Remember The Name

Neda Agha-Soltan (January 23, 1982 – June 20, 2009)

There are some stories that stick with us, that affect us more than the countless other disasters currently happening in this world we live in. The debacle that was the Iran elections a year ago still sticks in my mind, particularly the girl who would become the symbol of what those elections meant to the youth of Iran–Neda. HBO’s new documentary, For Neda, was a fascinating portrait of an ordinary girl who became an extraordinary icon in death. Her family and friends bravely went on camera and shared their memories of a young woman desperate to see the world and fight against the injustice so prevalent in her surroundings. The most stunning part of the documentary was that most of the footage was comprised of cell-phone videos taken during the time when people took to the streets and protested. Ten years ago, Neda’s death would’ve been covered up and she would just be another victim of a corrupt government–but today she is remembered and her story is told. We can make the argument that technology is ruining us socially, but it’s empowering us in so many other unique ways.

All The World’s A Stage

I find the self-portraiture of Jen Davis to be fascinating not only for the fact that she is willing to use herself and her own issues for her art, but that she is doing something thoroughly unique in relation to the current generation of Millennials. The obvious thing to say would be that she is examining beauty and body pressures, but I see something else: the mainstreaming of exhibitionism and how it is quickly becoming a 21st Century reality, the idea of putting so much of ourselves out there and never thinking twice about it. I, myself, struggle with this phenomenon–I’ve avoided Facebook and all the other avenues of showing myself off any more than I have to, but it’s not out of self-consciousness, it’s more to avoid people from my past who I’ve lost touch with and want to keep it that way.

Davis has a work in progress that appears to look further into the current way most of us seem to conduct ourselves socially, delving into emotional and physical relationships through a shaky digital connection. To me, Davis’s work represents the current generation perfectly–her photos not only reflect insecurity but also a healthy amount of confidence. There has never been a time like the present to find people out there who will accept you and relate to you with just the click of a mouse. It can destroy some people and embolden others. I sometimes wonder how different the world would’ve been if our grandparents and even great-grandparents had access to the communication tools we do today. Would the world be better or worse? Whatever the answer is, I appreciate artists like Jen–their images truly symbolize more than what’s on the surface, in addition to inspiring interesting trains of thought…

© Jen Davis

When I Grow Up

I’m a little late to the party on this one, I know, but I feel like we all discover things when we are supposed to. Onslaught, the video above, is the follow up to Dove’s highly successful Evolution–both videos seek to breakdown why our perception of beauty is so distorted. This video is perhaps even more disturbing than the first, it opens with a sweet faced child gliding along innocently until she is hit with the inevitable barrage of  beauty-industry pressures. There is a choice, she can keep gliding along or she can stop and be influenced, forever changed in that moment. A friend of my family, who has a kindergarten-aged child, recently told me that not too long ago her daughter arrived home in tears after being told that she was ugly by a boy she liked. After the tears went away, the daughter promptly asked for plastic surgery, she didn’t know exactly what kind of surgery, just that she needed it somewhere on her face. My friend couldn’t understand where she would have learned this from. Oh, really?

I fear for the next generation and the parents who have to raise them, and this is coming from someone who used to be part of the next generation not too long ago. I supposedly grew up in the information age, but I think that’s wrong. When I was growing up, there were still boundaries in a way–there wasn’t as much at my fingertips. Today’s children know how to work a computer by five and can surf the Internet at six–no one I knew was that advanced at such a young age. But where is the benefit, really? Onslaught concludes with the words: “Talk to your daughter before the beauty industry does.” Sounds like a good idea to me, self-worth seems to be underrated these days in favor of seeking approval from others. I remember back in the day people gave Fiona Apple all kinds of crap for accepting her MTV VMA by quoting Maya Angelou and telling the youth watching, “Go with yourself.” Looking back, I can’t understand what was so wrong with that message.

Going Up In Smoke

James Worrell composed this multimedia presentation warning of the dangers of smoking. If you’ve been following this blog from the start, I have always had an appreciation for photographers whose work goes beyond the superficial and digs deeper into more pressing issues. I feel like smoking has become cool again, after years of being looked down upon—remember how there used to be a smoking and non-smoking section in diners and restaurants? Yeah, so do I. It’s one of those childhood memories from the 90’s that seems like a million years ago now. Movies, television (Mad Men!) and fashion magazines have brought smoking back in vogue again; one only has to view a series by Steven Meisel to begin craving a pack of Marlboro Lights. I, like most young adults, went through a smoking phase as well and then left it behind, but that’s not to say that I’ll never be tempted to touch a cigarette again.

All I can do now is remind myself that what I do at this moment in my life will affect me later—consequences do matter, that’s what John Stuart Mill said. And I also remind myself that I don’t want to die of lung cancer because that would be painful. It doesn’t matter how cool you look now, youth fades–I’m aware of that. This video cuts past the glamour and edginess of what a cigarette does for one’s persona and truly reminds us that yeah, they kill us. The appearance is glossy, but the fast burn of fallen ash crumbles the same way your lungs will in forty years. Watch and more importantly, think before you do. It can be a very powerful action when done correctly.

Muse

Marco Brambilla composed this haunting multimedia presentation titled “Ghost” for Muse Magazine’s September 2009 issue dedicated to Natasha Poly–perhaps the best thing to come out of Russia since vodka and Tolstoy. These multimedia/installation pieces are definitely something I am interested in working on myself in the future, although at the moment I have only taken baby steps in that direction–but as 2010 begins, I look forward to presenting more multimedia projects from experts in the fields of art, photography and journalism who are doing some very progressive work that I find inspiring.

