Rant: I Love Photography

Editor’s Note: This blog post was originally posted by PhotoShelter CEO and founder Allen Murayabashi on the PhotoShelter blog. Murayabashi was kind enough to share it with Raw File readers.

It might sound strange to use the verb “Love” in the title of a rant. But here goes.

I love photography.

Why am I telling you this? Isn’t it self-obvious? Don’t we all love photography? The answer is no.

There is a percentage of photographers who hate photography. They do not appreciate photography. They do not consume photography. They don’t look at photo books or photo magazines. They hate the guy with the iPhone taking Instagram shots. They hate the guy who just bought the D4 because they don’t have one. They hate people using digital because film is what real artists use. They hate photographers who embrace social media because images should stand on their own.

They hate Getty, Corbis, the AP, day rates, photo editors, assistants, rental houses, camera stores, point-and-shoots, iPads, zoom lenses, padded camera straps, wheeled suitcases, younger photographers, older photographers. The photo of so-and-so on the cover of whatever it’s called sucks. That guy copied the other guy, he sucks. Terry Richardson sucks. Chuck Close sucks. Vincent Laforet hasn’t taken a still in 17 years. Kodak hasn’t been managed well since the 70s. Blah, blah, blah.

I love photography. Let me show you why.

The top photo was my favorite image of 2011 shot by Rich Lam for Getty Images during the rioting that occurred after Game 7 of the Stanley Cup. It’s amazing. It’s a crazy juxtaposition of love amidst protest, which was such a dominant theme this year. As many people have commented, it’s a modern day From Here to Eternity. You look at it and you think, “What the hell is going on?” And then you hear the back story and it’s even more amazing that it happened and someone was there to capture it. I’d like to hang it on my wall.

Rüdiger Nehmzow took these incredible photos of clouds from an open door of a plane. Who does that? He’s not complaining about Terry Richardson. He’s too busy creating amazing photos. Speaking of which …

People say the guy has no talent. They hate the on-camera flash. But you know what? That’s Terry Richardson‘s thing. That’s what he does. Do you have a thing? Are you known for your visual style? Sure, maybe you could have taken better photos of Lady Gaga if you had access. But you didn’t. Terry did because he built a reputation and a career. And this photo happens to have some Italian chick with a big nose washing her face and smiling, oh and by the way, she’s an incredibly creative and talented mega star. I was in Tokyo over the New Year’s drinking a coffee in a bookstore, and I flipped through the entire book. Hey man, she was born that way.

This is perhaps the scariest thing I’ve ever seen in my life from the Mainichi Shinbun (literally “Daily Newspaper”). It’s a black wall of water crashing over a seawall from the Tohoku earthquake that killed nearly 16,000 people. I saw a stupid Matt Damon movie called “Hereafter” that had a CGI tsunami. Then I saw video of the real thing, and I was speechless. A tsunami isn’t a wave. It’s a wall.

My high school hired me to take a series of portraits of Bay Area alumni, so I hired my buddy Max Morse to assist me. Here was the set up shot. I really like it. I posted it on his Facebook wall, and he made it his profile picture. I once made a photo that Missy McLamb took of me into my Facebook profile picture. She commented back that it was the highest compliment. I didn’t fully grok what she meant at the time, but now I do.

2011 marked the ten year anniversary of September 11. I live a few blocks from Ground Zero, so I walked down with my camera hoping to make an iconic shot. But it was cloudy as all hell, and I couldn’t see the towers of light piercing into the night sky. Then I see Eric Thayer‘s photo. Where was I? How much more uplifting could a ten year anniversary photo of 9/11 be?

Reuter’s journalist Barry Malone captured this image near Somalia. The juxtaposition is boggling. Guy in suit. Dead cow that is so starved it looks like a leather jacket. And craziest of all, he’s using an iPad as a camera — a scene that couldn’t have existed until last year since the iPad 2 came out in the Spring. Since then, I’ve seen this all the time. In fact, my father uses his iPad as a camera.

Protests were happening everywhere from Wall Street to Tahrir Square. And in Greece where economic issues are abound, Nodas Stylianidis captured this self-immolation photo, which of course, reminds me of Malcolm Browne‘s photo from Vietnam.

