You can't miss Eve Arnold's centenary

Blog Eye Magazine took the centenary of Eve Arnold to discuss her brilliant photojournalism pieces throughout her career.  The post suggests that while Arnold photographed many celebrities throughout her career, including Marilyn Monroe, James Dean and Malcom X, she should not be remembered for simply being a celebrity photographer.

Courtesy of

theworldofphotographers.wordpress.com

 The above picture is from a photo shoot that Arnold did with MM. The photo is beautiful and simple and all too captivating MM's vulnerability (a task at which Arnold excelled in capturing).  I'm a Monroe fan, so of course I think this photo is lovely and I absolutely wouldn't mind adding it to my collection.  However....

As I kept reading the post on Blog Eye, the photos drew me in so deeply.  Much deeper than the Monroe picture.  The below photo is from a collection called Divorce in Moscow, circa 1966:

At first you see that yes the photo is beautiful, but look beyond that.  Blog Eye did an amazing job of highlighting a few of the important things to note:

"The body language of the couple shows a chasm of physical and emotional distance between the two. It is a painful scene to witness, even from the distance of the viewer. There is a certain religiosity to it, too: while central, the woman is subservient, wearing a headscarf, with a lachrymose and distant look on her face.

Many independent players have their part. A man hides behind his newspaper while another stares out of the room’s only window, but the more removed they try to become the more they implicate themselves. The setting is cold, the room unadorned and bureaucratically sterile. The grimness of the proceedings is captured by Arnold, but her intervention adds space for compassion."

Personally, I don't follow photographers very much, but if you haven't seen any of Arnold's other work, I suggest you do so in some of your spare time.

Critique: vignette covers

First of all, this isn't quite a critique; it's more of an update.

This week, I'm in the cover group that is designing for the Vignette feature story that will be coming out on the 15th. I had QUITE the difficult time getting started on the project. How many times have I used the word "vignette"? Not often at all, so I didn't have very many ideas associated with the word. (Also, there is not any text on the server, SO I'm basically flying blind.) However, after doing some Googleing and image-searching, I came up with a few workable ideas.

Here's a screen shot of the cover that I'm currently working on:

If you don't already know, I'm a huge book nerd and one of my major life goals is to have a library just like the one in Beauty and the Beast, rolling staircase and all (except probably smaller...sadly). Anyways, being the book-lover that I am, for Christmas I got these beautiful leather bound books such as Arabian Nights and Alice in Wonderland that have gold leafed pages and gold wax printing. That was my inspiration for this cover. However, since I only got started today, I'm struggling with the typography. I want to trace a beautiful font from the books that Theresa showed us in lab last week, but I have yet to have time to. Hopefully they enjoy this cover so that I can rework it into something beautiful.

Response: POY multimedia judging

Today, I went to a POY judging session on issue multimedia pieces.  Before we arrived for the session, two winners were already picked out.  This was very different from every other POY session that I have been to in the sense that it was not all "In." "In." "In." "Out.". (If you've been to a POY session before, I'm sure you know exactly what I'm talking about.)  The two pieces that we were shown were both around ten minutes. The first piece was filmed in South Africa and followed around a group of young teenage boys who were sent to camp to erase the notion of a "Rainbow Nation" and to instill a sense of racism in them.  Throughout the short span of the film, we see the boys go from not having a racist bone in their bodies, to being completely okay with racism and wholly believing in it.  You can check out that video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFWEtdZ5TWA. The film has very interesting editing techniques and is filled with English subtitles due to the native speaking people on the video.  The feelings and emotions that were captured in the video are intense and sincere and bring a human connection to the story even though we are thousands of miles away from South Africa.  This film took no specific stand towards the coverage and simply told the tale of the Africaners.

The second video that was played was called "Too Young To Wed" (watch it here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYleXcpbzKY) and addressed the hundreds of thousands of young girls that are forced into marriage each year by their families.  The girls that are interviewed for the film are so very young that it definitely tugs on your heartstrings.  One girl's story was especially touching and heartbreaking - she was taken to the desert by her father-in-law and he proceeded to cut off both her nose and her ears; she lives to tell the tale of the wretched event.  This film definitely took a stand as to what it was trying to do, and that is to make the world know about this horrible tragedy and to put a stop to the horror that the thousands of young girls face every year.

These films address topics that are so sensitive that you might feel slightly uncomfortable watching, I know that was the case for me.  At times I felt that I was peering into such an intimate story from a young teenager's life that I was doing something wrong.  However, the films are outstanding and cover topics that need to be covered.  After the films were shown, the judges answered questions from the crowd.  This idea was brought up - are we, as journalists, interested in such heartbreaking and tragic stories? OR are we simply expected to report on them? I almost think it's the former.  As a young child, I once heard that all news (referring to news on TV) is bad news, because that's what people want to watch; that's what people want to know about.  Now, I know this is an extreme, but it almost rings true.  You hear much more about stories such as murder of young children than you do about children's baptisms (rough example, I'm just saying...). I think that we feel a sense of obligation to convey tragic stories to our audiences. How do you feel?

Response to magazine prototype presentation

Last night, my group for remodeling presented our designs to our group, John Fennell, Jan and Theresa.  There were two other designers in my group, and it was very interesting to see how different all of our approaches to designing the magazine were.  Our group ended up picking Katie's designs (which were so awesome that I can't even be the slightest bit bitter...good work!!!).  She took an Esquire-esque approach to her cover, table of contents and page layouts.  This was rather interesting, because she focused on typography (which Esquire does oh-so-well).  However, the magazine is a remodeling magazine.  This could be a new break through for this side of the industry! Yay! But it is awesome to see something that is more fashion-based transfer over to the home design side of magazine publications. 

As for the presentation itself, it was challenging for me. I have a problem trying to get my thoughts about my designs to come across in the right way.  Sometimes, what makes sense to me doesn't make sense to others.  And all too often as I'm beginning to see, sometimes what makes sense in the design world doesn't exactly make sense to the world of writers.  I think it's a great skill to be able to clearly and accurately explain (and maybe even defend, sometimes) your designs, and it is something that I'm sure I will run into many many many times in the future.  This is something that I want to work on throughout the duration of the semester, and I tool I'd love to put in my journalistic toolbox.

You can't miss - Making Magazines 2012 (but you probably will...)

On Friday, Blog Eye Magazine blogged about a magazine conference that is happening on March 16, 2012. The conference is open to :"everyone who’s involved in making magazines, or who would like to be: editors, art directors, designers, and students doing design or journalism courses," says Blog Eye. So maybe we should all just make a field trip out of it? We're students doing design! But sources say that it's pricey...maybe one day?

The conference will host the creative mind behind (this) and (this) and about a billion other great minds in the magazine industry.

One quote that I found especially important and telling:

" ‘The past few years have seen huge changes to the way magazines are created and consumed,’ says Leslie, who blogs regularly about his personal and professional passion for magazines at magCulture. ‘The result has been a rebirth in creativity, as editors and designers seek to make their magazines stand out through design and image. ‘Making Magazines 2012 features a group of people at the forefront of this development, providing a snapshot of the industry today.’ "

I can't seem to think of any better way to put this. Even as we speak, magazines are doing redesigns to keep their magazines looking fresh and ahead of the competition.  It's exciting to watch and even more exciting to be a part of.