Bruce Weber: Haiti/Little Haiti

Kiki Barthelemy and her son, Shamar Key, Little Haiti, Miami, Flroida 2010 by Bruce Weber.

Marina Cashdan at The Huffington Post recently interviewed Bruce Weber. It's mostly about his upcoming exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami "Haiti/Little Haiti," which is a long-term project he's been working on about the Haitian community in Miami. Lots of nice photos with the article, and a few other interesting tidbits, like this;

Jessica Lange takes really great photographs, and Jessica and I were talking about [shooting on film] and she said something really great, she said, 'You know, the great thing about using film is it can be a more intimate experience.' It's just because you're maybe not shooting as fast ... It's also easier to mess up, which is good, because then you can have a mistake which surprises you and maybe makes you think about something else.

Photoblogger Profiles

Is it time for end-of-year lists already? Wired Magazine's photo blog, Raw File has a list up titled Get to Know Our Favorite Photobloggers. A few I already follow, but several I was unaware of. My favorite new discoveries? la pura vida and Dodge & Burn. Maybe I should knock together my own list.

The Best of NYC's Nightlife Photography

Seen in my RSS feed, from The L Magazine:

Using polaroids, fast ISO speed film, unassuming point and shoots (and assuming digital setups), our favorite NYC nightlife photographers capture fresh perspectives after hours, documenting another generation's worth of tit slips, sweaty crowd surfing, and champagne poppin' mischief. We asked them to share with us their favorite pics, preferred venues and wildest experiences... and they did.

And if you like this sort of thing but want a little local flavor, I highly recommend my friend Rekanize's Flickr stream.

Sometimes I Miss the Nineties

000_0009, originally uploaded by infrar3d.

I was going through some things in storage recently, and found a few boxes of photography-related stuff I thought I'd lost in Katrina. Some cool old cameras, a bunch of old prints and negatives, and even some film.

I posted several of the prints in my Flickr stream. These were from a couple of shoots I did in 1998 I think, for modeling portfolios a couple of friends of mine were putting together.

Some of these were taken on location, and some in my very short-lived studio. All were taken with a Pentax ME Super, and an SMC-M 50mm f/1.4. All shot on Ilford XP2, which I used often in those days, when I didn't have time for hand processing Tri-X.

I noticed one of the photos from that set got blogged at Film is God.

Things I Can't Afford: Leica Noctilux-M

You don't see one of these on the local Craigslist very often - a Leica Noctilux-M 50mm f/1. As in one point zero. Only $2500.00. That's a bargain folks.

Pentax 645D Review at LL

I just finished reading Nick Devlin's early review of the Pentax 645D over at Luminous Landscape. It's worth a read, if you're interested in a $10,000 medium format digital SLR.

Nick points out that the 645D inherits some of the modern DSLR handling characteristics from the Pentax K-7/K-5. I think I've read similar statements over on the Pentax forums. But I noticed, from the pictures accompanying the review, that the top panel is also a bit reminiscent of the legendary Pentax MZ-S, with it's slanted control panel.

Stock Photos Suck

Custom photography vs. stock product images.

Jakob Nielsen has an excellent new article up at useit - Photos as Web Content. He used gaze plots (eye tracking) to show that users recognize, and ignore, stock photography on websites.

Seen at bizreport.com.