The language barrier, in my case, meant that bits of half-remembered high school Spanish, things understood in passing and in context, rendered the lyrics are as slippery as the music itself… acertijos bajo el agua, to borrow a lyric. The funny thing is, the lyrics still tend toward the cryptic even in translation; between that, and the music, the whole experience reminded me a bit at first of Radiohead minus the alienation and paranoia, but over time, it’s become something else: a reminder that the things we create sometimes resonate with people in ways that they might not understand themselves at first.

Man Ray, Violon d'Ingres

Which brings us, in typically circuital fashion, to Man Ray. Over the course of his lifetime would cross paths with all manner of artists (Duchamp, Stieglitz, Ernst and Arp, among others) and have a hand in Dada, Surrealism, photography, film, and conceptual art. In nearly every case, whether it was the eye-on-metronome Object to Be Destroyed/Indestructable Object (1923), the memorable portrait Violon d’Ingres (shown at left), or his Rayographs (objects developed directly onto photographic paper), familiar objects, and familiar artistic conventions, were repurposed or turned inside-out by the artist.

They’re different enough to provoke a double-take, maybe even a touch of unease; at the same time, though (as we might expect from an artist who’d been classically trained, and who also worked in graphic arts), they’re grounded in forms we know, and have seen countless times before. Like Cerati, Ray’s “language”, his visual syntax, isn’t always immediately apparent, so the work reveals itself in layers, and leaves itself open to interpretation.

Both these artists’ efforts work in much the same way. There’s a strangeness there, among the musical textures, lyrics, repurposed irons, and photographic prints, but in each case, it’s also anchored in something familiar, whether it’s a four-on-the-floor rhythm or the conventions of portraiture, even as it subverts what we’ve come to recognize or take for granted.

Quiero hacer cosas imposibles… If you’re going to attempt something new and different, therefore, it helps to remember that the things that have the power to surprise us aren’t always those that are radically different. Instead, that little “poke” is just as likely to come from something we know, speaking to us in a language or a syntax that teases just at the edge of our consciousness. Venture off into the strange, but keep one foot in the familiar…

ON THE WEB:

Gustavo Cerati:

Official Site (Spanish): http://www.cerati.com/
Official Site (English, via Google Translate)
Official YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/gceratioficial
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustavo_Cerati

Man Ray:
The Official Website of the Man Ray Trust: http://www.manraytrust.com/
Man Ray on UbuWeb: http://www.ubu.com/film/ray.html
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_Ray
A recent article from the Wall Street Journal on the artist’s estate and legacy: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304070304577394304016454714.html

Except for antipasto, which is always useful.

We photographers are a notorious lot when it comes to having serious GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome). For your reading pleasure, here are a few items you can safely avoid:

1. Brand New Anything: It can be VERY tempting, especially when you’ve heard about a product months in advance, to get it the day it’s released. Assuming that’s even possible (there will, after all, be hundreds, if not thousands, of people who’ve read the same speculation and leaked specs), you should actually be thankful if you can’t get your sweaty palms on a product in its early stages. It’s one thing to get a lousy sample; it’s something else altogether when that hotly anticipated product ends up being a dud, or has critical issues that impede its performance (hot pixels, dead pixels, overheating issues, distortion issues, et cetera.

2. Limited Use Anything: This can be true of bodies, lenses (how many people buy a fisheye lens only to have it gather more dust than photos?), and lots of other doodads that OEM and aftermarket manufacturers are always so eager to foist upon us. If it’s going to be absolutely vital once or twice, or if you’re not altogether sure how much use you’ll get out of it, rent or borrow it. If you’re not sure whether you need it, wait ’til it becomes necessary, and see the previous step.

3. Cheap Anything: Not that much comes cheap when it comes to photography. And there are some cheap pieces of kit that I’d argue you really ought to have in your bag (air blower, wireless remote, microfiber cleaning cloths). But some purchases are easy, and tempting, just ’cause they’re so inexpensive relative to most of the rest of your kit that they’re pretty easy to rationalize. Just bear in mind that those $19.95 purchases add up quickly if you’re making them often.

4. Really Expensive Anything:* Sometimes, good enough really is good enough. There are reasons that companies make lenses that run into the tens of thousands of dollars; a professional buying one can reasonably expect to recoup the price of the lens by using it. However, there are also reasons that lower-cost (and usually lower-specced) alternatives exist. Some of us are just shooting for the joy of it. If you’re one of those somebodies, bear in mind that if you’re willing to take the tradeoffs between one piece of equipment and another (lack of a built-in focus motor, for instance), that’s money that could be spent on other things, whether it’s other gear, or a nice dinner out with your long-suffering non-photographer significant other.

