Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Photographer behind 9/11 "Falling Man" retraces steps, recalls "unknown soldier"

http://news.yahoo.com/photographer-behind-9-11-falling-man-retraces-steps-recalls-unknown-soldier.html
[excerpt]

(Richard Drew/AP)

(Richard Drew/AP)

"Although he has not chosen his fate, he appears to have, in his last instants of life, embraced it," wrote Tom Junod in a renowned 2003 Esquire piece that coined the title of the photo, which won a 2001 World Press Photo award and is the subject of a 2006 documentary film. "If he were not falling, he might very well be flying."

Newspapers the world over made space for the Falling Man in their Sept. 12, 2001, editions. But the widespread publicity sparked a debate as to whether the image was too gratuitous for public consumption. "To me, it's a real quiet photograph," Drew argued. Unlike fellow AP photographer Nick Ut's Pulitzer-winning 1972 shot of a naked 9-year-old girl fleeing a napalm attack in Vietnam or Drew's famous photos of Bobby Kennedy's bloody dying breaths, "There's no violence in it," he said.

Friday, August 26, 2011

Forty-Three Interesting Ways* to use your Pocket Video Camera in the Classroom

Forty-Three Interesting Ways* to use your Pocket Video Camera in the
Classroom
*and Tips
by Tom Barrett
This slide format guide assembles 43 illustrated suggestions from various educators for the use of pocket video technology to connect students to learning. For example, slide #43 is "Translate" - Students make foreign language (in this case, English) road descriptions. Students are given a destination and a camera. They then make a road description in the form of a VoiceThread, a media aggregator that allows people to post media artefacts - which might be a document, a slide presentation, a video, or a collection of photos.
http://www.comminit.com/children/node/327953

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Crowdfunding Your Photography Project

download your free guide now

Crowdfunding Your
Photography Project

A free 31-page guide to an alternate funding mechanism for your photography
  • Understand what makes a project fundable and the difference between platforms like Kickstarter, Emphas.is, and IndieGoGo.
  • Read eight crowdfunding case studies from experienced photographers who have succeeded and failed. Hear what worked and what went wrong.
  • Learn which marketing strategies are key to reaching your goal.
  • http://www.photoshelter.com/mkt/research/crowdfunding-your-photography-project

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Festival du nouveau cinéma " 3 X 3 X 3 "

Festival du nouveau cinéma

3 X 3 X 3  
  3 projects. 3 mentors. 3 platforms. 

More infor here
http://page.zonefestival.com/fnc/index.asp?varLangue=en
     
  You have a project (documentary, animation, fiction or T.V.) and wish to develop it on new platforms ?  
     
  The Festival du nouveau cinéma is looking for directors / producers / creators wanting to undertake crossmedia production.  
     
  With the 3 X 3 X 3 event, the Festival du nouveau cinéma and Espace Infusion of L'inis offer the possibility to directors, producers and creators to be trained through a 2-phase professional intensive, where they will benefit from the expertise of the local and international guests of the FNC Pro.  
     
  "3 x 3 x 3" is an event presented with the support of Fonds Bell, the Conseil des Arts de Montréal and Forum Jeunesse de l'île de Montréal.

About the FNC Pro  
     
  3 X 3 X 3 is the closing event of the FNC Pro. The Festival du nouveau cinéma launches a section geared toward professionals, the media and students. The major upheavals of the last few years pose a challenge to existing models. New concepts such as convergence, multiplatform and transmedia need to be constantly reworked so that professionals can feel fully involved in the changes. Events presented by the Festival are rooted in local reality. With its international scope, the Festival is a prime platform for promoting know-how from Montreal, Quebec and Canada. A not-to-be-missed annual occasion to negotiate this century's changes and pave the way for the future  
     
  This year, the FNC Pro's transmedia concentration will be held on 3 days (October 17-18-19, 2011), at the Agora Hydro Québec du Cœur des sciences de l'UQÀM (Headquarters of the Festival du nouveau cinéma).  
     
  ..........................................................................................................................  
     
