Film Again! Sparks Media Day Shot with Leica M7, 50’lux, Kodak 800

Photographers who refuse to abandon film
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donald barnat 50lux.com

VIA THE BBC:

Film photography was supposed to have been killed off by the digital era – but a committed band of enthusiasts refuse to abandon the traditional camera. Stephen Dowling finds out why for some, film never went out of fashion.

Photographer Patrick Joust spends a great deal of time on the streets of his native Baltimore, drawn to capture both the city’s residents during the day and the lamp-lit solitude at night. He does all of this on film.

“It’s the medium that works best for the kind of work I want to do,” says Joust, who often lugs three cameras around the streets, loaded with different kinds of film.

“These old cameras can disarm people and can be the starting point for some great portraits. There’s something more friendly about film cameras, even quaint, and I try and make that work for me.”

via The photographers who refuse to abandon traditional film cameras – BBC News.

A Really Good Photo Day

I used to shoot for an online sports publication and my boss, SportsPage Mike, had one rule for the photogs: bring back shitloads of pictures. This inevitably led to both disaster and triumph. Team media days, which aren’t (or weren’t) really about roving photogs capturing the day, could be especially difficult. None of that on this media day. Los Angeles Sparks 2008. I hope these world class athletes don’t mind me saying that they were also, on this day, a solid team of beautiful women. Wow! I say DAMN!

Throwback Thursday: Leica 35mm f1.4 Summilux FLE Review in Pictures

An Embedded Photographer Empowers the Poor – NYTimes.com

Via NYTimes LENS –

Scenes of poverty are inescapable in a country like Bangladesh, where Western media and charities use them to generate outrage, sympathy and — sometimes — donations.

That bothered Shehab Uddin, a former newspaper photographer in Bangladesh who knew there was more to the story than downtrodden people victimized by poverty, not to mention photojournalists.

“When photographers visit a country like Bangladesh we don’t bother to ask permission from the people we want to photograph,” Mr. Uddin said. “We have the power, with thousands of dollars of gear, nice clothes and a good education, and we think we have every right to photograph.”

Mr. Uddin not only asked permission to photograph poor people. He also moved in with several families and later had them help select the images that he would exhibit in their neighborhoods.

An Embedded Photographer Empowers the Poor – NYTimes.com.

Spider Martin’s Photographs of Selma Get a Broader View – NYTimes.com

NYTimes:

When Spider Martin, a young photographer for The Birmingham News, stepped onto the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., on March 7, 1965, he knew exactly what to do.He ran to the top of the bridge “and got myself situated, like I’d done so many times, like shooting a football game, staying 10 or 20 yards ahead of the action, never knowing what the score was,” he later recalled.Today, everyone knows the score from that day in Selma, known as Bloody Sunday, thanks in part to Mr. Martin’s powerful images of the police beating back peaceful civil rights marchers, which were blasted around the world via The Associated Press.

via Spider Martin’s Photographs of the Selma March Get a Broader View – NYTimes.com.

From Smartphones to Museum Walls – NYTimes.com

LENS AT NYTIMES: While some professional photographers might grow nervous at the idea of Instagram users taking over a museum, Mr. Kuster said people should embrace it. “There is an amazing movement that’s happening in photography,” he said. “There are so many great and talented people who are finding their voice.”

via From Smartphones to Museum Walls – NYTimes.com.