5. A Photography Degree: I’ll probably get flamed for this, and will have more to say on it another time. In the meantime, speaking of expensive… This is not to say you shouldn’t take the time and care to learn the fundamentals of the craft, and always work to improve them. With that said, the same calculus of cost versus ROI comes very much into play here as it would with a body or lens. Given that a degree currently comes at a cost that makes a Sigma 200-500mm 2.8 lens seem like a bargain, think twice before enrolling in a photography degree program. There are several other ways to learn the craft that don’t involve mortgaging the house, donating every organ you have two of, and signing a promissory note that puts your offspring in hock to a lender. Explore those first.

That’s just my top five. What are yours? In the comments, let me know the kinds of photography-related swag you habitually avoid.

*There’s a hidden corollary to this rule, however. Anything that’s so insanely expensive that you’d never once consider buying it — like a Sigma 200-500, or one of the hundreds of special edition Leica M9s that the company puts out on a regular basis for people who don’t take photos — automatically stops being expensive, ’cause you weren’t going to buy it anyway. Talk about cheap gear!

Just ask this guy about the other 574 that got away

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better. – Samuel Beckett

I hope you’re not afraid of photography, or of failing at photography. Let’s be real about this for a minute. Think of all the things you can screw up in your life: dinners, relationships, work projects… we could, between us both, probably come up with a list that ran into the hundreds of items, and that’s just the things we’ve already screwed up, not to even mention that which we haven’t yet gotten our hands on and turned to shit. A good many of them, if not most or all of them, have consequences a lot more weighty than your picture of a swan having blown highlights. Why is it, then, when we often wouldn’t give up on those more important things, we’re willing to bag it all when we’re faced with something relatively trivial?

And it’s not like you’re going to screw up once and be done with it. Even — no, especially — if you say, “Well, I’m never going to do that again,” you’re going to. And you’re going to screw it up. Not even the same way. With our wonderful creativity comes a propensity for finding new, and ever more creative, ways to fuck up. Life’s like that, and photography isn’t exempt from it, either.

Be encouraged.

There’s an adage in public speaking, but I think it holds true elsewhere as well: your audience is rooting for you. They want you to succeed, and will be with you no matter how far short your efforts fall. People talk all the time, but it’s not the same as putting yourself out there publicly; for that reason, many people can’t imagine speaking in public. Similarly, people take photos all the time, but I don’t know that many of them do it as though it matters, or as if there’s anything at stake. Granted, it’s not something of earth-shaking importance if we’re going to be honest about it. But if it matters to you — matters enough that you want to do it well, matters enough that you want it to matter beyond just a simple image on a screen or a piece of paper — that fear of failure is always an ingredient in the process.

Taken by itself, there’s nothing wrong with that fear. Like anything else, it’s what you do with it that makes it a good or bad thing. If you let it paralyze you, then, yeah, it’s not a great thing to have around. If, on the other hand, you allow it to motivate you to do something more than you did the day before… well, now you’re onto something. That’s also when your art really begins to resonate with other people beyond the level of being something pretty that goes on your wall or in your stereo. We may not understand color theory, or the how and why of a chord change that turns your heart to jelly, but all of us, on some level, recognize what it is to try, and to fail… and to get back up again, to try and keep trying, ’til what’s left is still far short of perfection, but just as far from those earlier, worse failures.

The best part (even though it often doesn’t feel that way at the time) is that those failures are a good thing. The only way not to fail, after all, is to do nothing. To risk nothing, and therefore to gain nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada. The upshot of all this failure, on the other hand, is that we keep getting closer — sometimes frustratingly so, with the goal just as frustratingly just out of reach — to what we wanted, needed, or just intended to do. What you see now as failure isn’t; it’s just part of the process, a point on your learning curve. Learn from it, grow in it, and see it as a beginning or a continuing rather than an end. Once you’ve stopped — stopped learning, doing, growning, trying — then, and only then, have you failed.

Got a Light?

It occurred to me tonight, as I was looking through my Favorites in my browser for something to write about, that I’ve got a lot of little odds and ends worth sharing that wouldn’t necessarily sustain a post on their own. I’ve decided to just lump them in one place and let ‘em simmer for a bit.

