psychic might see,” says Van de Roer, “a claim that’s difficult to objectively prove. It’s an excessive example of a familiar idea — that a camera can provide an insight into the unseen.” Portrait Machine continues Van de Roer’s flirtation with photography’s spiritual intersections. With Baldessari -esque vandalism, his portfolio Orbs mocks the interpretation of backscatter (usually dust or precipitation) on camera lenses as spectral matter. For Blinded by the Light Van de Roer uses his flash’s reflection on the glass cases of dioramas to make the animals contained within appear to be fixated on a floating ball of light. A Kirlian image of a finger. Image: Plínio Ganzer Moreira The seeds of aura photography were sown in 1939 by Russian scientist Semyon Kirlian . Kirlian accidentally discovered that an an object placed on a photographic plate connected to a source of voltage produced an image of that object surrounded by some mysterious energy. It’s a similar effect to putting your hand one of those plasma spheres full of pink lightning. What Kirlian photography actually depicts and what it can be used for is uncertain. Many acupuncturists, chi-channelers and even a few credible doctors believe in its diagnostic potential, while doubters point out that these “auras” do not show up in a vacuum and therefore are simply interactions between electricity and particles on the skin and in the air. Insofar as our emotions are manifested as condensation on our skin, perhaps there is some common ground between the two camps. In the early ’80s, among the many Silicon Valley garage startups was an idealistic engineer more interested in cosmic energy than personal computers. Dr. Guy Coggins (who has the implausible middle name ‘Aura’) rode the California culture of crystals and mood rings and adapted existing imaging technology to bring the first aura camera to mass market. The camera gave new-age acolytes the chance to see their “auras” in a photograph. The first incarnation, the AuraCam3000, was later replaced by the AuraCam6000, which will set you back $10,000 new. Aware of the AuraCam’s quirks, Van de Roer initially photographed people he knew well, people whose auras he thought he could predict. He was intrigued by the tension between the camera’s interpretations and his own expectations. Later, Van de Roer decided to expand the project to subjects — mainly New York artists — familiar to his audience to make the photos more accessible. It remains the viewer’s responsibility to decide what exactly the portraits mean. We enjoy Van de Roer’s portraits and the odd element that the AuraCam introduces, so please check out his work. If your curiosity is piqued, like ours was, by this unique piece of camera equipment, read on to learn more. How the AuraCam Works During a 10-second double exposure, subjects place each hand upon one of two boxes fitted with biofeedback receptors. According to claims, the receptors measure the sitter’s electromagnetic field by monitoring acupressure points that correspond to energy channels in the body called Ayurvedic meridians. An attached data box converts the energy readings into frequencies that correspond to certain colors. The first exposure of two seconds makes a straight Polaroid portrait. Then, based on the biofeedback data returned to the camera, a second exposure of six to eight seconds superimposes the color clouds. According to a color key , red people are joyful, orange auras connote happy and creative moods, disciplined folk turn up yellow, green is the color of healing, sensitive and solitary individuals are blue, violet is the hue of relaxation, and spiritual people glow white. The AuraCam can use Fuji FP-100C, Polaroid 108 or Polaroid 669 film stock. Dr. Coggins On the AuraCam website , Coggins proclaims, “When we realize that everything originates from within, we’ll see that all the love, peace, and happiness in the universe is inside. We can have that. It’s really so simple and easy when you learn about the unique splendor of your own energy.” Despite his promotional zeal, Coggins clarifies that “[the AuraCam] does not photograph the actual aura. There’s nothing that exists which can do this.” Further legalese defines the scientific uselessness of the AuraCam: “Our technology is not designed to reveal physical or mental sickness. Our camera is to be used for viewing the spiritual aura state only.” Known over the centuries by many names ( chi , prana , karnaeem , Illiaster ), the human aura is central to many mystic beliefs. To witness and capture auric energies, also referred to as bioplasmic fields, is something of a holy grail for people who need to see to believe. After nearly 30 years, the AuraCam