Thomas Burke & Others

This, better than anything I’ve read to date, addresses the phenomenon of “Social Media”

“We’re collaborative animals, it turns out, and joyful amateurs, interested more in entertaining and informing ourselves than in being entertained and informed by professionals.”

It takes a couple of reads, but if you’re willing to slog through the word soup and get your knickers wet, there is a lot to find in Michael Wolff’s article in Vanity Fair, “Ringside at the Web Fight” What doesn’t make sense to my old brain when first read, gathers meaning, sometimes more than one, with review.

Very difficult to know where one fits in all of this, but it does mean that we’re swimming in a much bigger pond, that your words and thoughts are nested right there with everyone else’s, just as valuable and fraught with meaning (or not) as everyone else’s. If he’s right, there is some sorting out going to happen in the next few years. It seems that the internet ain’t over yet. I think, though, there’s place for photography in the mix.

Now for something completely off topic and totally cool. My friend Mike sent me this link:

Now here’s a photo contest. Why don’t they extend the offer to photography students in Northern Ireland as well?

Some years ago Annie Leibovitz did photograph the queen. It was a shoot that caused a row at the BBC. We like to stick to inanimate objects for just that reason. She did get some great shots however.

Here’s a link from Mike James that will inform those who want to know just how to shoot a portrait. This is from Jorg Colberg’s weblog about fine art photography.

Here’s the article:

Oh, those were simpler days. There is a reason why we, here at TB&O, tend not to take portrait commissions. We’ll do it when its an executive who needs his image for a corporate publication, but we’ll say no to a picture you might want of Aunt Maude.

In practice, photos like these are, we found, more difficult than they appear. When we made the staff images for our website, we tried to model the look and feel after images by George Hurrell who shot many of the great portraits of the stars in the 1930′s and 1940′s. (Sorry George) It wasn’t easy! Who would have thought.

Darryl does look a bit like Tyrone Power though.