Perhaps I’m not alone in finding it surprising that a prominent right-wing spokesperson has come out in defense of creative photographers harassed by the police for making pictures in public places. Especially since the police excesses have happened in the name of fighting terrorism. Whether or not I have company, I consider it worth […]
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Let me add that I would not and will not castigate anyone for accepting this position [Chief Curator at the Center for Creative Photography]. The state of the economy aside, the CCP is a unique repository and a major institution in photography. Running it, whether as Director or Chief Curator, is a dirty and dangerous job, subject to the well-documented machinations of a cluster of verifiable weasels. But someone’s got to do it. […] Our repetitions and replications (Internet echo, photographs and otherwise) are crucial to pass on cultural practice and serve an important social function—even if on the face of it our actions appear, not only infinitely stupid, but repetitive, a bit outrageous, counterintuitive to logic, may serve no obvious purpose or may even hijack what A. D. Coleman and I both thought might be a productive thread. Our dumbness may kill us, or it may save us. The jury is still out. […] The Internet in many ways and on many levels promises freedom when, in fact, it can deliver quite the opposite. Its multitudinous and disparate voices can give us all ADD. Walls around institutions have become nearly impenetrable, if only for the sake of the sanity of those within. Discussions remain fragmented and remain, not for lack of intent or purpose, within closed communities. Conversation is encouraged and simultaneously (intentionally and unintentionally) degraded and elevated via the form of its dispersion and by the practice of its participants. […] |
 SPJ Research Award 2014 |
CVS vs. Kiddie Porn
While the California authorities, and the mass media, celebrate the arrest and prosecution of a dangerous predator, let’s beware of any tendency to use this case to justify a skein of laws that have resulted in far more persecutions of innocent people than the capture of guilty ones. Meanwhile, this caution for photographers, amateur and professional alike: Do not use a processing lab anywhere in the U.S. to develop or print any images of children (your own or anyone’s else’s) naked, partially clothed, or clothed but striking poses that anyone might construe as sexually provocative. You’ve been warned. […]