remains the industry leader for these types of images. Coggins encourages buyers to use the AuraCam for aura consultations at bookstores and fairs; he even supplies profitability tables . Coggins also built a custom aura-measuring device for L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology. Auras for the Home? If you haven’t got ten grand to splurge on the AuraCam 6000, Coggins has an affordable alternative. WinAura computer software brings aura photography into the 21st century and into the living room. The WinAura program unleashes “real-time biofeedback technology” so you can interact with your aura on your computer screen. The battle for market share between Coggins’ WinAura and its main competitor, The Aura Video Station , has begun. – – – Carlo Van de Roer’s Portrait Machine Project will be on show at the M+B Gallery , 612 North Almont Drive, Los Angeles, from the 16th April onwards. For the easiest read on the history of aura photography, Wired recommends C.E. Lindgren’s Auras and Aura Photography: Is It Real? For a video on the AuraCam: http://www.auraphoto.com/adhd/page15.shtml
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Aura Portraits Make Good Art, Bad Science
By Wired, on February 8th, 2011%
> Ships in a bottle. Pointillist paintings. Josephson Microphones. When an obsessive personality finds a labor of love, the results can be both impressive and a little geeky. See Also: Ribbon Microphones Rally for Vintage-Audio Geeks Ribbon Microphones: Audio Icon You Can Build in Your Garage Birth of the Microphone: How Sound Became Signal The designers at Josephson use their zest for minutiae, anechoic chambers and a battery of precision instruments to build microphones to tolerances measured in nanometers. They pick dust off components one particle at a time. Craftsmanship like that does not come cheap. Some Josephson mics cost as much as $7,000, but their owners say they are worth every cent. Josephson’s facilities are located across from a boutique bakery and hair salon in a refurbished industrial area of Santa Cruz, California. The offices resemble a college physics lab and the employees older versions of the students you would find there. Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at how some of the world’s finest microphones are made. Above: The Chamber of Sonic Secrets Stick your head inside Josephson’s anechoic chamber, a big box that blocks out exterior sound and suppresses echoes, and you will discover that pure silence is the opposite of peaceful. Like being in pitch darkness, the nearly complete quiet is disorienting, a novel sensation that initiates a kind of instinctual threat assessment. Once you’ve heard nothing, you realize that in normal life you are always hearing something, even if it is an almost imperceptible hum. > View all All photos: Jim Merithew/Wired.com
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Extreme Audiophiles Take Microphones to Next Level
By Wired, on January 31st, 2011%
> Back-door area. > View all If nuclear attack or civil breakdown ever threatens the United Kingdom, the heads of government and the military know where to go. Beneath the streets of London, deeper than the capitol’s famous tube system, exists a hidden bunker on constant standby. Replete with blast doors, a broadcast studio and a giant screen resembling CNN’s massive touchscreen wall on The Situation Room , this nuclear safe house sits in wait for the end of the world. Welcome to the Ministry of Defence’s Crisis Command Center, subterranean England. David Moore ’s series The Last Things documents a complex to which no other photographer has ever gained access. According to Moore, the ministry’s official line is that the Crisis Command Center “doesn’t exist,” which is the case inasmuch as the policy of the ministry is not to discuss its facilities. “I told the Ministry of Defence, ‘I am not a journalist, I am an artist,’” Moore said in a Skype interview. “That was very important. They needed to know I wasn’t doing an exposé.” Although Moore was unable to confirm or deny the fact, it is widely speculated that The Last Things documents the Pindar complex constructed beneath Whitehall in the 1990s. As of today the facility has only been used for less-grandiose purposes as a communication center and to play out war-game scenarios. One gets the impression that it is an ill-timed response to a Cold War mentality, with its actual utility uncertain. Prior to beginning the work in 2006, Moore enlisted the help of Angela Weight, former Keeper of Art at the Imperial War Museum in London. Together they lobbied ministry officials. “We had a series of meetings, slowly climbing the hierarchy of authority,” said