An Amateur’s Guide To Multimedia

Apple

This past Friday I began my first multimedia project as a final assignment for Online Journalism. I combined audio and photography for a small news story on The Animal Welfare Association–Voorhees, NJ–and it should be posted either Sunday or Monday. In the mean time, I wanted to share some basic tips I learned for any other amateurs out there who might undertake a similar endeavor in the future.

1.) In the initial email or phone call with your subject, explain what you want to do in a thorough and concise manner so they understand all that it involves. It took me about an hour to complete everything I had to do for the project above. The interview with the Executive Director was about 10 minutes long, but I took a lot of time getting photos and talking to the staff for more info.

2.) Have at least a two weekday time slots blocked out in your schedule for the time you can go in and record photos, audio or video. It’s good to give your subject options and not just demand days and times that only work for you, like weekends.

3.) Have a back-up plan in case your first choice of subject is not interested or ignores your attempts.  Give it a week and if communication seems to go nowhere, then this is clear sign to move on.

4.) If your set on doing an audio/visual project, plan on taking A LOT of photos. You will need one photo for every five seconds of audio, so make sure there is enough room on that memory card!

5.) Make sure to charge all your equipment the night before and test it, especially audio/video. And if you’re using a microphone, make sure it’s on! It’s better to be overly prepared than not at all. This also includes preparing a list of questions and topics you want to cover, it would also be a good idea to send this list to whomever you plan on speaking with just so they have a general idea about what you expect from them.

6.) If you can, try and get someone to help with audio, video and pictures; it can be frustrating to do both. There were times when I wanted to record certain tidbits but I had to take pictures as well and I certainly wasn’t going to ask people to stage things for my convenience. In the end it worked out fine, but for a more professional look, it’s best to have more than one person.

7.) Be friendly and do your research! Don’t be afraid to ask for clarification to better understand something.

8.) Finally, make sure you give yourself at least three days to complete audio, picture and video editing. Don’t just throw something together, you want to be proud of the work you do.

Sea Of Green

CNN has been doing some interesting reports lately, once again spotlighting the fact that the opposition protests are still going on in Iran against their corrupt establishment. I was happy to see this put back in the spotlight after being discarded the moment Michael Jackson died over the summer. Like most people I was glued to my computer reading The Huffington Post and Andrew Sullivan’s blog for updates on everything that was happening post-election. I was amazed by the constant stream of Twitter updates from local Iranians so full of hope at what could be accomplished if we all came together, and at the same time I was angered at how violent and reckless the regime had become. We all collectively took on the color green as a signal of change and we all collectively mourned the death of a young girl named Neda who was gunned down in the street and became an icon of peace. It didn’t matter what happened in the past, when injustice is this big, the world has a way of coming together.

The debate about citizen journalism is raging a lot lately amongst professionals in the media and is certainly a hot topic in my journalism classes, but this is the kind of power it has. The government in Iran completely shut out foreign media, but it was the youth of Iran who were savvy enough to bypass that and get information out to the world and organize protests in the streets. Their cell phone pictures and videos were filtered to the media worldwide and updated through iReport features, they made their own news and thrust into a revolution with the help of modern technology. Think of how history could’ve been different if only this was possible during the Nazi occupations, so many lives could have been saved. I hope the world hears Iran’s call for help, the youth of that nation needs us to stand up with them and spread the word until they get the change they have been looking for. Never Forget.

Achieving Quality

Copyright © Jeffrey Michael Smith

5 May 2007, Lucerne, Switzerland; View from atop Mt. Stanserhorn

I was recently sent a link to an interview The New York Times did with travel photographer Robert Caplin on achieving quality photos without spending thousands of dollars for a camera. Now until recently, I was shooting with disposable cameras or a polaroid camera, until the film was discontinued, and that was fine. I took the photo above in Switzerland with a Kodak disposable camera I bought at Target and it looks perfect, to this day it’s one of my favorite shots. Looking at this picture immediately takes me back to that place, it’s a scenic photo with many memories. Still, now that I have my Leica, I can only imagine how much better it would look with a quality camera, sometimes it does pay to upgrade.

Caplin offers amateurs cool tricks one can accomplish with natural light and beer bottles, and also the fact that a person really just has to know what to shoot; for instance, if your subject looks anything like the one above, it probably doesn’t matter too much how much your camera is worth. He also suggests a basic form of photoshop if you’re serious about photography and if you’re a student, I recommend checking out Journey Ed for major discounts on any software needs.

Caplin also talks about using a cell phone in a pinch, his favorite is the iPhone; in a week or so I’ll be posting an interview I did with Shawn Rocco, a photojournalist changing the game with his innovative work using a Motorola E815. In photography, the mediums are always changing and it’s important to experiment with all types of equipment at your disposal, you may be surprised at the results you can achieve.

Leica C-Lux 3

Calumet

My first digital camera arrived last Friday from Amazon; capable of still photography and filming, it really is the perfect start for this amateur’s journey to learn about photojournalism and how to find that iconic image.

I’ve been told there were cheaper options for similar features, but I wanted a camera I’ll feel attached to and want to carry everywhere. The Leica C-Lux 3 is that camera for me and the ice white shell adds to the pristine style I want to convey with my own images.