Several months back I bought a large quantiy of 120 type film for my Holgas. I never really got those cameras calibrated to my liking, and those of you who have worked with them know that it is a hit or miss when it comes to using “toy” cameras. Anyway, with all this film at hand, I have been looking for a medium format camera. You either use it, or loose it. And I am not referring to film which can degrade over time, but just the ability to make consistently good images.

I settled for a Rolleiflex; known for its superior optics and solid construction. While that's in transit, however, I have been trying to find as much as possible about Rolleiflexes. There is a sense of community, camaraderie and pleasant banter at Photo.net. I haven't become a full member yet, but I am leaning towards it. One is able to upload images and receive feedback about them. The advice you receive is usually honest and sometimes witty. There are photographers from all walks, levels and experiences of life in there who will (and can) answer your most mundane questions about every aspect of photography. Do be sure to post your question in the right forum, though!

By sheer coincidence, Sandeep, a friend of mine in Seattle (who recently acquired a medium format camera as well) went looking for information on that same site and ran across my posts. He sent me an email and we caught up on our lives and hope to meet him and his family in late July, on the East coast. There are other desis too on the site and I urge you all to check it out.

Peter Marshall's Photography At About is a real gem. Sign up for his newsletter. It's a worthy read. And there are links to take you off on to other photo tangents. Want to know who was called the Prince of Indian Photographers? Hint here. Marshall's series on Indian Photography is also fascinating.

The next “discovery” isn't to my credit. Shahidul Alam, of Drik (picture agency in Dhaka) sent a note out recently about “Month of Photography,” in Tokyo. I back-tracked the URL and found a rich resource in PhotoGuide Japan. Lots to learn!

David Shedden, the Library Director at Poynter.org has collated a long list of articles and links about the recent images from Abu Ghraib prison, in Iraq. Bookmark the page!

About a month ago I asked on this site, in a mini-poll, “Where do you stand on blurring the lines between business relationships and editorial responsibility?” That question was triggered by the dubious business practices of Getty Images, one of two gargantuan photo agencies that a lot of local and national newspapers depend on for their images.

Well, it's been a month and here are the results. You said:

Editorial over Business: 46%
Business over Editorial: 0%
Achieve a Balance: 46%
I don't care: 8%

I am relieved that you all don't think that journalism should operate under the direct influence of business goals. 0% is a nice number. I have to wonder about those who don't care, though. Apathy has its limits.

I'll throw up a new poll real soon.

Found magazine's Jason Bitner has been finding Polaroids.

Via Shahidul Alam

“Photography's ability to record detail, its unusual palette, its instantaneousness, its contemporariness, its ubiquitous-ness, its claim to credibility, its relationships with time and space, its power and its inclusiveness … the statement in Chobi Mela II seems all the more relevant today, with amateur footage and digital images, some suppressed, some shared with abandon, testing the boundaries of ethics and acceptable practice. Chobi Mela III is based on the theme ‘resistance', a subject which photographers have interpreted in the widest sense possible. We invite photographers of all disciplines to participate in what is shaping up to be one of the most significant media events in Asia.”

The festival opens at the Bangladesh National Museum, Dhaka on 5th December 2004. The last date of registration: June 30th 2004.

Via Ramdhan Yadhav Kotamaraja

Jerome Delay's portfolio of images from Baghdad, one year later.

The New York Times today has an article about how obsessive bloggers can be about, well, blogging.

While my habits are not detrimental to personal relationships or my job, the article certainly makes me wonder if and whether one could make a living by just blogging? Anyone else even tempted to consider such an option? Who wouldn't like to troll the internet all day in search of nuggets of information to share?

I think i would do it, if I could be compensated for it (way to pay my bills, buy some toys, pay off school debt and save for the future) and if the topic at hand was something I am really interested in blogging about. At least 86 of you have signed on to receive updates from this site (thank you!) but there are those who blog and have either no inkling of how many people read their writing or don't really care.

I do. Spread the gospel, if this site has been of some use to you. Click on the “Tell-A-Friend” button. See, I do try and make things easy for you. [grin] My goal is to get 14 more subscribers by the end of this month.

Speaking of blogging, I am going to be a part of a panel on blogging at the SAJA convention. Yes, apart from the PHOTOFORUM events, I signed on to chime in from time to time about my experiences in BlogLand.

Moderated by Mimi Hanaoka, Assistant Editor of InTheFray, this panel will examine the ways in which blogging enables broader participation in society – particularly at the grassroots level – while also examining the limits of blogging, asking questions such as: Who gets excluded? Is it possible for this sort of grassroots democracy to effectuate change beyond the Internet at the local and national (or even international levels)? Where do readers come into play in this sort of participatory democracy? How is journalistic integrity compromised through blogging? How does blogging relate to democracy and journalism? Is blogging journalism? Is a blogger a journalist? Why are some newspapers allowing their editors to blog while some others shun the practice? What are photo blogs? How is blogging forcing journalism to evolve?

