Blog About Photography

I’m straight up stealing a post from Conscientious, but that’s ok, but that’s ok because Amy Stein is a great photographer who we can all learn something from. From what she puts on her website, it would seem that her work adheres closely to the themes she sets forth, using a combination of found and posed subjects. Some of these speak to me more than others since I belong to the school that says it’s more interesting to discover interesting things out there in the world than to set them up yourself. Even so, her work is engaging and thought provoking, particularly her “Women and Guns” series. And, better yet, she writes an interesting and insightful blog which is something everyone can behing.

This is a fascinating article from Slate about a serious problem facing emcees these days: the Sample Troll. What is a sample troll, you ask? From the article:

Similar to its cousins the patent trolls, Bridgeport and companies like it hold portfolios of old rights (sometimes accumulated in dubious fashion) and use lawsuits to extort money from successful music artists for routine sampling, no matter how minimal or unnoticeable. The sample trolls have already leveraged their position into millions in settlements and court damages, but that’s not the real problem. The trolls are turning copyright into the foe rather than the friend of musical innovation.

The article is long, but it really is worth reading. There’s an audio version of it floating around somewhere, too.

This trolling thing is serious business. I hadn’t heard of the sample trolls before, but I remember reading an article in the New Yorker about a patent trolling company that was taking down RIM, the company that developed the BlackBerry. They had patented a crude wireless email system that is sort of like RIM’s, and they were suing them for like a gajillion dollars. It was going to totally sink the company but then of course Microsoft bought them out and solved the problem.

This article only relates only peripherally to what I just said. It’s interesting though, because unlike the New Yorker article, it gives suggestions about how the music industry might address the sample troll threat. I hope to see some lively discussion about this here, assuming that anyone is reading this. Post comments if you’re out there! Let’s make this a back and forth!

Well, maybe funny. Fox News is getting ready to try out a “Daily Show”-esque political satire show that leans right instead of left, according to Hollywood Reporter, via the HuffPo. It’s going to have writers from “24,” “Politically Incorrect with Bill Mahr” and the “Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson”. So you know it’s going to be hilarious.

I, for one, welcome this new program which for now is called, “This Just In.” After the repudiation of their world view, I appreciate that Fox is trying to get creative with their programming. I mean, they have 24 hours of airtime to fill with hatred and bile and lies, so I’m glad that they’re thinking about making it funny as opposed to infuriating. They still call themselves a news network; they may as well admit it’s just a joke.

The Jen Bekman Gallery has announced the winners of the Hey, Hot Shot competition for fall 2006. I won. No, not really. I didn’t even get honorable mention. All the work is really good though from some pretty serious and talented photographers, some of whom I’ve heard of, so I’m more awed than disappointed. I entered:

This is what won:

So there’s a pretty clear aesthetic difference, and um, you know difference in say, ease of execution and, you know. Quality. So I guess I have some work to do. Congratulations to all the winners. But know that Spring ‘07 is going to be an total shut out. I’m comin’ back, baby!