Allen Murabayashi’s Rant: I Love Photography might just be the best thing you read on photography this year.

Grover, portrait photographer:

Hopefully Grover doesn’t take the “professional” photography advice from 27b/6 seriously (warning: do not drink anything while reading this post)

Dorothy Brown gives photographers a reminder that once in a while, we really should step in front of the lens instead of spening all our time behind it.

Sure Beats Putting Posters on Telephone Poles: check out ifoundyourcamera.net, a repository of lost cameras…

A bit of photography humor from the reliably awesome xkcd:

Now you, too, can look like a supermodel, thanks to Fotoshop by Adobé:

And, finally, The New York Times’ “Lens” blog has a photo essay made up of contest entries from Kodak’s early days.

The Art Book/The 20th Century Art Book

I know that I probably sound like a broken record about cultural literacy and the intersection of photography and other arts, but I happen to think it’s an important thing. No art exists in a vacuum; photography, especially in its earliest days, owed quite a debt to things that happened outside of photography, and really, that will likely always be the case. For as much as the arts have to say to us, they’ve generally had quite a bit to say to each other as well.

I have quite a few art books on my bookshelf, most of them dating from before I took up photography. I bring these two up because they’re good if you want, or need, a quick reference or a brushup. The Art Book is a sprawling affair that covers art from the Renaissance all the way to the present day, while The 20th Century Art Book confines its sprawl to the last century. You won’t find any photographers here (that territory is ably covered by The Photography Book, another Phaidon title of similar layout and breadth), but if you’re interested in seeing some of what influenced photography, existed contemporaneously with certain photographers, or just what else’s gone on in the art world in years past, that’s all here in abundance.

Both books are laid out from A to Z, encompassing artists from several countries and movements. While I can understand the appeal of ordering the artists alphabetically — it’s easy if you’re looking for Miro, Chagall, or Klimt, and it’s also a browser’s delight — it’s simultaneously a frustration. There’s no context to speak of, as there’d be if the artists, and their works, were arranged chronologically so you can see how styles progressed over time,  how artists influenced one another, and even how individual artists found themselves equally at home in multiple media and styles. The cross-referencing system settled on by the editors represents only a half-assed solution, since you lose the visual clues and it’s harder to draw comparisons when you’re flipping among half a dozen different pages. This doesn’t represent a fatal flaw; it’s balanced quite well by the variety of artists on display, as well as a willingness on the part of the editors to occasionally use a lesser-known work to represent an artist.

The books are available in two sizes, one of which is very nearly pocket-sized, and the other of which wouldn’t look out of place on your coffee table. I picked up the pocket-sized works (they cost half their larger counterparts), but would caution that you’re losing quite a bit of detail when a piece is reproduced at something close to 4×6″. For all its flaws, the one thing this book does very well is to encourage you to delve deeper into art, and different artists, on your own… especially those you might not have heard of otherwise.

How about you? What non-photography books or art inform your art and craft?

Support The First 10,000 by purchasing The Art Book
or The 20th Century Art Book
(or anything else you’d like) through Amazon (affiliate links)

Taken by a photographer. Really.

If you were expecting a comment about Carnegie Hall and practice, practice, practice, you’ve come to the wrong blog. I’m a whole ‘nother class of wiseass.

You want to know how to become a first-class photographer?

Step one: buy or borrow a camera.
Step two: take lots of photos.
Step three: repeat step two, frequently and with furious enthusiasm.
Step… well, no, that’s it, really.

Gee, wasn’t that easy?

The ironic part is, I’m not exaggerating. It really is as simple as that, which means (to compound the irony) that it’s also actually as difficult as you want it to be, or maybe would rather it wasn’t. You can put all sorts of labels on it, take classes, get degrees, sit at the feet of some guru or other, and it’s all going to boil down to those three things.

All that you’ve learned doesn’t matter, and whatever else a teacher might teach you, her advice is still going to be to get out there and make photos (although, hopefully, with some instructions or caveats attached). It also doesn’t matter where you got the camera, much less what kind it is. I don’t care if you’re using a pinhole camera you’ve made out of a modified Altoids tin, a Pentax with a 2GB class 2 card and a lens you got for $7.50 at a garage sale, or a Hasselblad with a digital back and lenses for which you’ve mortgaged the house. Are you making photos? Good. You’re a photographer.