Peggy Sirota took these funny photos of comedian Ken Jeong photo bombing super model Kate Upton. I wrote a blog about it. People got upset. Said it was gross. Said it was demeaning. But I laughed when I saw the photos. It made me happy. It’s poking fun at the very things that are supposed to be demeaning. Are you trying to convince me that this is perpetuating negative stereotypes?

My high school classmate Tina and I share a stupid on-going exchange about Nicolas Cage, who has had his share of problems. When my birthday rolled around, she didn’t resort to the typical “happy birthday, allen!” wall post. No, no. She made a composite. It’s some sort of horse head nebula. With a cupcake. And Nic Cage’s floating head atop the cupcake. It’s amazing. This photo, by the way, is perpetuating negative stereotypes of Nic Cage Nebula Cupcake photos.

I love photography.

There’s a teenager in Japan named Natsumi Hayashi. She had some average Canon DSLR, but she came up with this concept to take self-portraits that look like she’s levitating. She takes a few hundred images jumping up and down and trying to strike the right pose. She has a Facebook Fan Page and lots of people take homage shots, but they’re just jumping in the air. They don’t levitate. They don’t jump 100 times for the perfect image. They don’t do it over the course of a few years to make it their own. She’s just a girl with a camera, and then all of a sudden she got a gallery show and a 5D, and I was really psyched for her. Her photos inspired me to levitate, and what could be a greater gift?

I love photography.

Tech. Sgt. Manuel J. Martinez of the US Air Force took this photo of a Special Operations dog jumping out of a plane. I’ve seen a few images similar to this. It’s amazing. It’s amazing that a dog helped Seal Team 6 kill Osama bin Laden. It’s amazing that dogs jump out of planes with people. It’s amazing that military personnel are there to photograph this stuff, and even more amazing that it gets published.

Tony Cenicola humorously photographed a chicken to accompany a New York Times article on cooking with chicken skin. On the Lens blog, reader Carol J. Adams commented:

“Not only has the Times featured a misogynistic image, they are now celebrating it by discussing it in a blog? This is the sexual politics of meat; it is about sexualizing the dead flesh of an animal by associating it with women’s bodies. It is anti-woman, it is anti-animal; it’s a pathetic, dated, sensibility. All around the world meat companies have beaten you to this. This is a new low for the Times. Beheaded female bodies as attractive? Just who do you think you are eating?”

ScottA responded:

“@Carol J. Adams – Your comment does not hold weight with its own blatant disrespect for the male form that is Burt Reynolds. Why your mind took an innocent image of a chicken, and associated it with a female body is beyond me.”

It is a chicken, right? I dunno, I get confused between people and chicken sometimes.

While some photographers complain about stolen images, security and thumbnail sizes, editor Alan Taylor went in the opposite direction. In 2008, he created the Boston Globe’s “The Big Picture” which was one big page of lots of incredible photos that were 990 pixels wide. No tiny thumbnails, no watermarks, no Flash, no bullshit slideshows that were only developed to create page inventory against which to sell ads. Nope. The Big Picture was about showcasing photography, and it’s glorious.

He was so successful that The Atlantic hired him away in early 2011 to start In Focus, which continues the large format tradition.

My friend Caroline doesn’t own a camera. She keeps using the crappy camera on her Blackberry. But it doesn’t matter. It’s not always about the quality of the image, or the composition, or the lighting. Sometimes it’s just about the people in the image and the feeling that it elicits. She went back home to Chicago this summer and had brunch with her mom. Someone took a photo with that crappy little cellphone, and now they can remember that brunch forever.

My best friend got married in September, and I took this photo of him hugging his father at the rehearsal dinner. It’s a pretty crappy photo. The light was really orange, and this was the best I could do with the white balance. His father’s face is obscured, but it’s an honest photo.

Last week, his father passed away following heart surgery. I knew his father for 20 years. I saw my first snow at their house over Christmas break in 1994, where I also did my first snow angel at the age of 18. I spent hours at the piano while his father played the guitar. I spent hours at the computer looking at all his father’s flower photos. Tell me that this is a shitty photo. (It is) Tell me that you could have done better. (You could have) Tell me that I didn’t need a $5000 camera to capture this. (I didn’t) Then tell me how I would feel without this photo, and tell me how photography sucks.

