There was a lot of buzz yesterday online about a new photo resource, so I thought I’d mention something about it. LIFE magazine has teamed up with Google to archive thousands of photographs taken by LIFE photographers over the past several decades. This amazing collection includes photographs and etchings dating back to the 1750s and by the time everything has been put online, there will be more than 10 million photos available worldwide. The archive includes photographs taken by some of the most well respected photographers in history including Margaret Bourke-White and Robert Capa .

This is a continuation of a trend that gained a lot of motion in early 2008 when the Library of Congress put a section of their collection online and invited Flickr users to help them in the massive task of adding tags to the photos. Shortly thereafter, several other institutions followed suit and helped create the The Commons on Flickr.

UPDATE: Wow! Here’s another great online collection of historic photographs from Tibet from the past 30 years.

Happy browsing!

Last week, I had a rather lengthy photo shoot with one of the sexiest models I’ve photographed in a long time. The photos are for a project I’m working on and, although I was very happy with how the photos turned out, I left the shoot exhausted since I had to spend a lot of time either on the floor or balancing awkwardly in order to get the shot off.

Intrigued . . . ?

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In a recent TED lecture, David Griffen, the director of photography at National Geographic Magazine, talks about how photographs can help connect us to the rest of the world. Using a few examples from the magazine, he discusses how meaningful stories can be created through the use of photography. The example images he shows are simply stunning and I think he hits on some concepts that make his magazine stand out from all of the rest.

Things have been busy around the ol’ studio lately. I’ll have some neat design work to post soon, but it’s not quite ready yet . . .

So, in the mean time, I was cleaning up my office a bit and I came across a camera that I’ve been using off and on for a while. There was half a roll of film in it (your guess is as good as mine as to what’s on the first half!) so I took it out to do some shooting this weekend. I’ll try and have some photos developed to post soon.

The camera is a Yashica Electro 35 rangefinder which is from the early 1970’s and is considered by some to be a “poor man’s Leica“. It has a beautiful lens which stops down to 1.7 so it’s a great camera for low light and for street photography. Since it’s a rangefinder, there is no mirror that flops up when you press the button, so there’s a barely audible click when the shutter opens which makes it nice for candid photos.
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My apologies for the lack of posting lately! It’s been busy, busy around the studio and I’ve been working on lots of interesting projects. I should have some more things to post soon!

I did take a little time out to spend some time with my new camera and I’ve been loving it! It’s been good for me to get back to shooting on film and I find that I make much different choices on how and what I shoot when it’s a dollar per click! It’s great to have such rich depth of field and, although the Polaroid film almost has a mind of it’s own, the photos have a great quality to them. The colors are really dependent on temperature, light, etc. and so I can try my best to get it “right”, but it’s still a mystery to me what I’m going to end up with. Below are a few of the early test shots I took and I hope to have some more up soon!

I also wanted to point out a couple of wonderful articles, one is called Gone in Sixty Seconds and gives a very interesting history of Polaroid. The other is called The Branding of Polaroid, 1957 - 1977 and it’s great reading as well.

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Last weekend, I was asked to help shoot photos of some family members. It was a lot of fun and I was excited to be able to shoot in all natural light with just one lens. Those facial expressions are priceless!

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I think one of the nicest things about biking to work is having the chance to stop and notice things along the way. The fresh air is nice and the exercise is great, but mostly, I think it’s cool not have a pane of glass between you and the rest of the world. It’s nice to be able to stop if you see something and enjoy it without having to park, get out of the car, etc. So, perhaps against my better judgment, I took a camera along on my ride today and shot some of the things that I see on my way to the office!
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Pok Chi Lau is a photographer and teacher from Lawrence, KS who has made Chinese migration and the emergence of China a focal point of his work over the past 40 years. Pok Chi was my photography teacher in college and had an enormous influence on me and my work in terms of how I approached image making as well as how I looked at different cultures through the lens of a camera. He still remains a strong influence of mine as well as a friend and so I was very excited to learn that he has a new book of his work out called Flow China!

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