President Obama hosted hundreds of members of the LGBT community and their straight allies at the White House yesterday afternoon for a celebration of Pride Month. There was no glitter, or go-go boys, and given that there was no mention of the executive order on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), we were surprised that there were no hecklers either.
[Images: Victor G. Jeffreys II]
Hey Farmer Ted. Next time we send you to the White House please A) take a better camera and B) point it in the right direction.
yes sir!
I'm not real happy with the trend toward using "throwback"-style photos. It's not the 1970s— why do our pictures have to look like it is?
These are instax minis ... Real, actuall instant pictures. What else should they look like? Not all cameras are digital.
I get that, but we largely left this kind of technology behind for a reason.
I'm sure I'm in the minority in light of the popularity of Instagram, etc. I just believe that there is value in using the technology of the day to record what happens today.
I am an avid supporter of instant photography (so now you know my bias), but I'm really passionate about it. There's something completely magic about it, something that a digital camera can never get you. With instant, you get one, and only one. It can't ever really be reproduced. There's no file, there's no negative, and that one little square/rectangle is all you get. Sure, you can scan them, as Victor has done here, but a scan can never capture the depth and luminosity of the actual, physical thing. I'm not a fan of Instagram and such because they all feel like a cold digital mockery of a serendipitous analog process. I think of my digital camera as a tool (I have a Fuji X100), and my analog cameras as friends.
I will spare you my speech about the brillance and innovative spirit of Edwin Land.
I can understand your perspective from an artistic standpoint, but from a practical and historical perspective, I can't jump on board. Having only one copy when the technology exists to produce more easily seems wrongheaded. That means there is one sibling in the family who gets the only photo of grandma; there was one photo taken of Thanksgiving 1972 and oh no, it was destroyed in a fire. If we have the opportunity to make high quality copies, why wouldn't we?
From a historical and rather facetious perspective, I just imagine historians 500 years from now wondering why photography technology improved so much after the 1970s and then suddenly regressed after 2010.
Many photographers (both professional and amateur) still prefer film over digital. It's an aesthetic choice that has nothing to do with the time/place of the events being photographed. There's a warmness and delightful element of "chance" to film that digital could never replicate. I'm sure someone with more of a photo background could elaborate...but as hobbyist photographer, I rarely (if never) use my DSLR, but I have a collection of about 10 film cameras that I use on a daily basis.
Agree to disagree, then? Lots of art is not reproducible ... there's only one Mona Lisa, after all. And if you don't consider this to be art, that's fine, and you certainly don't have to. But allow me to introduce you to a few of my favorite instant artists:
Just butting in on your conversation to say thanks for these links. I love instant photography.
Hey, the more the merrier. Glad I could share these guys with you!
Thanks, I will certainly take a look at them. :)
Agreed. In 20 years or so, our current technology will appear dated and will be appreciated for having qualities of its time. Making things appear retro relatively to current events seems artificial and won't age as well as "regular" photos using technology of its time. Those will appear vintage and authentic for the next generation.
I get what you're saying from an artistic point of view, but getting one and only one means that many billions of good moments are lost to the oblivion. If you are truly dedicated to the artistic depiction of the moment, shouldn't you in theory want to capture every moment possible and not just the ones that happened to be snapped by these particular people with this particular kind of camera? Yeah, it's interesting to have a unique shot that can never be reproduced, but that doesn't make it particularly engrossing or even art. Photography is just like every other kind of art, it's beauty belongs to the eye of its beholder. I find just as much beauty in a masterfully taken digital photograph (that may have taken a million shots to produce) as in an "instantly" taken one that finds its only beauty in the moment.
Shoot something for D&B!
kat.bee you should shoot something for us!
We have a difference in the way we view the nature and purpose of photography. There's no right or wrong here. Many good moments are always lost to oblivion. You can't possibly capture them all. So no, I don't want to capture as many as possible; I want the ones I do capture to be representative of all those lost moments. I would never say that simply by being an instant picture that it's art; there are bad instant pictures just as there are bad film pictures and bad digital pictures. And of course a digital photograph can be a masterpiece. I see this simply as a difference in mediums. Some people paint in oils, some in watercolor, and some with rattle cans. Some shoot digital, some shoot film, and some people shoot with eggs. It's up to the artist. Photography can be incredibly technical or as simple as a box with a hole in it. I just don't believe that the introduction of one type of technology invalidates all the others that have come before, or robs them of merit.
Working on it, thanks!!
That would be rad! I'm going to Kauai for two weeks in July and bringing along my regular arsenal. Hoping to pick up a Konica Big Mini before I bounce!
Safe travels. Keep me posted.
Why don't we lump not being able to hire people based on Gender, Sexual Orientation, Race and Religion into one large law, call it "The National Don't Be An Asshole" law and then do away with this nit picky bullshit. Then we can finally get back to making laws giving business owners the right to hire whom they wish finally.
It is against federal law, thus state law, to discriminate against persons on the grounds of race, sex, religion, national origin, pregnancy, disability, age for workers over 40, credit history, or citizenship status, in employment. It isn't allowed. Sexual orientation, on the other hand, is not one of those protected classes and it needs to be. If you want to "get back to making laws giving business owners to the right to hire whom they wish finally [sic]," you're gonna have to ask that we go back more than 40 years. Our country is not going back to the bad old days. I'm sure that may upset you and your fellow klansmen, but that's the way it is in the US and to do otherwise offends our values as a nation and it undermines the stability of the economy. If you want to get back to those days, maybe someone can get you a time machine to travel back.
It is not illegal to discriminate against a person based on their credit history, only against bankruptcy. Additionally, "citizen status" does not apply to illegal aliens, only those who are citizens, permanent residents, temporary residents, refugees, and asylees. Disability is also based largely on "reasonable accommodation." These laws also typically apply to companies with more than 15-20 employees. The law is not as broadly accepting as you infer
First of all, it is "imply," not "infer." Before you get to correcting someone, you should make sure everything you say is true.
Um, I don't need you to explain any of these things to me, so why did you bother? Is it because you wanted the joy of typing out that illegal aliens are not covered under citizenship status. Show me one place where I said it does. And where did I say that every single disability must be honored? More specifically, where on earth did I write that every business should be able to accommodate every disability? I said it is illegal to discriminate against someone solely because of their disability status which could per se make them unqualified. You are jumping in here talking about buildings being handicapped accessible with chair lifts, ventilators for quadraplegic, or supply glasses for the legally blind. Where did I say that hiring and making a building more accessible for the handicapped were related at all?
I went to YLS. I know the law much better than you do. I've been taught by the best scholars and they've given me their stamp of approval. So, imagine you, someone who can't comprehend anything beyond his/her hate and doesn't know the difference between imply and infer, chiming in to correct me. Not only are you a dullard, you are a dullard who wants to cheek his/her academic and intellectual betters. Get it together.
Go back to your hovel, troll.
Is this a selfie?