Moore. Always accompanied by a low-ranking officer, the photographer had a loose agreement about what he could and could not shoot. It was clear when certain doors were to remain locked. “At a point, I wondered if I was being sold a lie — if I was being shown things that weren’t actually in operation,” he said. As the project progressed, however, his paranoia waned. To this day, Moore is not certain why he was granted entry’ He was only told by a ministry official that his work “fell within operational guidelines.” By prior agreement, the ministry received several of Moore’s prints for its permanent art collection, which probably sweetened the deal. Moore has been led to believe no other freelance photographer will ever gain access to the site, though interestingly, the ministry does employ its own in-house photographers, whose photos are presumably for use in internal reports. Upon completion of the project, Moore and the Ministry of Defence convened for a censorship panel. No images could be — or have been — released without ministry approval. “I was asked to digitally manipulate some of the images,” said Moore. “Door numbers [were redacted]. We haggled over descriptions and captions.” As Weight describes in her afterword to The Last Things , “There was to be no compromise [on captions]; any form of linkage or association, such as the word ‘government’ for example, was firmly denied.” The negotiations became part of Moore’s process. He came to think of these amendments as things added, not taken away: “I dedicate a page in the book to describing the changes I’ve made. I make it obvious.” The Last Things continues Moore’s portfolio of works on secret and relevant state infrastructure. “My work is not nostalgic,” says Moore. “My photographs are always of live spaces. The crisis command center is not mothballed.” He’s previously taken a forensic view of the Britain’s Houses of Parliament and has since photographed the top-security jail cells for terrorist suspects inside Paddington Green Police Station, London. Moore is currently working on access to other classified sites that remain unnamed. “My work shows hidden spaces,” he said. “I want to use photography as a democratic tool. Looking at state apparatus and panoptic sites, I see my work as an act of visual democracy.” – – – The Last Things , with texts by Chris Petit & Angela Weight is published by Dewi Lewis (2008). It is Moore’s third book. Listen to a podcast of David Moore speaking about The Last Things at Belfast Exposed. All photos © David Moore.
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Inside London’s Secret Crisis-Command Bunker
By Wired, on January 18th, 2011%
> Lab owner: Adrian Ensor > View all There were 204 photo printing labs in and around London in 2006, printing images from film stock to paper. By 2009, only six remained. In each of these labs’ darkrooms were photo enlargers, themselves quite large, that projected the images from film negatives onto a piece of photo paper. Richard Nicholson ’s series Analog — The Last One Out, Please Turn On the Light is a requiem for these hulking machines, now gradually wending their way to obscurity and landfill. For over a century, the vast infrastructure of film photography was steadily growing and evolving, but the rise of digital equipment over the last decade has forced it to decay exponentially. In many cases it’s disappearing entirely. Polaroid film has already been discontinued, and just last month the last rolls of Kodachrome were processed at Dwayne’s Photo in Parsons, Kansas. Just because the use of analog printing tools is shrinking, however, doesn’t mean it will die altogether. As black-and-white printer Jim Margeree has reminded us, there is still a lot to talk about “ beyond the trite ‘analog vs. digital’ clichés. ” There is too much chatter about death in photography, and for photojournalism in particular. Nicholson’s Analog is a celebration as much as it is a goodbye. Nicholson spoke with Raw File about his motives, his challenges, his own use of analog and digital technologies and just what happened to those giant enlargers: Wired.com : Why this subject? Richard Nicholson : I love darkrooms. My father built one when I was a child and introduced me to photography. I’ve always enjoyed printing my own work. In 2006, the hire darkroom I was using became very quiet. Canon had just released the 5D camera and photographers were rushing to switch from film to digital. London labs were closing in quick succession. The writing was on the wall for film, but I didn’t want to let it go. I started looking at the darkroom in a new light. I was most interested in the enlargers — hulking specimens of modernist industrial