The business of photography is undergoing massive change. People who used to make a ton of money aren’t making the same money any more. Amateurs are giving away photos for free. I totally get it.

But listen. There are so many more incredible photos today than there ever were. And more people consume more photography than they ever did thanks to things like Facebook, Instagram, iPads, blogs, and “best of” compilations. This is the golden age of photography. Everyone takes photos now, and there is inspiration all around us. History is being made, and we’re capturing it.

I love photography.

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Allen Murabayashi is the CEO and Co-founder of PhotoShelter. Allen authors PhotoShelter’s free business guides for photographers and marketing professionals, including topics like email marketing, search engine optimization, and starting a photography business. Allen is a graduate of Yale University, and flosses daily.

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Person of interest named in search for Fla. firefighter

AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — Maine State Police suspect some kind of crime connected to the disappearance of a Florida firefighter, and they want to talk more with a Bangor man as the investigation intensifies.

Meanwhile, family and friends of Jerry Perdomo held out hope the 31-year-old Seminole County, Fla., firefighter will turn up. He's been missing since Feb. 16.

"We just want him to come home," Tonya Perdomo, wife of the missing man, told The Associated Press from her home in Orange City, Fla.

In Maine, state Public Safety Department spokesman Stephen McCausland said investigators have spent two days gathering evidence at a house in the Waldo County town of Jackson that's owned by the father of Daniel Porter, 24, of Bangor. Police believe the house is the last place Perdomo was seen. Evidence has been sent to the state police crime lab in Augusta.

Porter is "a person of interest" in the case, said the spokesman.

McCausland also said police interviewed Porter and Porter's 25-year-old girlfriend, Cheyanne Nowak, after detectives located them in Connecticut during the past week. The two have since returned to Maine.

Investigators also have moved three vehicles involved in the case to the crime lab. They include a rental car Perdomo had been operating, which was found in the parking lot of the Bangor Wal-Mart; a car that had been owned by Porter and was left behind at an Oakland dealership, and a new car bought by Porter and Nowak.

"The connection between Perdomo, Porter and Nowak, we're still trying to piece together," said McCausland. Perdomo made frequent trips to Maine, he said. A woman claiming to be Perdomo's girlfriend has come forward to police, but McCausland did not have her name.

Police also confirmed they searched a trash container at the Hannaford supermarket in Bangor, near Wal-Mart.

Perdomo's wife described the father of 3- and 10-year-old children as "a dedicated dad. He helps people out a lot."

"He was always doing something for somebody," said Tonya Perdomo. "He's very sociable. He was in the service and knows a lot of people."

Asked if it would be unusual for Perdomo to drive to Maine from Florida, his wife said, "He had friends from all over so it wouldn't be unusual for him to go out of town." Tonya Perdomo also thanked firefighters, neighbors and others who have been helping the family since her husband's disappearance.

Chris Learch, Perdomo's brother-in-law, was in Maine putting up posters with Perdomo's picture in the Bangor area.

"We're just going to keep doing it, going to keep on going until we find Jerry and bring him home," Learch told WMTW-TV in Portland.

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Syrian military pounds rebel areas, wounded journalists escape

AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian forces shelled an opposition stronghold in Hama province, killing 20 people, on Tuesday and hit rebel-held parts of Homs, activists said, as two wounded foreign journalists trapped in the city were reported to have been smuggled safely to Lebanon.

President Bashar al-Assad sent units of an elite armored division, which is led by his brother Maher, into Homs overnight, activists said. Tanks with the words "Fourth Division Monsters" painted on them moved close to the besieged Baba Amro district.

French journalist Edith Bouvier and British photographer Paul Conroy, both wounded last week in an attack in Baba Amro, were now safe in Lebanon, a diplomat and opposition sources said. It was not clear how they escaped.

In Hama province, security forces bombarded the town of Helfaya, a hotbed of protests in the uprising against Assad.

Activists said the 20 deaths of Sunni Muslim villagers there were among at least 100 killed in the province in the last two weeks in revenge for rebel Free Syrian Army attacks on security forces commanded by members of Assad's minority Alawite sect.