Let’s look at the other side of the same coin. You’ve got an expensive camera body, you’ve invested in enough glass to restock your local camera shop twice over, and you’ve got top-of-the-line everything? Well, good for you. Are you taking photos, or are you spending more time on various internet fora debating the merits of various doodads? Whatever else you may be, you’re not a photographer.

Now, I’m not talking about the distinction between a professional and an amateur photographer. That’s a post, or series of them, for another time; suffice to say for now that merely owning an expensive camera body and getting one good shot in a thousand doesn’t make you a professional, even if you got paid for that one good shot. But just being a photographer? That’s easy. If the camera’s out, and you’re using it to make photos instead of as a conversation piece (“Hey, is that a Canon 60D…?”), congratulations. You’re officially a photographer for the duration. Now quit worrying about whether you’re a photographer, and go photograph something, dammit!

Your preparation can actually start well in advance of the main event. Before you arrive, see if you can get your hands on some of the music used, or a script. This will give you an idea of who’ll be doing what when.

If you’re shooting because you’ve got kids or friends in the play, see if you can’t make it to a dress rehearsal. You’ll be able to do things you couldn’t if you were there on the night of a performance (standing, using a tripod in the aisles, moving around the venue for different angles and perspectives… you can even ask the director about limited flash use). You may also get the chance to get shots of the cast and crew relaxing, goofing off, et cetera.

Bring more memory than you think you need (better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it), and bring spare batteries. Make sure your batteries are charged and memory cards are formatted. I would also suggest bringing some kind of support. While a tripod is going to give you the most stability, it’s also going to be bulky; a monopod does quite nicely without taking up much space. Not only will it stabilize the camera, it will also help to keep your lines straight. If nobody’s sitting directly in front of you, don’t be afraid to brace your elbows on the seat back for additional support.

Choose your lenses carefully (more on that below), and make sure everything – camera body, lens(es), batteries, memory and support – is packed.

Once you arrive, scout your location. You’ll want to pay attention to the pitch of the seating area since some venues have steeper seating than others. Above all, you’ll need clear sight lines – something that minimizes the number of heads in your shots – and you may want an aisle seat for easy access, and having your shooting side free of obstructions. I’ve had better luck off to the sides than in the orchestra seating (again, fewer heads). Somewhat further from stage is better (so you’re not craning your neck, and so the angles look more natural). Arrive early so you can try a few different seats and figure out what works best for you. If you’re using a support, make sure you’ve left sufficient space for it.

About your lens choices: Fast primes are nice for the options they afford you in terms of shutter speed and lower ISO. Having said that, you’re going to be confined to one place for extended periods of time, which eliminates the possibility of zooming/reframing on your feet, and also taking a number of compositional possibilities off the table. A zoom lens – even a slow one – will give you a greater degree of freedom. If it’s a musical, I suggest something that starts wide to be able to encompass what’s going on in the big song and dance numbers. Dramas give you a bit more leeway with a tighter field of view because the staging doesn’t tend to be quite so scattered. In any event, whatever you pack, just be ready to adapt on the fly.

Check your settings: Shoot with the highest quality your camera will allow. That means shooting RAW if you have the option or the inclination, or in the highest-quality JPEG setting your camera has. You’ll likely want/need to edit your photos later, and the more information they contain, the better they’ll stand up to editing.* At the very least, allot one card per act (two per, if your camera has two slots). Auto white balance. Your ISO should be sufficiently high that it allows you to use a decent shutter speed and aperture. If you’re not already familiar with how your camera behaves at high ISO, try some test shots in low light. In any event, unless you’re using a camera that performs exceptionally well at very high ISO’s, don’t go past 1600 ISO. You’ll lose a lot of detail, and notice a lot of noise, especially in dark areas (even if your camera applies noise reduction). Your choice of metering will depend on how you’re shooting; if you’re going to shoot in auto or a priority mode (which, again, I’d suggest you don’t), use center or spot-weighted metering, because average/matrix metering is going to take into account the entire scene, and if the action’s taking place against a black, or very dark, background, you’re going to have some seriously funky exposures, probably with a lot of blown highlights. If you’re shooting manual, it doesn’t matter much; you’ll be ignoring the meter anyway.**

Noises off: First and foremost, turn off your flash. Let me repeat: never, never, never EVER shoot the performance using flash. I don’t care if the blue-haired old lady in the fifth row is doing it. You know better (and if you didn’t, you do now). It’s going to be a distraction to those sitting around you, which is bad enough. Worse still — and I speak from experience here — it’s a huge distraction to the performers. Likewise, if your camera uses an AF assist light, shut that off too. It’s not quite as much of a distraction as a flash, but it’s pretty darn close.

