The state of PJ Today - was: BD's Re: [Leica] So for... -

[scott at adrenaline.com (Scott McLoughlin)]

BD, Just lovely stuff. Without any words, it tells so much. The youthful
and mixed gender staff so typical of university research; some older
researchers with pictures of the fam on their desks; white boards full
of scribble; cool equipment like centrifuges and what not; and on and on.
Really nice.

I was just going to write the LUG querying on the state of PJ
today, and BD's slide show/photo essay provides an unexpected
but excellent counterpoint.

I was persusing the newspapers today, both physical and online,
and it struck me what worn out and tired photos I found there.
Same old junk. Picture of Warren Buffet from the stock holders'
meeting; crying woman in headscarf after Iraqi car bombing (that
might as well be a stock photo by now); picture of Porter Goss at
some Washington hearing; picture of Kennedy the younger at a
lectern explaining his addiction; blah blah blah.

Same old crap. Why not a picture of the burned out car bomb
in Iraq? What about the dead or wounded?  What about the street
environment of the bombing?  What about the physical damage.
What about a pic of the drugs Kennedy is addicted to? Just give
us *something* interesting and informative.

Look at Jeffries wonderful series of pics of the NOLA destruction
and compare to the umpteen one-off shots of folks wading through
water or crying and wiping away the sweat at the stadium.

There are so many opportunities to TELL or SHOW SOMETHING
to the viewer with pictures, and instead we get crappy photos that
might elicit some emotion from time to time, but otherwise are mere
placeholders, more or less devoid of any real content.

And in our Internet age, there is the inexpensive bandwidth and storage
to attach a quality photo essay to almost any story, but still we get
fluff, and minimal fluff at that.

Hard to figure out.  The talent is certainly out there. What gives?

Scott




B. D. Colen wrote:

>An upcoming retreat for the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, someone came up
>with the idea of having a slide show running at the beginning of the day
>while people are getting their coffee, etc....So I've been shooting in
>various labs...Yes, many are repetitive...the idea is to show as many people
>and things so that people watching this will think, "Hey, that's us! That's
>what we do! These are the places we spend our days and nights....
>
>www.bdcolenphoto.com. Then Personal Projects. Then HSCI.
>
>B. D.
>  
>
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