The Best Photos of 2012

The gallery, care of Huffington Post.

National Geographic at Auction

National Geographic is planning on putting a small collection of its prized photographic holdings at auction in December.

From a piece on the AP...

A small selection of that massive archive — 240 pieces spanning from the late 1800s to the present — will be sold at Christie's in December at an auction expected to bring about $3 million, the first time any of the institution's collection has been sold.

Among the items are some of National Geographic's most indelible photographs, including that of an Afghan girl during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, a portrait of Admiral Robert Peary at his 1908 expedition to the North Pole, a roaring lion in South Africa and the face of a Papua New Guinea aborigine.

Paintings and illustrations include N.C. Wyeth's historical scene of sword-fighting pirates, Charles Bittinger's view of Earth as seen from the moon, and Charles Knight's depictions of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals.

They are being auctioned "to celebrate our legacy .... and to give people a chance to buy a little part of this great institution's history," said Maura Mulvihill, senior vice president of National Geographic's image and video archives.

"We think of ourselves as the unsung fathers of modern photojournalism," she added. "I don't think people are aware of what a massive instructive archive this is.

Farm Security Administration Photographs Re-Emerge

Be still my beating heart. I love Depression-era photography. And, lo and behold, now there are a zillion photos to look at from that era, here.

From a piece in the New York Times...

The images in New York are not all classic Farm Security Administration images. Some are alternate images before and after some of the more dramatic photos. Others are plain documents of everyday American life that also reveal the photographers’ process. The men and women who held what must have been the greatest photo jobs ever also shot some fairly mundane things.

But often, images that are not “decisive moments” are equally revealing.

Though he was a giant in American photography, Mr. Stryker was just one man with one set of eyes. People look at photographs differently now, and what is considered good composition has changed over time.

In the New York collection, a visitor can see the original prints.

“There are very few people who have actually held a vintage F.S.A. print from the time they were taken,” Mr. Pinson said. “Here, people can see them, read the back of the prints and research them.”
With the cataloging and digitizing of these distinctive images the New York Public Library’s collection of Mr. Stryker’s project is re-emerging as the important archive that he intended.

Behind the Picture: the RFK Assassination

Life Magazine has a slideshow, here.

Capturing the Immortals of Rock

Chimping - a Documentary about Photojournalism

Chimping from D Perez on Vimeo.

World Press Photo Contest Winners

Amazing images, here.

Dorothea Lange Biopic Coming?

And directed by David Fincher? I'm intrigued!

The Baseball Photography of Leslie Jones

Enjoy!

Best Photos of the Year

A compilation of the best pictures taken by Reuters photographers in 2010.

Alfred Eisenstadt Photographs Ernest Hemingway

For more on the photo shoot, Jacket Copy is here for you.

The Freelancer

The New Yorker has an interesting story coming out of Memphis. That is, News that Ernest C. Withers, a photojournalist who documented the civil-rights movement, was also an F.B.I. informant.

The First Underwater Photo Ever Taken

This is it. Learn more at a great site I recently discovered, Iconic Photos.

Legacy of a Photo

What is the legacy of a famous photo from the Vietnam War, or of any of the recent wartime pictures of Afghanistan or Iraq? Do they have a strong enough impact to raise a call to action? Or has society become desensitized, avoiding that which causes moral discomfort, or, more chillingly, have we become aesthetic consumers of such imagery? Tatjana Soli, for The Millions, discusses this.

From the piece...

Kim Phuc’s picture, taken not quite three years before the fall of Saigon, was at a period when most American troops had been withdrawn from Vietnam, during the policy of Vietnamization — handing over duties to South Vietnamese counterparts— devised by President Nixon. The napalm strike the photo records was ordered and carried out by South Vietnamese military. Does the fact that the bombs were aimed at North Vietnamese military hiding in the village, that the burned civilians were an unintended consequence, change the picture’s power? Or is the horror of unintended consequences precisely the point?

The most recent pictures to bring similar public outcry were of humiliation and torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Politicians said it was an isolated incident, an unintended consequence of the war. Since then, additional photos of abuse both in Afghanistan and Iraq have come to light. Congress voted to keep those new photos from the public, citing their indecency. Historically, governments have wanted portrayals of war to create public support for the sacrifices of a country’s soldiers. But Vietnam reversed those expectations.

Drawing Beauty Out of Desolation

NPR's "Morning Edition" had a piece recently on my favorite photographer, Dorothea Lange (pictured above), who took beautiful pictures during the Great Depression. You can listen to the piece, here.

From the story...