Speaking of distractions, if your camera has a “quiet” setting, use it. That means turning off the little beep that lets you know the photo’s in focus, turning off the shutter noise that the camera makes when it takes a photo (if it has one), and using the setting that quiets the “slap” of the mirror if your camera allows that. Finally, shoot using the viewfinder and not the camera’s LCD. You’ll have a steadier hand, your focusing be faster and more accurate (both manual and auto focus), and you’re also keeping your camera from being a distraction for those seated nearby.

Okay, now it’s show time… and time to shoot in manual. It’s not as hard as it seems, but this is one instance where it pays off. Here’s why: left to its own devices, your camera will try to expose any scene to look like it’s daylight. When you’re dealing with a scene where the lighting is far from ideal, shooting in Auto or even in a Priority mode is going to lead to your camera defaulting to a wide aperture and/or long shutter speed. What’s worse, the end results aren’t likely to look like what you saw in front of you.

While we’re on the subject of aperture and shutter speed, if you’re shooting with a long lens, I’d suggest you sacrifice aperture before shutter speed. If the scenery’s a bit out of focus, nobody’s going to mind, but using a shutter speed that’s too slow is going to leave everybody looking a bit ghostly, if not ghastly. If you’re using a short telephoto zoom (105mm or less at the long end), you can get away with shooting at about f/5.6-f/8 1/125 handheld, and at about 1/200 at the same apertures with a longer zoom, depending on the lighting. Check your photos as you go – you’re only checking at this stage, not deleting/editing/obsessing – so you know what settings need to be tweaked. Don’t be afraid to underexpose a bit (you can brighten photos later), but try to avoid overexposure, since it’s very difficult to recover blown highlights.

Finally, shoot with your ears open, especially if you’re shooting a musical or dance recital. Sometimes getting the shot means not just looking for it, but listening for it. At intermission, check your battery, changing if needed. Change your memory card whether you think you need it or not. Above all, remember why you’re there, and don’t obsess over getting the shot to the point where you miss the important part – the performance itself.

*It also helps if you have to recover highlights or shadows later.

**This takes a little practice, or at least a couple of test shots. The reason I suggest ignoring your meter is because your meter is likely going to tell you the photo’s irredeemably underexposed if you shoot at these settings, but the photos will be a close approximation of what you saw on the stage. Pay attention to the lighting, however, since you may have to adjust from time to time based on how it changes.

If any of you have tips of your own, let’s hear ‘em!

When life hands you lemons, just Photoshop 'em 'til they look funky.

I’ve spent a fair amount of time during the last few days going through past photos, trying to organize the tens of thousands I’ve taken to a degree that I can actually find stuff later, and also so that I can begin to delete some of the stuff that I will not ever have any use for in the future. I’ve had days — and you probably have, too, if you have any standards to speak of — when I’ve come back from a day of shooting, looked over it, and decided that the whole lot of it was crap from start to finish.

Now that I’ve had the chance to go back to some of these shots — in some cases, a few years after taking the photos — I realize that there are times I was right. The shots were every bit as bad as I’d thought or feared at the time. More often than not, though, there’ve been shots even from those bad days that have been worth keeping, even if I didn’t think so at the time.

As I’ve written about previously, we need to approach our own work with the same critical eye with which we’d approach anyone else’s. We also need to be realistic about it, though. For starters, we’re not always going to be shooting in ideal, controlled environments. It’s easy, when we have the luxury of freezing moments in time, to forget that neither that moment nor the “artifact” that resulted from it were in some way immutable, and just as easy to be frustrated when the results weren’t what we expected or wanted.

Try a little mental exercise. Pick something, anything, random in your field of vision. It could be anything… a cloud, a cat, your breakfast, a road sign. Now, let’s think about this a second. How’d that thing come to be and acquire its thingness? It wasn’t always what it is now. Whatever it is — thunderhead, Fluffy, jelly donut — it had to be brought into being. Over time, it will change, whether it’s your kitten going gray (get your mind out of the gutter), the cloud letting out its rain, the jelly donut going stale if it’s left to sit for too long. With even more time, it will cease to be. The cloud will dissapate, the sign will rust away, and you’ll scarf down that jelly donut (not necessarily in that order).

