A Photo a Day

As a member of the UTNPPA we took part in a project called A Photo A Day. It's not a new concept to be shooting a picture a day, but these pictures are different. They are more personal and meant to expand personal vision.

There is a group that started in Florida called APAD. I learned of the them when I was working as a photojournalists for the Daytona Beach News Journal. A lot of times there are images we were unable to publish in the newspaper for whatever reason so we published them online at APAD.

We decided to do a photo a day to inspire us to look at the world around us and to be shooting every day. The first week I started out with my M6 shooting black and white. Then I moved over to my Canon digital for the second half.

Social Documentarian Photographers: A brief history

John Thomson, of London, (1837-1921) is credited with taking the first photographs as social documentation. He was one of the first documentary photographers in London to create images of the poor and destitute. His images can be found in the Victoria & Albert Musuem. His work is also featured at the Wellcome Museum. Thomson spent a decade photographing the Far East from 1862-1872.

A Manchu bride. Photograph by John Thomson, Peking, 1871/1872.

Woodburytype, by John Thomson.

Jacob Riis, another social documentarian, arrived in the United States in 1870 from Denmark. He was a writer for the New York Tribune and the Evening Sun and began photographing New York City's tenements starting his work as a reformer. His book “How the Other Half Lives,” 1890, exposed the squalid living conditions of immigrants in New York City's Lower East Side.

Bandits Roost, 1888, Jacob Riis

Jacob Riis, Five Cents Lodging, Bayard Street, c. 1889

Lewis W. Hine (1874-1940), an American sociologist, worked as a photographer for the National Child Labor Committee. Hine was a reformer with aims to end child labor. In 1907 he began working with the National Child Labor Committee which started his long and determined life as a reformer. Many of his works can be found at the Library of Congress.

Peace, an Ellis Island Madonna, 1905 Lewis Hine Black and white photographic print, 11.0"x9.0" Archives of American Art Elizabeth McCausland Papers, 1877-1960 Image No. AAA_mccaeliz_12579

La Orchidea

La Orchidea

By Christina Burke

White centered green-stemmed fuchsia petals.

Delicate fragrance in the fragile blooms.

Formation is perfect balance.

Unfolding of petals reveal the white center.

Your image inspires something forgotten within.

A perfect beauty, one to get lost in.

Valentine’s Day some people love it, some hate it, others are indifferent. If you love it you probably enjoy giving or receiving chocolates, jewelry and fresh-cut flowers or cards from Hallmark. Like Hallmark says, "Don't wait to show your love."

The day of love has come and gone and here we are two weeks and a day later and my orchids are still thriving. It's not the American Society of Orchids that taught me how to care for fresh-cut flowers, it was my grandmother, a florist for years,who gave me the secret to keeping cut flowers fresh.

Orchids are considered one of the most seductive flowers.

The most important thing is the solution you place them in. Fresh water and flower food or sugar are crucial ingredients in you flower vase. But to keep your flowers fresh and beautiful longer you have to add Sprite. That’s right, fizzy clear soda pop is the key to ensuring your floral arrangements longevity. Somehow the carbonation in the water helps the flowers to absorb the flower food and water.

Before putting them in this magical concoction cut the stems at an angle so they can easily drink up the liquid in their vase. Remember to prune off any dead foliage as it browns and change the water often to keep your flowers looking as fresh as the day you got them.

Eventually the flowers will wilt and fade away. Be sure to have pictures to remind you of how truly lovely they were. In Austin you can visit the botanical gardens at Zilker Park.

It's Fat Tuesday in the Big Easy and beyond.

My family, the Irish Burke's, arrived in New Orleans around 1848. In our family we don't say Nola or Nawlins, we pronounce it as it should be. My grandparents met on a riverboat on lake Pontchartrain. That was back in the days when people still swam in the brackish estuary.

My grandmother's beans and rice can only be made with Camellia beans and her cabbage tamales are not of the alley cat variety, though we've heard stories about New Orleans tamales vendors who used the neighborhood felines for their culinary concoctions.

Our family reunions were held on the banks of the Mississippi at my Great Uncle Mickey's home in Arabi, God rest his soul.

Fat Tuesday is synonymous with drunken reverie of tourists on Bourbon Street in the French Quarter. It is the last day to get your kicks the day before Ash Wednesday when the penitential season of Lent is upon us.

