While scouring the web for news and information, I often find stuff that doesn't neatly fall into any particular category, but may be of general interest to photographers. Are are a handful of recent sits I've stumbled upon.
Week of Life
This site encourages visitors to photograph seven consecutive days and upload them to the site as a complete document of their lives. The idea is to create a "neverending mosaic of human originality and uniqueness...a gigantic photographic library of humankind in the 21st century.
Don't Screw Us
ASMP minces no words as it goes on the offensive in offering resources to help professional photographers protect their intellectual property rights—their ownership of their photos. As Manifesto item #2 states, "Just because a photo is posted on the Internet, it is not free." Tell us about it.
Robert Frank's The Americans at the Met
If you're in New York between now and January 3, don't walk—run!—to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see over 100 photos and additional material from Robert Frank's The Americans, perhaps one of the most influential photography books ever published. The original prints will be available for the public to see. Read Aperture's blog post about it.
The Economist
Not exactly an expected source of photographic interest, the Economist has awarded retired Kodak electrical engineer Steve Sasson their Consumer Electronics award for creating the filmless digital camera. Factoid: The original digital camera had 0.01MP resolution, took 23 seconds to capture an image, weighed 8 pounds, and only shot in black and white. It took 19 years before the first consumer digital camera, the Apple QuickTake 100, hit the market.
Film is Still Dead
I am kind of bored with all the "film is dead" posts that crop up on the Web over the years, but this one's special. "Camera Phone Officially Kills Film Camera" is a fine example of tainted research that says film is as dead as Generalissimo Fransisco Franco. The "study" was funded by a cell phone service company. As a self-fulfilling prophecy, this one is rather obvious.
Firmware Oops: Panasonic DMC-LX3
Panasonic announced a firmware update for the DMC-LX3, but then a few days later suspended it because of reliability problems. They say they'll re-post the update later this month. Follow the link in case you jumped the gun and already updated the upgrade.