design. It struck me they had a human scale and form: a neck, head, two armatures. I felt sorry for them. Each craft used to have its own highly engineered machines, but these have been rendered obsolete by the computer. I’m no Luddite. I wouldn’t turn the back the clock, but I think the crafts and these machines deserve to be remembered. The project focuses on the darkrooms of professional printers. I wanted to photograph lived-in spaces. The personal details soften the hard lines of the machinery. Wired.com : Your series is a moment for photo lovers to consider the fall of analog printing. What was loved most about the analog darkroom and what won’t be missed? Nicholson : Many will miss the darkness, silence and privacy of the darkroom: It could be a meditative space. But I’ve always used hire darkrooms and miss the energy of a group of ambitious young photographers trying to outdo each other. There’s a drama to making a print in the darkroom. You’re always working against the clock. I don’t miss the chemicals. I was becoming increasingly allergic to them. It would be hard to go back to the darkroom now — Photoshop is a much more sophisticated printmaking tool. Wired.com : What has been the reaction of the photo community to Analog ? Nicholson : The project has been very popular, especially with young photographers who were brought up on digital. Wired.com : How do you personally feel about the rise of digital? Is it drastic-catastrophic or is it just a progression of technology on the tide of which photographers should ride? Nicholson : I switched to digital shortly after completing this project which I shot on 4-inch-by-5-inch film. I had the usual epiphany — maybe more so, as I had been digging my heels in for so long. At the capture stage, the instant feedback of digital is hugely liberating. Sure, we had Polaroids before, but each Polaroid took two minutes to cook, so you could only do so many test shots. And Polaroids looked like shit. As far as output is concerned, I still prefer chemical prints to inkjets. I don’t like the way the ink sits on the surface of an inkjet print. Wired.com : Would you say that a small number of committed individuals will maintain the analog processes and therefore be as bold to say that darkroom printing will never die? Nicholson : Black-and-white printing will endure. The materials for color printing can only be manufactured on an industrial scale, and I doubt they will be available in 10 years’ time. A shame, as my favorite analog print is the unloved C-type (color print from color negative). Wired.com : Were there any tricky challenges in making the work? Nicholson : Each image was made in total darkness. I would switch off the lights, open the camera’s shutter, and then walk around the darkroom illuminating the scene with multiple bursts from a handheld flashgun. Darkrooms are cramped spaces and I had to be careful not to kick the tripod. Wired.com : Were you a customer at any of these labs, and do you plan to follow closely the fortunes of the remaining labs? Nicholson : Yes, I was a customer at several. But not a good customer, as I only ever wanted my film processed. I’ve always done the printing myself. I hope the remaining labs survive and prosper. A huge number have closed, whilst others have morphed into other fields — inkjet printing, CMYK conversions, etc. There is still a demand for silver-gelatin exhibition prints. Sadly, the remaining professional printers are approaching retirement age, and there isn’t enough work for them to employ and train the next generation of printers. Meanwhile I’ve moved on to other projects. I’m interested in photography that is about photography. Not for any clever-clever postmodern reason, but simply because photography is my first love. Whilst this project can be regarded as a simple historical document, I’m more interested in the aesthetics: I see a melancholic beauty in these spaces. Wired.com : Do you know what has happened to all the equipment from the different labs in your photos? Nicholson : A lot of it ended up in skips. Some got donated to schools and colleges. – – – Analog — The Last One Out, Please Turn On the Light is on show at Riflemaker Gallery , 79 Beak St., Regent Street, London W1F 9SU, until March 11. E-mail: info@riflemaker.org . Video: Richard Nicholson talks about the darkrooms and his project: The dying art of the photographic darkroom . Considering the objects of extinction, it’s no surprise that there are many photographers composing photographic obituaries of the analog craft. Kindred projects to Nicholson’s Analog include Michel Campeau’s Darkroom , John Cyr’s Developer Trays and Robert Burley’s The Disappearance of Darkness .