  For more information about the FNC Pro  
     
  Simon Thibodeau  
  Co-programmation & Promotion FNC Lab/FNC Pro  
  sthibodeau@nouveaucinema.ca

http://page.zonefestival.com/fnc/index.asp?varLangue=en

Indigenous Film Fellowship (IFF)

Indigenous Film Fellowship (IFF) will offer a two-year program that will partner emerging indigenous film talent with notable and established filmmakers world-wide

[excerpt, see URL for full details]

http://indigenousfilmcircle.com/

The first year of the program will focus on the development of storytelling through script, while the second year of the fellowship will focus on the production planning and strategizing to help the grantees successfully create solid marketing and financing plans by the end of their two-year fellowship. It is the aim and ambition of both the ISF and the Indigenous Film Circle to strengthen the indigenous film network while also helping each other support and develop strong new talent within the film industry. We hope that this global program collaboration can build a permanent network for indigenous filmmakers and supporting partners world-wide.

The Indigenous Film Fellowship seeks creative, dedicated and talented filmmakers to submit their stories to be developed with the guidance and mentorship of established filmmakers with proven success records who will provide encouragement and refine the awarded fellows talents, scripts and production plans. Our aim is to have the fellows' film projects industry ready by the end of year two of the fellowship for potential financing.


REQUIREMENTS:

  • Applicants must be of indigenous background.
  • Stories submitted must convey an indigenous perspective.
  • Fellowship seeks stories where the screenplay is not fully developed nor currently funded.
  •  Treatments must be for feature narrative films.
  • Fellows must be willing to commit two years to the fellowship and complete the work as required by the deadlines.
  •  Applicants acknowledge that if they are accepted, they have one week to confirm their commitment to the fellowship and understand that if they do not meet their deadlines as stated in the fellowship or convey a lack of willingness to participate,  can be subject to dismissal.
  •  Applicants must be willing to travel to annual IFF gatherings and workshops.
  • Applicants must be willing and desire mentorship guidance and critique.
  • Must complete all portions of the application. Any materials not provided may disqualify an application.
  • Applications must be completed in either English, Spanish or Russian. If an applicant cannot complete the application in either of these two languages, please write the International Sámi Film Centre (ISF) with a rationale and request at least 30 days before submission deadline. ISF will try their best to accommodate the request(s).
  • Applications must be received by September 1, 2011; 12:00 am GMT.
  • Applications must be completed electronically. Do not send postal mail. E-mail only. If not able to, please let ISF know immediately and at least two weeks prior to deadline.

CRITERIA:

  • The IFF seeks outstanding feature-length narrative projects which are based on strong ideas, well communicated and thoroughly thought out stories, exhibit a high level of creativity and can demonstrate the possibility of being financed for production.
  • Preferences are made on stories told in an indigenous language, but not required.
  • Stories must demonstrate an indigenous perspective and applications must address the relevance of their story to their community.
  • Individuals or teams may apply. A majority of key crew personnel must be of indigenous origin.
  • The writer or director must have at least one produced short film, feature film or appropriate television credit.

.

All Requirements must be met in order to qualify for the Indigenous Film Fellowship. Any requirements not fulfilled without the stated prior notice time as stated in the "Requirements" section above, may be disqualified for consideration into the Indigenous Film Fellowship.


How The Rights To Your Photo Are Being Hijacked Through Photo Contests & Social Media

How The Rights To Your Photo Are Being Hijacked Through Photo Contests & Social Media

[excerpt]

So you've got this incredible image that you've got to show the world. Not only are you going to share it with your friends online, but you're also going to enter it in a contest or two to win some fabulous prizes. Well before you do I recommend reading the fine print, that includes the the Terms of Use (ToU) for web sites and Contest Rules for, you guessed it, photo contests.

One of the most underhanded tactics sweeping the online and publishing world is the hijacking of photo rights through inequitable terms buried in the fine print of legalese for contests and web sites. The perpetrators will no doubt surprise you, they include the likes of Facebook, National Geographic + PDN, Popular Photo, and more.

This issue is not a new one and has reared its ugly head in the past on other photo sharing sites, but now this tactic is becoming increasingly common with major players. Offending words such as perpetual, royalty-free license and irrevocable are being introduced to hijack the rights to photographs of well intended photographers looking to play the odds to have their work recognized in a contest or just to simply share with friends.

So what does this mean? It means companies, that used to pay for quality photography to fill the pages of their publications, are now taking advantage of well intentioned photographers to develop royalty-free photo libraries they now can tap to fill the pages of their publication or place in promotional advertisements.