The reports could not be independently confirmed. Syrian authorities tightly restrict media access to the country.

Opposition groups say hundreds of civilians have been killed or wounded in the siege of Baba Amro and other rebellious districts in Homs, where terrified residents are enduring dire conditions, without proper supplies of water, food and medicine.

Syrian forces on Tuesday launched the heaviest bombardment in their three-week assault on Baba Amro, activists said.

Assad, projecting an aura of normality in a land ravaged by 11 months of conflict over his right to power, decreed that a new constitution was in force on Tuesday after officials said nearly 90 percent of voters had endorsed it in a referendum.

Opposition groups and Western leaders seeking Assad's removal denounced Sunday's vote as a charade that diverted attention from the violence in Homs and elsewhere.

"BARBARISM"

Assad's government had "broken all the limits of barbarism". French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said.

"And when I see the Syrian president paraded around this voting station in Damascus for this phony referendum, it makes you deeply indignant," he told RTL radio.

Juppe said he felt "immensely frustrated" at difficulties in obtaining security guarantees to enable wounded civilians and Western journalists to be evacuated from Homs.

American reporter Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik were killed in Baba Amro on February 22 in a strike on a house in which Conroy and Bouvier were wounded.

The Syrian Arab Red Crescent did manage to evacuate three people from Baba Amro on Monday, but not the foreign reporters, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said.

The outside world has proved powerless to halt the killing in Syria, where repression of initially peaceful protests has spawned an armed insurrection by army deserters and others.

"As long as we have not halted the massacres, we are impotent, but we are not inactive," Juppe said.

He told the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday it was time to refer Syria to the International Criminal Court and warned Assad he would be brought to justice.

Foreign powers have argued over whether to arm Syrian rebels trying to resist Assad's forces, but there is little appetite in the West for any Libya-style military intervention.

Russia and China have used their vetoes to protect Syria from any action by the U.N. Security Council, where Western and Arab powers had sought backing for an Arab League transition plan under which Assad would voluntarily relinquish office.

Qatar joined Saudi Arabia on Monday in advocating arming the Syrian rebels. "We should do whatever is necessary to help them, including giving them weapons to defend themselves," Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani said in Oslo.

Assad says he is battling a foreign conspiracy featuring "armed terrorist groups" and al Qaeda militants, while pressing ahead with political reforms toward greater democracy.

His opponents scorn his calls for dialogue as meaningless while Syrian security forces are violently repressing dissent.

The Syrian leader says the new constitution will lead to multi-party elections within three months.

The document drops a clause making Syria's Baath party the leader of state and society, allows political pluralism and limits a president to two seven-year terms.

But this restriction is not retroactive, implying that Assad, 46 and already in power since 2000, could serve two further terms after his current one expires in 2014.

The opposition dismisses the reforms on offer, saying that Assad, and his father who ruled for 30 years before him, have long paid only lip service to existing legal obligations.

(Additional reporting by Dominic Evans, Erika Solomon and Mariam Karouny in Beirut; Writing by Alistair Lyon, Editing by Rosalind Russell)

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Second student dies as gunman is identified

A second victim of the teenage gunman who opened fire at Chardon High School in Ohio has died.

Russell King, Jr. was pronounced brain dead at 12:42 a.m. at Ohio's MetroHealth Medical Center, according to the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's Office.

The gunman who opened fire killing two and wounding three others has been identified as T.J. Lane, according to a fellow student and witness, and ABC News' Cleveland affiliate WEWS.

His alleged fusillade of bullets left "friends laying all over the place" in puddles of blood, one student told ABC News.

Nate Mueller, a junior at the school, was having breakfast with three friends when he heard a loud pop like a firecracker about 7:45 a.m., he told ABC News.

A friend yelled, "Duck!" and Mueller told ABC News he turned to see fellow student Lane standing by his table. Mueller said Lane took a second shot and saw a friend get hit.

"He was over the table in a pool of blood," Mueller said, and another pal "was on the floor in a puddle of blood next to him."

A third friend "had not been hit yet as I jumped over him," Mueller said.

Mueller got on the floor and was trying to crawl away when a shot rang out and he felt a bullet graze his ear. He was not badly injured, he said, with just a small red mark left on his ear.

