Something about the mythologized Capa induces normally sensible people to stop using their eyes to actually see what’s in his pictures and describe that straightforwardly. Instead, they see the myth, press the hyperbole button, and away we go. […]
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So AI has already begun to infiltrate the field of photo history. I suspect the full onslaught of AI degradation lies not far ahead. And it ain’t pretty. For the moment, I’ll just make this prediction regarding Capa D-Day-related AI slop: Après ça, le déluge. […] These are not cheerful photographs. They are direct, and specific metaphors for what would seem to be a profound and prolonged suffering which encompasses impotence, fear, deprivation, and loss. Their power resides in the preciseness with which they describe not merely what the eye has seen but what their maker has experienced. […] I can think of no other postmodern-era project that has at once paid such homage to Walter Benjamin while at the same time so thoroughly refuting him — by making a convincing argument that even digitally rendered, mechanically generated facsimiles of mass-produced artifacts can effectively contain and transmit the experience he called “aura.” […] |
 SPJ Research Award 2014 |
Straight Outta Stone Ridge: The Moles of Summer
For the first time in over half a century I have (a) my very own resident groundhog but (b) no designated local season prognosticator of the woodchuck persuasion. Hence a dilemma I faced this past February: Who to believe about the advent of spring? […]