Freedom of the Press? Or Espionage?

Via The New York Times:


"America, a place where the people’s right to know is viewed as superseding the government’s right to hide its business."

"Jake Tapper, the White House correspondent for ABC News, pointed out that the administration had lauded brave reporting in distant lands more than once and then asked, “How does that square with the fact that this administration has been so aggressively trying to stop aggressive journalism in the United States by using the Espionage Act to take whistle-blowers to court?”

He then suggested that the administration seemed to believe that “the truth should come out abroad; it shouldn’t come out here.”

Related: Freedom of the Press

ACADEMY AWARDS

Alan Grant: Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly backstage at the 28th Annual Academy Awards, March 21, 1956.

Neither Grace Kelly nor Audrey Hepburn were nominees at the event in RKO Pantages Theatre. Grace Kelly presented Best Actor Oscar to Ernest Borgnine for Marty, and Audrey Hepburn presented the Best Picture to the same film. That year, Anna Magnani won the best actress award for The Rose Tattoo, and Jo Van Fleet won the award for best supporting actress for East of Eden.

Allan Grant (1919-2008) was a Life magazine photographer–the last photographer to photographer Marilyn Monroe before she died on August 5, 1962, and the first to photograph Marina Oswald after the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963.

Related: Making Movies

NEW YORK PRESS PHOTOGRAPHERS ASSOCIATION YEAR IN PICTURES 2012

The NYPPA has just posted the winning images (in no particular order) and will announce the Winning images and their order at a dinner that is tentatively scheduled for May 31st 2012.

Full list here.

The NYPPA YEAR IN PICTURES 2012 were judged by 3 extraordinary judges:

Melanie Burford, Bill Eppridge , and David Burnett

Judges Bill Eppridge, Melanie Burford & David Burnett discuss the images
Photo via NYPPA

Readers of this blog will be familiar with Bill Eppridge. After his graduation from college, Eppridge worked for NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC and then went on to work for LIFE. During the 1960s and until the magazine folded in 1972 Eppridge was a staff photographer for LIFE. He covered many topics and news events, often finding himself in history-making situations.While working for LIFE, Eppridge photographed celebrities such as Alan Alda on the set of M*A*S*H, Gene Hackman, Raquel Welch and others. During the Apollo 13 mission, Epperidge was the only photographer allowed into Marilyn Lovell’s home even as her husband was stranded in orbit above the moon. In 1968 while five feet in front of his subject and friend, Robert F. Kennedy lay on the floor of the kitchen of Los Angeles's Ambassador Hotel, mortally wounded by a bullet fired by Sirhan B. Sirhan. Eppridge went into the crowd and began holding people back, but every once in a while, he would reach down and click his camera.

Bill Eppridge looks at the images

Photo via NYPPA

This last week, Bill's photographs of 1960's skateboarders went viral on the internet. Bill recalls that he photographed skateboarders in Central Park during a competition and kids on the streets in NYC. He says that there were lots of skateboarders around then, and despite what some blogs claim, he never "handed out" skateboards.  Some of the photos that were included were actually shot at Weslyan University in Middletown, CT, aloso at a skateboarding competition.

A special selection of Bill Eppridge's photographs will be on exhibit during the AIPAD Photography Show at the Park Avenue Armory in New York, March 28 - April 1. Visit Monroe Gallery, Booth #419.

Tributes for Remi Ochlik

Rebel forces fight Muammar Gaddafi's troops on a road outside

Ras Lanouf, Libya, March 2011

©Remi Ochlik/Bureau233/Eyevine

The US-born Sunday Times journalist Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik have been killed after shelling hit a safe house for journalists in the Syrian city of Homs.



Remi Ochlik Website


TIME Light Box: In Memoriam: Rémi Ochlik, 1983 – 2012



NYT Lens: Parting Glance: Rémi Ochlik


MSNBC Photo Blog: The work of photographer Remi Ochlik, killed in Syria


The Guardian: Remi Ochlik's photojournalism - a collection


    Sunday Times correspondent Marie Colvin's last report from Syria – video


Telegraph: Remi Ochlik: the French photographer killed alongside Marie Colvin


Washington Post: Award-winning photojournalist Remi Ochlik, 28, killed at work in violence-wracked Syria


Reuters: U.S., French journalists killed in Syria


Gigaom: Syrian live streamer killed after being watched by millions


Committee To Protect Journalists: 899 Journalists Killed since 1992

Another Day, Another Photograper Arrested, and Photographer Rights Lens Cloths

Via pixiq

"As I prepare my legal battle against the Miami-Dade Police Department for falsely arresting me and for deleting my footage, I am seeking new ways to raise money for my legal defense fund.

I recently entered into a business venture with Keith Robertson, a Vancouver man who runs Zap Rag, a company that sells lens cloths and laminated cards with photo laws printed on them.

The items are designed to be used by photographers when they get harassed by cops or security guards for shooting in public."

Elsewhere: "Today, the NPPA sent another letter of protest to U.S. Parks Police Chief Teresa Chambers asking her to investigate allegations that a photographer was arrested and detained for 48 hours without being formally charged." Full post here.

Related: Your street photography rights on a lens cloth
              Freedom of the Press?

Vivian Maier, Street Photographer

Via Digital Photography Review

By Barney Britton
| Published Feb 19, 2012 | Book Reviews

"Vivian Maier is one of those exceptionally rare things - an artist without a biography. She can’t tell us why she took these photographs, or explain what or who she was influenced by so it’s up to us to decide, if we want to. All we have to go on is the images she left behind. As such, Maier is a gift to critics, who I have no doubt will busy themselves defining her 'value' and what her work 'means' for quite some time to come. My advice is to find this book in your local bookshop, and spend an hour or so leafing through it. 'Street Photographer' is an exhilarating collection and a welcome reminder that greatness and fame are two very different things."

Vivian Maier: Discovered on exhibit through April 22, 2012.

New York City's Sidewalk Clock

Ida Wyman: Sidewalk Clock, New York City, 1947

The Radical Camera: New York's Photo League, 1936-1951, currently on view at the Jewish Museum in New York through March 25, includes several photographs by Ida Wyman.

Her photograph of the sidewalk clock, located at the corner of Broadway and Maiden Lane in lower Manhattan,  was written about in the Photo Hunt blog recently:

"Ida Wyman took great advantage of this unique object for her 1947 photograph Sidewalk Clock, an image that captures the spirit of women’s progress in postwar America. In it, a professional woman in stockings and high heels marches confidently across the frame. The woman is in sharp focus, while the enigmatic clock appears hazy, as if it can barely keep pace with her. Wyman herself was enjoying a successful career as a freelance photographer when she took the picture. Following in the footsteps of acclaimed photojournalists Margaret Bourke-White, Dorothea Lange, and Berenice Abbott, she published her pictures in popular magazines such as Life, Fortune, and The Saturday Evening Post, an early joiner to the ranks of professional women photographers."