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Photo Enlargers Loom Like Dinosaurs of the Film Age
By Wired, on January 13th, 2011%
> Soraya Darabi, Foodspotting . > View all “Solitude vivifies; isolation kills.” —Abbé Joseph Roux, 19th-century priest and poet. On paper, it sounds like one of the worst ideas for a photo project: Portraits of bloggers? At their computers? But Gabriela Herman ’s photos of exactly that are surprisingly thoughtful, deep and compelling. They bring out the hidden drama in an extremely passive-looking activity. Herman’s Bloggers sheds light –- usually the glow of the laptop screen -– to the previously invisible rise of dormitory pundits. She shows us not only the physical spaces where blogging takes place and the people behind the blogs, but also the human connections made over those apartment wi-fi connections. “I wanted to bring their intimate worlds to the outside public,” says Herman. “Ultimately though, Bloggers is more about rethinking the way we experience the world, looking at how we live and spend our time.” Ancient lore tells us of a time when blogs were the exclusive playground of nerds who hand-coded every page themselves in pure HTML. Now everyone from Fortune 500 companies to cats with cheezburgers have adopted blogs to shape the world with their commentary. WordPress alone has more than 25 million accounts. Wired’s 2002 declaration of the blog’s arrival now seems foolishly self-evident. The blog’s big bang has led many to question whether communicating with a larger audience from a secluded room is more or less social than speaking with a vastly smaller network of people face-to-face. For her part, Herman disputes that technology has an isolating effect. “I believe bloggers are connecting us, bringing us closer,” she says, “allowing for an interactive platform, a two-way dialogue that allows for both online and offline relationships to form.” For her, Herman says, blogs are a “comfort” and her “go-to source for information.” Appropriately, Herman’s method for finding her subjects mimics the subject she’s documenting. Following each shoot, Herman asked the sitter to recommend someone on his or her blog roll as her next subject. The series of portraits began to mirror the tentative web links between the subjects and their online activity. “In the beginning I ended up with a lot of photography bloggers, because those were the ones I knew and had access to,” says Herman. “Then through referrals I ended up meeting a lot of media bloggers.” With thoughts leaning toward a future show, Herman is now reaching out to higher-profile bloggers and is focusing on individuals who make a living through blogging. All photos: Gabriela Herman
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Voyeuristic Blogger Portraits Put Faces to URLs
By Wired, on January 12th, 2011%
> [This article is the second in a two-part series. Read Part 1: Relics Reborn — Ribbon Microphones Rally for Vintage-Audio Geeks .] As studio-quality home-recording equipment has become cheaper over the years, a good microphone — a key component of a bedroom setup — has remained prohibitively expensive for many amateurs. Ribbon mics are widely considered among the best microphones, but they can easily cost thousands of dollars. See Also: Ribbon Microphones Rally for Vintage-Audio Geeks Birth of the Microphone: How Sound Became Signal So it was no small boon when, over the last decade, a crop of cheap, Chinese-made ribbon mics appeared on the U.S. market. Suddenly the landscape for music engineers on a budget was more inviting. And while the quality of these microphones is predictably questionable, a handful of tinkerers have found that small modifications to these imports can exponentially improve their quality, thus shrinking the price tag for a comparable mic by a factor of 10. Though multiple Chinese companies sell ribbon mics under different brand names (most commonly Apex, MXL or Nady), many American customers suspect that most, if not all, of the Chinese mics are made in the same factory. Michael Joly, who upgrades Apex mics commercially, believes that portions of the Chinese imports are clones of the American-made AEA R84, which retails for $1,000. In most industries, the kind of direct copying perpetrated by Chinese manufacturers would trigger a lawsuit, but the original patents for ribbon mics have long since expired, and the technology hasn’t changed radically since the old days. As a result, the basic design of ribbon mics, from the guts of the ribbon assembly to the glossy chrome of the exterior, is something akin to collective property. Present-day builders can emulate the tried-and-true mics of the past, often copying a single element, such as the body of the mic or the layout of the ribbon. Even AEA, one of the most respected companies in the business, makes replicas of classic and copyright-free RCA ribbon microphones. What distinguishes top-quality mics from the mass-produced Chinese copies is craftsmanship — and a fixed address. As studio owner John Vanderslice points out, if something goes wrong with one of his American-made mics, he can pick up the phone and talk to the person who made it. Murky origins aside, some audio enthusiasts were surprised by the quality of Chinese-made mics, which offered respectable sound for around $100, a relatively low price. Top photo: College student and musician Jeffrey James used a piece of bathroom handrail for the chassis of a ribbon mic. James used plans from Rick Wilkinson, profiled later in this article. Bottom photo: The completed mic. Photos by Katherine Anderson. > View all