The French Quarter is centered around the St. Louis Cathedral. It is home of the Cafe Du Monde where you, along with 800 other tourists can buy the sumptuous beignets which are like mini funnel cakes. After filling up on these tasty treats you can walk over to the famousJackson Square.

General Andrew Jackson, erected in 1856 by Clark Mills.

To the left of St. Louis Cathedral is the Cabildo or City Hall where the Louisianna Purchase was signed, according to Wikipedia.

The Kaleidoscope

The kaleidoscope is one of my favorite pieces of glass, next to Carl Zeiss that is. I'm working on developing a way to make images with my kaleidoscope with both still photography as well as video. I collect kaleidoscopes and when one my favorite ones broke I was bummed. Then in this great class I am taking called "Blackbox" I repurposed the broken kaleidoscope and created what I call the kaleido-cam. Blackbox is an ACT Lab class in the RTF department that is a great place to be creative.

Kaleidocam from christina burke on Vimeo.

ACT Lab is short for Advanced Communication Technologies Laboratory. The philosophy behind it is, "The ACTLab is a program, a space, a philosophy, and a community," according to the website actlab.utexas.edu. It is a new media initiative that breeds creative thought and critical problem solving ability. Their motto is "Make Stuff." I particularly appreciate this considering I spend most of my days and nights, not making pictures, but instead reading and absorbing theory and non-fiction writing.

The ACT Lab was created in the early 90's by Allucquere (Sandy) Stone and others. Stone is credited with developing transgender theory and opening the minds of many.

The FSA Fab Fotogs

When I began studying photography at the University of Texas School of Journalism I quickly learned about the FSA photographers. The Farm Security Administraion photographs are some of the most well known in the American collective consience. The FSA sent photographers to locations across the US with the mission to bring back images that would explain to Congress what the American public was facing during the Great Depression.

There were about twelve photographers altogether working under economist Roy Stryker. The FSA was part of the New Deal program to combat joblessness in America.

A few of the most famous photographs are from Dorthea Lange who incidentally was fired and rehired a number of times by Stryker.

Dorthea Lange, Migrant Mother

Gordon Parks

Arthur Rothstein

Fotofest 2010 - Houston

Have you ever been to Fotofest? Me neither, but this year I'm planning on making the four hour trek to Houston to see what its all about. In my mind the entire city of Houston turns into one gigantic photo exhibit. The Foto Fest 2010 is the Thirteenth International Biennial of photography and related art. This is the longest running exhibit in the U.S. focusing on Contempory U.S. Photography. Aside from their official events like the Meeting Place Portfolio Review, the FotoFest Fine Print Auction, the FotoFest Workshops, as well as Curatorial Dialogues, Symposia, and film and video programs, there are participating spaces that hang photography. For a month and a half Houstonites enjoy world class contemporary photography in every museum and non-profit art space, commercial galleries, offices, coffee shops and restaurants. That alone kind of makes me want to move to Houston.

Eikoh Hosoe (Tokyo, Japan), Man and Woman #33, 1960

Red Mummy in the White Desert, Sahara Desert, Egypt, 2008

Fotofest also showcases five major exhibitions of curatorial work. This year the exhibits are curated by Natasha Egan, Deputy Director, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Columbia College, Chicago, Aaron Schuman, Independent Curator, Editor and Founder, Seesaw Magazine, Charlotte Cotton, Creative Director, National Media Museum, Bradford, U.K.; former Head of the Wallis Annenberg Department of Photography, Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Edward Robinson, Deputy Curator, Wallis Annenberg Department of Photography, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Gilbert Vicario, Curator, Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, Iowa; Former Assistant Curator of Latin American Art and Latino Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

FotoFest at New World Museum; Art League, Houston.

Found - Lost

Images of irony exist everywhere. The following images were taken over an extended period of time and possess a certain quality of irony that can’t be denied. There is something in them, the found, the lost, the trash the objects have become, that made me stop take a second look and make an image with a camera.

I am no art photographer and don’t consider these images to be art as such. I am a photojournalist who lives to capture the moment as Cartier Bresson did.

