Monthly Link Dump

New Leaf

Signs of the Times: The BBC has a feature up about photographer Simon Roberts, and his work documenting the recession. Happily, Roberts does much of the talking, and both he and his camera have plenty to say. Some of the pieces discussed (like the Occupy London tent city) are familiar, but some of the others — collaging demonstrators’ signs as well as sale placards — are a different visual representation of the unrest that’s accompanied the downturn.

Bears… in… Spaaaaace! The Daily Mail reports on some British students sending stuffed critters into low Earth orbit using weather balloons. Photography is only incidental to this story, which I’m including because, well, bears, space and science — what’s not to love?

Does This Lens Make Me Look Fat? On Petapixel, John Cornicello explains why the camera adds ten pounds, with illustrations. Elsewhere on Petapixel, Michael Zhang has unearthed a 1902 book on photography mistakes (helpfully titled Why My Photographs are Bad), reminding us that in photography and in life, the more things change the more they really do stay the same.

What is This “Copyright” of Which You Speak? The Register (UK) tells of an English proposal that guts the rights of copyright holders. They do a better job of explaining it than I could, so check the article out at this link. If you don’t live in the United Kingdom, I’d still suggest taking a look, because this is an object lesson in how fragile creators’ rights to their own work tend to be.

The Closest A Cheeseburger Will Ever Get To Kate Moss (and Vice Versa) Design Taxi takes us behind the scenes of a McDonald’s “fashion” shoot, complete with fancy lighting, fluffing, and lots and lots (and lots) of retouching. I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions about what it says about us as a society when we treat our food like models and our models like meat…

In Which Photography Gets All “Meta” When is a photo not a photo? Wait, let’s try that again. When is your photo not “your” photo? No, that’s not it, either… Well, anyway, the Guardian has a piece on photographers repurposing Google Street View photos as art by applying a bit of cropping, a dash of context, and a pinch of processing, calling it their own, and getting some serious accolades for it. There’s plenty of precedent for this kind of thing, although the convenience with which it’s done is something new. Check out the article, and sound off in the comments below; what do you think?

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