Panelists will include: Nimesh Patel of Badmash, Jen Chung of Gothamist, Seshu Badrinath of Tiffinbox and Anil Dash of Six Apart, the company that makes MovableType and TypePad, two robust blogging tools. [Please note that Jen Chung and Anil Dash have yet to confirm their presence at the convention]

The panel, called “Blogging Anyone?” will take place on June 18, 2004 (Friday) 2.15 p.m. to 3.30 p.m. at Columbia University's Lerner Hall (part of the 10th anniversary celebrations and the annual SAJA convention).

Via Sree Sreenivasan

Two very interesting projects out of Carleton College – John Schott and friends have launched Camera/Iraq and Ratchet Up.

“Camera/Iraq is a new website created to gather materials and perspectives about photography and the Iraq War of Images. The site began in response to the pictures from Abu Ghraib, but is growing in new directions daily. It's focus is on visual images and their uses, rather than general debate about the war. The goal is to create a community-built resource for research and commentary.”

Via Wolf Blitzer, CNN

Just in time, “Memories of War,” a photo exhibit by the Associated Press opens at Union Station, in Washington, D.C. today and will run through June 1.

And no, no images from Iraq in this collection. All of these images are from World War II. Should give us some perspective of how we have chosen to record and remember our past. Which images will grace the walls of future exhibits from the mess in Iraq?

World War II archival photos in exhibit
The Associated Press displays images long-hidden as the new WWII memorial nears its dedication.

Associated Press

NEW YORK – As veterans of World War II converge on Washington for the dedication of a memorial to global victory six decades ago, their achievements and sacrifice will be further recalled in an exhibit of photographs from the archives of The Associated Press.

“Memories of World War II” opens to the public Monday at Washington, D.C.'s Union Station, a week before the National World War II Memorial is ceremonially christened on the Mall.

The AP exhibit is a spectrum of more than 100 photos from all theaters of the war and the home front, ranging from AP photographer Joe Rosenthal's classic Iwo Jima flag-raising in 1945 to scores of pictures not seen in decades.

“As far as we know, all of the pictures were transmitted at some time on AP wires, but some probably have not been touched since the war,” said Charles Zoeller, curator of the exhibit and an accompanying book, and chief of AP's vast photo library.

Founded in 1848, the AP is the world's oldest and largest news-gathering organization, serving some 15,000 media outlets in more than 120 countries.

In the exhibit, familiar scenes of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, along with British and American troops hitting Normandy beaches on D-Day and marching through newly liberated Paris, are juxtaposed with hidden surprises sure to evoke strong memories among older Americans.

There are photographs of Hitler and Mussolini at the peak of fascist power, Winston Churchill in unmistakable silhouette, actor James Stewart being inducted into the military, Nazi SS troops herding defiant Jews after the Warsaw Ghetto uprising of 1943, and Russian women laying flowers at the feet of four dead GIs who helped liberate them from a slave labor camp.

Despite censorship that delayed the release of pictures and restricted caption information, the wartime cameras recorded dramatic close-ups of power and pathos, the leaders and the lost.

President Franklin Roosevelt, Soviet leader Josef Stalin and Churchill sit for a group portrait at Tehran. King George VI and Queen Elizabeth clamber through London bomb rubble. Gen. Douglas McArthur wades ashore in the Philippines.

In Cherbourg, France, Army Capt. Earl Topley gazes at a German soldier sitting, dead, in a doorway. Dead Japanese soldiers lie half-buried in sand on a Guadalcanal beach; dead U.S. Marines sprawl in the volcanic ash of Iwo Jima.

In the foreword to a book that has 170 photographs and also is titled “Memories of World War II” (Harry N. Abrams, Inc.), former U.S. Sen. Bob Dole says the pictures have greater impact for being in black and white.

“The causes and objectives of the United States and our Allies in World War II were just that – black and white, good against evil,” writes Dole, who was severely wounded in Italy in 1945.

The photos are “personal history relived” for those who fought the war and millions more for whom it was “part of their lives,” Dole writes. “For many millions more, the postwar generations, who know the war only as distant history, these images will serve as the record of a shared and shaping era in our nation's history.”

Many photos credit AP staff photographers by name; others came from anonymous Army or Navy photographers. Some were killed in combat; others went on to postwar prominence in their craft.

“You had the same fears as the GIs, but you had to think about the picture,” says retired AP photojournalist Max Desfor, who covered the battle of Okinawa and Japan's surrender aboard the battleship USS Missouri, and later won a Pulitzer Prize in Korea. “My camera was my shield, and I didn't even think about the idea that a bullet might hit me.”

In an introduction to the book, retired CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite praises the courage of journalists who shared danger with the troops.

“Indeed, if there were no correspondents or photographers who went to war, what would the folks at home know … what would future generations know?” wrote Cronkite, who covered the war for AP's then-rival, United Press.

The AP exhibit in Union Station's West Hall runs through the Memorial Day weekend. It will be back up in Union Station for the month of July, before traveling to the Dallas Historical Society and other venues around the country.

Via Photo Talk

I get asked quite a lot where one could learn photography. Going to a standard four-year program may not be feasible for many. Even an evening course at a community college may be out of reach for some others.

Web Photo School Online may be the ticket. Some lessons are free, some others are not. One month membership is $20 and a year for $60. Olympus and Photoflex are sponsors, so expect to see a lot of their equipment being used (and advertised).

Or, check out the pricier Robert Farber Interactive Photography Workshop (annual dues run about $125).