So why the deviation from journalism? I would argue that these images are a sort of journalism. A documentation of the urban garbage we find on our city streets and little shrines of the weird set up to capture our imagination. What does a hula dancer have to do with bobble-head dogs? Why does an ice cream cone wrapped in an American flag carry a crushing sense of loss? To see an armless Venus de Mayo is accepted but remove the head and the ordinary becomes abnormal, something to take a deeper look at.

Austin Arts

Let's face it Austin is no New York or Chicago when it comes to the visual arts. We have just a handful of museums and only two galleries dedicated to photography. For local photographers gallery space to show work is limited to a few coffee shops and art co-ops around town. I recently had the opportunity to meet with Lesley Nowlin of the Nowlin Gallery.

A photographer herself Nowlin is dedicated to showing high quality photojournalism in her gallery at 1202 A West 6th St.

The gallery is currently showing the work of Robert Shults.

More information about the gallery exhibits, both past and present can be found at the Twitter or Facebook pages.

Eddie Adams Film Screening October 28 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM

South Vietnamese Police Chief Brig. Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan is shown executing a Viet Cong Officer with a single pistol shot in the head Feb 1. The Viet Cong officer grimaces at the impact of the fatal bullet.

"When I saw the picture I was not impressed, and I'm still not impressed," said Eddie Adams of the picture that won him a Pulitzer Prize in 1969.

Eddie Adams, who died in 2004, is one of the most well known photojournalists of our time known for his war photography of 13 wars. This year the film An Unlikely Weapon: The Eddie Adams Story, directed by Susan Morgan Cooper, was released. A trailer of the film is available at "An Unlikely Weapon" Trailer from American Photo on Vimeo.

It will be screened on October 28th at the Blanton Museum of Art.

In addition to the screening of the filml, the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History which holds a number of photojournalist's collections recently aquired the archive of Eddie Adams from his widow.

Twenty-two years ago Adams started The Eddie Adams Workshop or Barnstorm. It is one of the most prestigious photographic workshops in the country. Admitting only 100 students, the tuition free workshop takes place every October.

Freelance is the future.

The newspaper industry is cutting jobs left and right. As a student in a journalism school I hear the doom and gloom scenario constantly from professional journalists and professors alike.

The model for a career in photography has shifted. Photojournalists are no longer able to land staff jobs as they did in the past as hiring freezes are enacted industry wide. Paper Cuts is a blog that keeps a daily running total of newspaper job losses and the numbers are shocking.

When I was an undergraduate in journalism at the University of Texas I worked for the Daily Texan, was a member of the National Press Photographers Association and knew exactly what it was that I needed to do to land a staff job at a respectable paper.

The path I took, like so many others, made sense. After graduation I traveled to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where I interned for the Cedar Rapids Gazette. From there I returned to Texas to intern for my hometown paper the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. My three-month internship turned into six and then nine. By this point I knew that newspaper photography was my future, I was hooked.

I attended a conference put on by National Press Photographers Association and met an editor who took a chance on me and offered me my first professional job as a photojournalist for The Daytona Beach News-Journal’s DeLand bureau.

My path was typical, two internships then a professional job. But what about now? What is a photojournalist to do when the industry continues to lose jobs? It seems that freelance is the future.

On Thursday the National Press Photographers Association at The University of Texas held a panel with six freelancers discussing how to navigate the world of freelance photography. Six local Austin freelancers Thomas Meredith, Andrew Loehman, Taylor Jones, Erich Schlegel, Kelly West, and Ben Sklar met with our NPPA group and gave insight to the world of working for yourself.

Photos by: Tara Haelle

The consensus advice seemed to be that as students we need to learn the business side of photography. Working for yourself as a freelance photojournalist encompasses much more than the typical staff job. You have to pay your own health insurance and taxes, write invoices and know how to run a business. It’s not a punch in punch out forty hour a week gig.

Resources exist such as the NPPA’s Cost of Doing Business Calculator and the American Society of Media Photographers business resources such as their Pricing Guides for estimate, change order, terms and conditions, assignment invoice, assignment confirmation, and delivery memo forms.

Additionally members of the panel introduced careers in photography that don’t involve actually shooting. These support roles such as assisting, lighting technicians and digital post production can provide a lucrative living in the field of photography.

While I lament the loss of so many staff jobs at newspapers the reality in journalism leaves us no choice but to seek an alternative model for working as a photographer. Be it as a wedding photographer, a graphic designer, or in digital post production there are options available to work in a field about which you are passionate.