"It was terror. Everything had just gone tunnel vision, like, I need to get out of here," Mueller said. "You see glances of your friends laying all over the place. There's blood, there's people screaming, everybody's just running in different directions and you're just trying to get out. That's all you can do, get out of the school and not look back even though your friends are back there."

Two students were taken by ambulance to Hillcrest Hospital and three were taken by helicopter to MetroHealth Hospital, according to WEWS.

A student identified by MetroHealth Hospital as Daniel Parmertor died from the wounds. His family released the following statement through the hospital:

"We are shocked by this senseless tragedy. Danny was a bright young boy who had a bright future ahead of him. The family is torn by this loss. We ask that you respect our privacy during this difficult time."

The two other students at MetroHealth Hospital are in critical condition, according to police. Of the two students at Hillcrest Hospital, one is in stable condition and one is in serious condition.

Police have not officially identified Lane as the gunman, saying only that the shooter has not yet been charged and that he is a juvenile.

Mueller described Lane as "a quiet kid. Freshman year he got into a 'goth' phase and didn't talk to that many people anymore. He never egged anybody on. He just went about his business."

However, Lane's family life had been disrupted by divorce and violence, WEWS reported. His parents divorced in 2002, and his father later served time in jail on assault and other charges, according to the station.

Classmates described Lane as a outcast who'd been bullied. In late December he posted a poem on his Facebook page that read: "He longed for only one thing, the world to bow at his feet," and ended ominously: "Die, all of you."

Lane allegedly opened fire with a handgun just before 8 a.m. in the school cafeteria where students were eating breakfast, authorities and witnesses said.

The shooter was chased out of the building by a teacher and later turned himself in to a passerby, authorities said.

The suspect is in custody at Geauga County Safety Center, according to WEWS.

"Our prayers go out to the five victims and their families," a choked up School Superintendent Joseph Bergant said at news conference. "It's a horrible tragedy."

In the wake of the shooting, perhaps in a sign of solidarity, many of Lane's classmates -- including many in the "friends" column on Lane's Facebook page -- had the Chardon High School "Hilltoppers" logo as their Facebook profile pictures.

Geauga County Sheriff Daniel McClelland praised the reaction to the shooting.

"A prompt entry was made into the school. They went into the school and located the victims. It became readily apparent that the shooter had fled already," McClelland said. "The individual was apprehended some distance from the school and had fled on foot."

The officer said police created a security perimeter to make sure the gunman could not return and a search, including a K-9 unit, was launched for the suspect.

Parent Teresa Hunt told WEWS that she was texting with her daughter during the lockdown and her daughter said she heard five shots fired in the cafeteria about 7:30 a.m. Her daughter texted that students were scared and that four people had been shot.

Chardon student Evan Erasmus told WEWS that a student had tweeted that he was going to bring a gun to school, but that no one took him seriously.

The Chardon Fire Department was called to the school at about 7:45 a.m. in response to a report of "several people shot," according to Inspector William Crowley of the Chardon Fire Department.

Multiple law enforcement agencies, including a SWAT team, rushed to the school.

The superintendent immediately canceled classes at all schools in the district. Students who were still on school buses were being dropped back off at their homes and parents were called to pick up their children that were already at school.

The Chardon School District sent a voicemail to parents that schools are closed and high school students are being moved to the middle school, according to WEWS.

Parents received the following message:

"As of 9:00 AM the alleged sole CHS gunman is in custody and Chardon High School students are being moved by safety forces to Maple Elementary. Parents or legal guardians can pick up their students up any time. Chardon Middle School students are also being released to parents."

Ohio Gov. John Kasich tweeted around 9:30 a.m., "Pls pray for wounded Chardon HS students, their families, and their community; appears things under control now."

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has eight agents on their way to the scene and they are expected to trace the firearm.

Chardon is a village in Geauga County, about 35 miles east of Cleveland.

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Plane makes emergency landing at Newark Airport

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — Newark Liberty Airport has reopened after a United Express flight from Atlanta made an emergency landing, forcing an hour-long shutdown.

There were no reports of injuries among the 71 people aboard.

Authorities say Flight 5124 landed around 6:20 p.m. Monday, shortly after the pilot was approaching the airport to land as scheduled and noticed a landing gear problem.