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Ribbon Microphones: Audio Icon You Can Build in Your Garage
By Wired, on January 11th, 2011%
> As part of our special feature on ribbon mics this week, we’re taking a trip through the microphone’s early days — from invention to old-school broadcasting. Enjoy these historic photos of a time when recorded and amplified audio were a novelty, rather than a necessity of everyday life. Above: Carbon-Button Microphone This drumlike device is a carbon-button microphone, patented by Emile Berliner in 1877. It was one of the first ever created and by far the most usable. Berliner is credited with inventing the carbon-button microphone in 1876. Though there were other microphone technologies in existence, Berliner’s design was more robust than the rest (including a liquid-based mic invented by Alexander Graham Bell). Bell himself was so impressed with the carbon-button that he bought the rights from Berliner for $50,000 (1.1 million dollars in today’s money), so he could use it in his telephone prototypes. Berliner called his microphone a “loose-contact transmitter” because it was composed of two electrical contacts separated by a thin layer of carbon. The “loose” contact was attached to a diaphragm that vibrated when struck by a sound wave. The other was connected to the output. Unfortunately for Berliner, his patent didn’t survive a legal challenge, which resulted in an 1892 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that gave the credit to Thomas Edison. In fact, neither Berliner nor Edison could rightfully claim full credit for the carbon-button mic. The idea for it had been around for years before they began their experiments, though it had never been perfected. > View all
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Birth of the Microphone: How Sound Became Signal
By Wired, on January 11th, 2011%
> Discuss the microphones used to record Pet Sounds , and you’ve earned one of the top merit badges of the music dork. It’s a flimsy ribbon of corrugated aluminum, no more than a few microns thick suspended between two magnets. It’s a microphone technology so elegant and simple that it remains essentially unchanged 80 years after its initial popularity. And it’s back. Ribbon microphones defined high-fidelity recorded sound for half-a-century before falling out of general use more than 30 years ago. Now, vintage devices can fetch four figures on eBay, and a new crop of manufacturers is designing new models for the growing market. A few intrepid hackers have been making dirt-cheap versions from scratch, and a handful of these home-brew mics have even managed to impress the pros. Old technologies frequently find new or extended life in music, where unique sound qualities are prized, and digital alternatives don’t always win over golden-eared audiophiles. Even by that measure, ribbon microphones stand out as a rare example of a full-fledged comeback, though not without controversy. Ribbon microphones captured iconic sounds from Bing Crosby’s pillow-talk vocals to Ringo Starr’s cymbal crashes and the audio of many iconic recordings made before the 1980s. Through their ubiquity on news broadcasts and talk-show-host desks, their signature look became iconic itself, and sublimated into our collective unconscious. The recording industry finally turned its back on the ribbon mic in the the 1970s, as industry giants, in a dust devil of cocaine and modern alternatives, abandoned many of the old recording techniques and gear. Ironically, it was this fall from grace that led to their salvation. When cast-off vintage ribbon mics began selling cheap, young recording engineers snapped them up and got hooked on their unique sound. Some of these bargain hunters rose to fame and fortune, and took their ribbon microphones back into the mainstream. In this two-part photo series, we begin by exploring the epic story of the ribbon microphone and its place in audiophilia and nostalgia. In Part 2, we will meet ribbon hackers who attempt to get thousands of dollars worth of quality out of mics that cost $100. Top photo: Edward R. Murrow speaks into the RCA 44 ribbon mic during his CBS News broadcast. The microphone was a workhorse of the broadcasting and recording industries in the 1950s. Photo: University of Maryland Library . Bottom photo: A ribbon sags between two magnets in a ribbon-mic module. When operational, this ribbon is taut and responsive. Photo: Michael Joly, OktavaMod Listen: Listen to this CBS News analysis with Edward R. Murrow from London, Jan. 1, 1942 , recorded with a ribbon microphone. [dewplayer: http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/rawfile/2011/01/murrow_in_london_vbr.mp3] > View all
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Relics Reborn: Ribbon Microphones Rally for Vintage-Audio Geeks