Now think about your frustrations in shooting. If everything else changes, that will too. Count on it. It wasn’t always what it is now; you probably weren’t frustrated when you picked up your camera this morning; something gave rise to your frustration, whether it’s your photos not turning out like you expected, or a silly mistake you’ve made. That’s okay; like your subject, your lighting, and everything else, it will also fade, change, and slip into nothingness. Nothing lasts. Everything changes. That can be a bit scary at first, in life as in photography. But really, that’s the single best bit of news you’ve gotten all day. Sure, some good things will pass (some experiences, like some shots, really are only once in a lifetime), but that also means that the bad stuff, all the negative feelings, all our halting attempts at learning, all the clumsy results, and nearly everything else, has not always been nor will it remain what it is.

When all else fails, remember that a bad day of photography is still better than a good day at the office. And if photography is your day at the office, it’s time to rethink your approach, and attitude, toward your craft. In any case, cut yourself, and your work, some slack, lest you talk yourself out of keeping it up and always getting better.

We should not complain about impermanence, because without impermanence, nothing is possible. — Thich Nhat Hanh

Enjoy!

Getting Ready For Her Closeup

Haven’t done this in a while. Here are a few photographers worth getting to know, and where to find them:

Zack Arias:

You want to start a “revolution” in photography, yeah. Whatever. You’re not. None of us are. Shut up and go shoot pictures.

Zack’s a commercial and editorial photographer who’s based in Atlanta, Georgia, but looking at his portfolio, you get the impression that he’s not home very often. His client list is as varied as the locations in which he’s worked: Spin, the Alternative Press, Carter’s / OshKosh, and USA Today have all featured his photos, and he’s shot in New York, Dubai, and India (among other locales).

Forget all that. Visit his site. Don’t just look at the photos, even though they’re gorgeous. Listen to, and read, what the man’s got to say, as in this recent post from Dubai (make sure you scroll to the end). What makes him worth following is that he’s willing to share the good, bad, and ugly of what he’s learned.

Website: http://zackarias.com/
Twitter: @zarias
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/usedfilm

Chase Jarvis:

Find your thing and do that thing better than anybody else does that thing even if you think
that thing has no value because I promise you that it does. And I promise you that other people will see this value too.

Chase is equal parts videographer, photographer, and motivational speaker. He’s another photographer who’s not afraid to give back, and who’s an unfailing booster of other good photographers with something to say… in fact, it was through a post on his blog ages back that I started to follow Zack Arias. He’s not one to rest on his laurels, or on all the awards or accolades he’s gotten. Take a gander at his book The Best Camera is the One That’s With You, and for a good example of why you need to read his blog, check out The Hit List: 13 Things Crucial For Your Success [In Any Field]. Whether or not his style is your cup of tea, if you’re interested in upping your mental game as a photographer, Jarvis’s website should be one of your first stops.

Website: http://www.chasejarvis.com/
Twitter: @chasejarvis
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chasejarvis

Sabrina Henry:

This journey of mine has no planned route but it does have a purpose: to express what I see and how I see it.

Sabrina Henry’s site, which launched late in 2008, has charted her unique vision and the journey she’s taken in getting there. In common with Jarvis and Arias, she’s not only a dedicated sharer and teacher, she’s also interested in pushing (or just eliminating) the boundaries in collaboration between photographers (read this post, a new IDEA, to see what I mean). In addition to her own site, Sabrina is also an active contributor at Craft & Vision and Rear Curtain. 

Website: http://sabrinahenry.com/
Twitter: @sabrinahenry
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LearningPhotography

Photojournalism Links:

Sites that share photos are a dime a dozen, and I personally think that half of them exist mostly as aggregators and search engine magnets. Happily, that’s not the case with Photojournalism Links, curated by Mikko Takkunen. Takkunen’s own work is mostly journalistic, and with Photojournalism Links, he collects and shares some of the best of what’s out there in journalistic and documentary photography. While print journalism has taken a beating in recent years, and online journalism still seems to be finding its form and voice, there’s ample evidence on display here that regardless of how things have turned out with their various outlets, there are still plenty of great photographers doing great work, even if it’s a bit more challenging to find it than it used to be.

Website: http://photojournalismlinks.com/
Twitter: @photojournalism
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Photojournalism-Links/#!/pages/Photojournalism-Links/107843195901044