Many of us have an image of what the Great Depression looked like — even if we weren't there. One reason is because of Dorothea Lange's photographs.

Linda Gordon, who wrote a book on the renowned photographer called Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits, recalls one of Lange's favorite sayings: A camera is a tool for learning how to see without a camera.

"She really understood that the ability to see does not come from your eye; it comes from your brain," Gordon tells NPR's Steve Inskeep.

As a portrait photographer by trade, Lange knew pictures of individuals would have far more of an emotional impact than those showing eroded land or the dust storm, Gordon says.

For Photographers, the Image of a Shrinking Path

The New York Times discusses the lament of professional photographers. That is, anyone with the know how to use a digital camera is making money taking photographs.

From the piece...

Since graduation in 2008, Mr. Eich, 23, has gotten magazine assignments here and there, but “industrywide, the sentiment now, at least among my peers, is that this is not a sustainable thing,” he said. He has been supplementing magazine work with advertising and art projects, in a pastiche of ways to earn a living. “There was a path, and there isn’t anymore.”

Then there is D. Sharon Pruitt, a 40-year-old mother of six who lives on Hill Air Force Base in Utah. Ms. Pruitt’s husband is in the military, and their frequent moves meant a full-time job was not practical. But after a vacation to Hawaii in 2006, Ms. Pruitt uploaded some photos — taken with a $99 Kodak digital camera — to the site Flickr.

Since then, through her Flickr photos, she has received a contract with the stock-photography company Getty Images that gives her a monthly income when publishers or advertisers license the images. The checks are sometimes enough to take the family out to dinner, sometimes almost enough for a mortgage payment. “At the moment, it’s just great to have extra money,” she said.

Mr. Eich and Ms. Pruitt illustrate the huge shake-up in photography during the last decade. Amateurs, happy to accept small checks for snapshots of children and sunsets, have increasing opportunities to make money on photos but are underpricing professional photographers and leaving them with limited career options.

Amateurs Only

Spiegel Online discusses a bit of fashion news, by way of Germany's Brigitte Magazine.

From the brief...

German women's magazine Brigitte has declared it will no longer use professional models in its fashion shoots. But reaction to the first all-amateur issue has been mixed, with observers criticizing the magazine for not going far enough to fight anorexia...

Indeed, the amateur models in the January issue reflect the diversity that Huber says the magazine is trying to show. They range in ages from 20 to 45 and work as artists, receptionists, teachers and restaurateurs. "Beauty has many faces," says Huber.

The initiative, which made headlines around the world when it was announced in October 2009, is partly a reaction to concerns that overly thin models promote anorexia among women. "Brigitte has always had the interests of real women at heart," Huber says. "Our magazine encourages them to be self-confident and promotes a healthy self-image." Brigitte is one of Germany's top-selling women's magazines and belongs to the Gruner+Jahr media group, which is also part-owner of SPIEGEL.

Rare JFK Photos + Thrift Store = Story

Miss Destructo tells the tale of finding some rare photographs of one of our more famous presidents.

From the piece...

Today Mr. D and I were at our favorite thrift store and we stumbled upon a collection of 8×10 original archival photos from CBS featuring design manager Lou Dorfsman (He branded CBS and designed the eye) many of the photos were labeled with “My boss Lou Dorfsman” and seemed to be of CBS staff. Then further on down the pile I stopped as my jaw dropped at the sight of President John F. Kennedy doing what seems to be an interview, many of these are candid shots printed on 8×10 with archival numbers scratched on the back in pencil.

60 Years Through His Lens

The Daily Beast focuses on photographer Harry Benson, who has been taking iconic photographs for decades. There is a new monograph of his work.

From the piece...

The book, which spans Benson’s 60-year career, reads like a cultural and political atlas of American history. He has photographed every president since Eisenhower, countless movie stars, singers, soldiers, civil-rights heroes, and athletes. A masked Frank Sinatra walking up the stairs of Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball in 1966; a sanguine mother breastfeeding her baby under the folds of her Ku Klux Klan robe in South Carolina in 1965. Martin Luther King giving a stirring speech after the tear gassings in Canton, Mississippi; Oprah Winfrey stopping for a coffee on the streets of Chicago in 1996. Richard Nixon, flanked by his family, giving an emotional resignation speech in 1974; Hillary Clinton bending over a hammock in Little Rock to give her husband a kiss in 1992. Michael Jackson cavorting with children on the grounds of Neverland; George W. Bush practicing his golf swing in the Texas Governor’s Mansion.

How Photographers Created Rock 'n' Roll

NPR discusses the pioneers of rock photojournalism (including the work of Bob Gruen, whose image is above).