By Wired, on January 10th, 2011%
Inspired and perplexed by our image-saturated culture, French artist Leo Caillard has cast the Louvre as a larger than life playlist of masterpieces. In Caillard’s digitally rendered images, paintings display navigation elements from iTunes, iOS and Mac OS X. Museum goers flip through famous works like they would the albums of their music collection. Is it bad that we wish the Louvre really worked like this? “We see thousands of different pictures every day in news, art, fashion, internet ads, Facebook,” says Caillard. “Everything is together without any organization. People start to lose the ability to reflect on what they are looking at.” Caillard arrived at the UI concept after visiting Paris’ famous museums. He saw visitors looking at masterpieces for five seconds at a time, the same way they look at pictures on a mobile phone, and then move on to the next painting. An Apple product user himself, Caillard adopted the “highly recognizable” interface for the series titled Art Games . “I imagined people playing with art around them, like they would do playing with pictures on their iPhone/iPad,” says Caillard. Caillard is not against tech and its tools. Indeed, computers and software are what allow him to render his
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Artist Maps Apple’s UI Onto the Louvre’s Masterpieces
By Wired, on December 22nd, 2010%
> EVANSVILLE, Indiana — Local teenager Dave Smith hauled carloads of kids to the Soldiers and Sailors War Memorial Coliseum every week in the early 1950s to watch live wrestling. Now 74 years old, Smith still rarely misses a match and gets a $2 senior discount on the $10 admission. Before wrestling became a TV business, every big name did battle at the Coliseum — Steve Austin and Randy Savage among them. For some locals, that excitement never faded. Every Wednesday night, fans of the scripted but nonetheless brutal violence line up outside the Coliseum an hour before showtime. Though it’s unlikely to sell out, the premium seats fill up fast. In line, people greet each other by name and swap jokes. Many, like Smith, are longtime fans if not quasi-lifers. “The Coliseum has 882 seats, and I would love to see them full,” says wrestler Buzz Dupp, a Nashville transplant to Evansville. “I know I won’t make the WWE [World Wrestling Entertainment] or TNA [Total Nonstop Action] but I would love to wrestle when this place is full. It has a lot of history.” The wrestlers themselves range from students of the Jamie Dundee School of Wrestling, also held at the Coliseum, to independent contractors who battle their way from small towns to large cities three or four nights a week. Named wrestlers can earn up to $400 a night, while the others can earn as little as $5. Many are college students or have part-time jobs. Spectators at the Coliseum are rarely more than a few rows away from the action, and at least once during the night there is a good chance the fight will spill out into the crowd. The metal barrier and security people are there to protect the wrestlers from enthusiastic fans as much as the other way around. The venue’s relatively small size is a crowd pleaser, even if the wrestlers would prefer to see a bigger draw. This is the life that was portrayed so unforgivingly in 2008′s The Wrestler , which brought renewed attention and interest to untelevised matches like those at the Coliseum. Some wrestlers feel that the movie gave away too much. Sometimes “smart marks” will call out a wrestler’s next moves and burst the bubble of disbelief, while other fans expect a level of physical abuse that some of the more extreme scenes in the movie portray. But because of these details, the movie nails the dedication and hardship that the sport requires of the athletes. While Wired.com has been fascinated by fetish wrestling in the past — from freaks pile-driving each other on tortillas to Japanese monster brawls — we’re more impressed by the authentic, red-blooded American wrestlers entertaining fans every week all over this crazy country of ours. They don’t ever expect to be featured on Friday Night SmackDown , win a Slammy Award or — in some cases — even get paid, but they show up every week and give it their all. Come take a peek into some of the grueling, outrageous and ultimately charming hometown heroes of our favorite theatrical medium. Above: Die-Hard Fans It is an hour before the doors open and another half-hour before the wrestling begins, but Joni Cundiff, Ann Kratzer and Penny Lowe are there to be sure they get a front row seat. CCW stands for Coliseum Championship Wrestling. Built in 1916, the Coliseum is also home to the Downtown Rotary Club and Demolition City Roller Derby, one of the two flat-track roller-derby teams in the city. > View all
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Blood, Sweat and Spandex: Indie Wrestlers Do It for Fans
By Wired, on December 16th, 2010%