I almost forgot about this underhanded tactic until I started to play with the idea of submitting to the Popular Photography contest "Are You the Next Great Photographer?" sponsored by Apple. In talking with a friend and fellow photographer Richard Wong it was noted the terms outlined in Popular Photography's Terms of Use were not photographer friendly.


r

Monday, August 08, 2011

Great Signs of the World Photo Competition

Photographers anywhere in the world can participate in a contest.

http://www.ghotw.com/magazine/article/great-signs-of-the-world-competition/2011/jul/competition.htm

Great Hotels of the World has launched a contest for the most creative, entertaining and greatest photos of signs around the globe.

The sign doesn't necessarily have to be a road sign; it can be a sign you have seen in a hotel, restaurant, shop, or somewhere completely out of the blue.

The best photos will be entered in a drawing to win a four-night luxury stay for two at the Valamar Lacroma Dubrovnik in Dubrovnik, Croatia.

A maximum of three photograph entries per person is permitted.

Signs don't have to be in English, as long as you translate it into English correctly. Photo descriptions must be in English.

The deadline is Aug. 26.

For more information, click here.

[Rules excerpt]

27. Great Hotels of the World has the right to edit, adapt, modify and publish any or all of the submissions and may use them in any media with attribution to the entrant.

28. Each entrant grants a worldwide, irrevocable, royalty-free perpetual worldwide license to Great Hotels of the World to reproduce or feature any or all of the submissions in any type of media or promotional material with attribution to the entrant.

29. Entrants consent to Great Hotels of the World editing, re-using, storing, reproducing and communicating the entry in any medium for any purpose including but not limited to loading it onto any of the Great Hotels of the World or promotional partner websites, online or wireless applications, for use for marketing and publicity purposes and for re-use within any other Great Hotels of the World programmes with attribution to the entrant.

Tuesday, August 02, 2011

Computational photography

Computational photography
http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2011/06/computational-photography

[excerpt]
[...]

Now a novel approach to photographic imaging is making its way into cameras and smartphones. Computational photography, a subdiscipline of computer graphics, conjures up images rather than simply capturing them. More computer animation than pinhole camera, in other words, though using real light refracted through a lens rather than the virtual sort. The basic premise is to use multiple exposures, and even multiple lenses, to capture information from which photographs may be derived. These data contain a raft of potential pictures which software then converts into what, at first blush, looks like a conventional photo.

The best known example of computational photography is high-dynamic-range (HDR) imaging, which combines multiple photos shot in rapid succession, and at different exposures, into one picture of superior quality.

[...]

But HDR is just one way to splice together different images of the same subject, says Marc Levoy of Stanford University, who kickstarted the field in a seminal paper  http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/light/ he and colleague Pat Hanrahan published in 1996. Since then, aspects of computational photography have moved from academia into commercial products. This, Dr Levoy explains, is mainly down to processing capacity of devices, such as camera-equipped smartphones, growing faster than the quantity of sensors which record light data. "You are getting more computing power per pixel."

To show off the potential of some new techniques, Dr Levoy programmed the SynthCam app http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/synthcam/id412992079?mt=8 for the iPhone and iOS devices, which takes a number of successive video frames and processes them into a single, static image that improves on the original in a variety of ways. He and his colleagues have also built several models of Frankencamera http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/camera20/ : prototypes made using bits of kit found in commercially available devices which use a host of tricks to capture data and turn them into better pictures with clever algorithms. SynthCam and Frankencameras can improve photos taken in low-light conditions, which are usually quite grainy, and create an artificial focus that is absent from the original set of images.

Still, for all the superior results and techniques that computational photography may reveal, Dr Levoy laments, camera-makers have been loth to embrace the new approach. This is poised to change. On June 22nd Ren Ng, a former student of his at Stanford, launched a new company called Lytro http://www.lytro.com/picture_gallery , promising to launch an affordable snapshot camera this autumn.

Rather than use conventional technology, as the Frankencamera does, to take multiple successive exposures and then meld them, Dr Ng has figured out a way to capture lots of images simultaneously. This approach is known as light-field photography, and Lytro's camera will be its first commercial exploration.

[....]