Newark firefighters were called to the scene, but found no smoke or fire aboard the plane.

A spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey says the airport was closed shortly after the landing. Two of the airport's three runways reopened about an hour later.

Additional details were not immediately available.

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Stranded liner being towed to nearby island

VICTORIA (Reuters) - A cruise liner owned by the same company as the capsized Costa Concordia was being towed by a French fishing ship on Tuesday to an island in the Seychelles, after an engine room fire left it adrift in the Indian Ocean.

Costa Cruises said the fire on the Costa Allegra had been put out and none of the 636 passengers and 413 crew were hurt. The cause of the blaze was still unclear.

"Costa Allegra, since tonight, is being towed by the French ocean vessel Trevignon, route direction is Desroches Island," Costa Cruises spokesman Davide Barbano said in a statement.

Desroches Island is about 230 km (145 miles) southwest of Mahe, the main island in the Seychelles archipelago. It has pristine white beaches, a hotel and luxury villas.

The ship is expected to reach Desroches on Wednesday morning, Barbano said. He added that a helicopter was on its way to the Costa Allegra bringing food, satellite phones and radios.

A cold breakfast was served on Tuesday and passengers had been asked to prepare their luggage for disembarking, he said.

The giant Costa Concordia capsized on January 13 after hitting rocks off the Italian island of Giglio, killing at least 25 people. Divers and rescue workers are still searching for the bodies of seven missing people.

The much smaller, 29,000-tonne Costa Allegra was sailing some 200 miles southwest of Seychelles when the fire broke out and it sent a distress signal, the company said.

Giorgio Moretti, the head of Costa Cruises nautical operations, told reporters in a conference call that there was light aboard ship thanks to an emergency battery but no air conditioning or cooking facilities.

The passengers are from 25 different nations, including four children, with the largest contingents being 127 from France and 126 from Italy. There are 38 Germans, 31 Britons, 13 Canadians and eight Americans on board.

Seychelles Tourism Authority Chief Executive Alain St Ange said the plan was to fly the stranded tourists to Mahe from Desroches, though accommodation in the capital Victoria would be stretched by the influx.

"We are in talks with the ship's agent regarding what to do next but we are making plans to fly them here, although we do not have enough hotel accommodation for all the passengers since we already have heavy bookings because of an international carnival due to start on Friday," he said.

Seychelles is an archipelago nation in the Indian Ocean northeast of Madagascar with a population of just over 80,000.

The Costa Allegra left Diego Suarez in Madagascar on Saturday and had been due to dock in Victoria on Tuesday.

It is being protected by nine members of an "anti-pirate" unit of the Italian navy, a precaution regularly taken on ships in the Indian Ocean which is prone to attacks by Somali pirates.

While yachts have been seized in the past near Seychelles, Somali pirates have yet to successfully attack a cruise liner.

"The ship is not in a high-risk area, but we can't be 100 percent sure," said Costa Cruises' Moretti.

Seas in the area were moderate with winds gusting at 25 knots, the Italian coastguard said in a statement.

Shares of Costa Cruises' parent company Carnival were up 0.2 percent at 1,844 pence at 0850 GMT.

Costa was accused by some passengers of long delays and a lack of organization in the evacuation of the Costa Concordia.

That vessel's Italian captain is under house arrest near Naples accused of multiple manslaughter and abandoning the ship before the 4,200 passengers and crew were evacuated.

(Additional reporting by Catherine Hornby, Gavin Jones, Steve Scherer in Rome; editing by David Clarke and Rosalind Russell)

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Plane makes emergency landing at Newark Airport

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — Newark Liberty Airport has reopened after a United Express flight from Atlanta made an emergency landing, forcing an hour-long shutdown.

There were no reports of injuries among the 71 people aboard.

Authorities say Flight 5124 landed around 6:20 p.m. Monday, shortly after the pilot was approaching the airport to land as scheduled and noticed a landing gear problem.

Newark firefighters were called to the scene, but found no smoke or fire aboard the plane.

A spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey says the airport was closed shortly after the landing. Two of the airport's three runways reopened about an hour later.

Additional details were not immediately available.

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