Possibly the most eye-catching appeal of the iPad is its vivid display of photos, so a photography magazine designed just for Apple’s tablet seems like a natural fit. 50pm is just that. Launched this month, 50pm is billed as “the first portfolio-based photography magazine for the iPad.” The app is a collaboration between Bite! and Daylight magazines. A free “lite” version is available for the iPhone. “Documentary and fine-art photographers need to adapt to the new economic realities of their trade,” says Diederik Meijer, founder of Bite! and editor-in-chief of 50pm . The iPad gives a promising but uncertain opportunity for photographers to connect with new audiences, he says. With approximately 50 downloads a day from iTunes at $2 per issue, adoption of the 50pm app by iPad users has been slow but steady. Building a loyal readership is an uphill climb for any publication. Since the majority of current photo apps on iTunes are more about filters and social networking, part of the battle for an iPad fine-art photography magazine is just letting people know that such a thing exists. “My feeling is that Bite! and Daylight audiences didn’t run to their nearest Apple store to buy the iPad,” says Meijer, “and that the people who do own an iPad have not been actively following documentary and fine-art photography.” Each 50pm issue is built around a universal theme. The theme for this month’s issue, their first, is “family matters” and includes portfolios by Chris Verene, Hee jin Kang, Mami Kiyoshi and Elizabeth Clark Libert. The next issue’s theme, which comes out Jan. 15th is “sports” and will include the portfolios of two recent World Press Photo winners. We really enjoy this app and recommend checking it out. There’s not much to it yet, but the photos come alive on the iPad and it’s a joy to flip through. Meijer says future add-ons include grid navigation and news-ladder function, and Spanish and Chinese versions are also in the works. Check out a video preview of the 50pm app . Images: Screenshots from 50pm .
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iPad-Only Photo Mag Puts Fine Art on iTunes
By Wired, on December 15th, 2010%
> About 40,000 young Swazi girls take part each year in the Umhlanga Dance, a rite of passage into womanhood. The polygamous King Mswati III, who already has 13 wives, may choose one of the 40,000 virgins as a new wife. Photo: Krisanne Johnson, from the series I Love You Real Fast . > View all The Magnum Foundation has launched a new initiative called the Emergency Fund to offer support for photographers working on thoughtful, long-form stories around the world. This new resource is a bright spot on a bleak horizon, as traditional media financing for documentary projects dries up. While the fund is not able to pick up the entire tab for a story, it promises to get fledgling projects off the ground. “We’re not giving out cushy grants that people can live on,” says Susan Meiselas, Magnum photographer and president of the Magnum Foundation, “We’re giving a boost that can get an important project started.” Each year, photography professionals will nominate 100 of their colleagues to submit proposals to the fund. An independent editorial board will then select between 10 and 20 projects to support, based on the importance of the issues the photographers propose to address. Completed projects will be distributed widely through traditional and new media, in collaboration with nonprofits or NGOs, and on the Emergency Fund website. Photographers retain the copyright to their work. An early success story for the fund is Krisanne Johnson’s I Love You Real Fast . The project documents the shortened life cycles of girls with AIDS in Swaziland. With the fund’s help it raised well over its original $7,500 goal on Kickstarter, an Emergency Fund partner. Other funding partners that are helping to keep deeper photo projects off the endangered species list include Open Society and Atlantic Philanthropies. Meiselas also hopes the fund will combat the potential conflict of interest of documentary photographers relying on NGOs and other organizations for financing. Aid groups can often influence a photographer’s project, intentionally or not, because they hold the purse strings. “We’re in a strange time,” she says. “With the traditional media not supporting new production, there’s a gap. Some advocacy groups now give assignments directly, but that raises all sorts of complicated [journalistic] issues. We’re trying to find a way to stay balanced in this chaotic environment.” Three years in the developing, the Emergency Fund project extends the philosophy and quality of Magnum Photos –- the oldest photo collective in the United States, beyond the work of its elite membership. The Magnum Foundation is a nonprofit with its own finances and board, operating independently of Magnum Photos. “We’re a charity, and we support the public interest,” says Meiselas. “The Magnum legacy is about supporting important work with an open heart, and passing down generations of experience.” Above are nine photos from some of the younger, less-well-known photographers supported by the Emergency Fund. View the new Emergency Fund Website . Follow the Emergency Fund on Twitter at @EmergencyFund . Connect with the Emergency Fund on Facebook . You can support the Magnum Foundation at www.magnumfoundation.org .
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New Magnum Fund Pays Out for Deep Photo Stories
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