The Archive
Laurent Pinabel
What We Learned This Week: Resources For Photographers During COVID-19 Crisis, and More
Today we spotlight COVID-19 news from the past week. Yesterday we featured a list of grants and other financial resources being made available to photographers, around the world and in the US. We also noted that online portfolio builder Format has announced a $25,000 fund to help photographers impacted by the coronavirus outbreak, offering up to $500 per person, and that that Women Photograph is accepting application for a COVID-19 emergency fund. On Tuesday we noted that the APA is holding online "Open Talks" about the crisis every Thursday. And we highlighted a COVID-19 archive that you can view and contribute to.
Spotlight: Four Docs To Watch While Social Distancing
Time again for a roundup of documentary shorts: Today we feature four, including a number that were chosen for the cancelled SXSW Film Festival. Filmmaker Kelsie Moore's "The Gray Area" looks at an American lower middle class that finds itself on the brink of viability. Paul Hairston's SXSW documentary "Lions in the Corner" explores the transformative power of community action. The Vimeo Staff Pick film "Jay," from director Nickolas Duarte, focuses on an abstract painter who specializes in "soul paintings." Another SXSW film, Olivia Loomis Merrion's "Quilt Fever," is, noted Short of the Week, "a warm and heartfelt documentary about this week-long extravaganza, shedding light on a charming subculture unknown to most."
The DART Board: 04.02.2020
Moments ago, as I was going for a second cup of Joe, ArtNet News posted a report on the very creepy and compelling illustration of the virus that causes Covid-19. Commissioned by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), it has become the unmistakable image of the novel coronavirus. And it is a case study in how artists can, in giving things a visual form, help make the terrifying world around us feel more comprehensible. Above: Illustration created at Centers for Disease Con...
Spotlight: A Moment from Colombian Photographer David Betancur's Travel Journal
David Betancur travels in order to find "character and scenarios." The Colombian photographer's portfolio is filled with people he finds on assignment and on his excursions throughout his country, which he records in what he calls "a sort of travel journal." Among the images in his journal is a shot of a girl resting on the edge of an abandoned swimming pool. "She told me, 'For enjoying the pool, there is no need to get wet in the water,'" Betancur recalls. His photograph was named a winner of the Latin American Fotografia 8 competition.
American Photography Open 2019: Meet the Winner, Alain Schroeder
Last month we revealed the ten finalists. Today, we introduce the winner of the American Photography Open 2019 competition - Alain Schroeder, a Brussels, Belgium-based photojournalist who has worked all around the globe, from Thailand and Tuscany to Crete and Vietnam. From October 2018 through April 2019, he was in Sumatra, Indonesia, to document efforts to aid the area's critically endangered orangutans. His photograph of an abused three-month-old female orangutan named Brenda being treated for a severely broken arm earned Schroeder the top spot in this year's contest.
The SONY a9: What the Pros Have to Say
"Eventually you knew it had to happen. Sooner or later cameras would get so good at what they did that basically your job as a photographer would be to look for interesting things to shoot and then try not to get in the camera's way as it did it's thing capturing them. I mean, imagine if a camera had pretty much flawless exposure capability, flawless focusing and could fire and focus so fast it never missed a frame?" So writes Jeff Wignall in todays Street Test of the Sony a9 full-frame mirrorless camera. Sony Artisans of Imagery Katrin Eisman, Andy Katz, and Pat Murphy-Racey join in with their takes on the 24.2-megapixel camera that has caused an uproar in the photo industry.