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Nothing kicks off the weekend like a little Queen. Especially when it accompanies a music video that was years in the making. But that's only the tip of the TWIP iceberg. Read on for tributes to amazing photography, GoPro ski jumping and the driest California in 153 years.
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Who Wants to Lip-Sync Forever?
Lip syncing is not exactly lauded by the viewing public. If you want people to respect your ability to match lips to lyrics, you've gotta put in time and effort. Also, use a Queen song.
Youtube newcomer Matt Peron took a selfie with his computer every day for four years, managing to sync up his mouth with Queen's Don't Stop Me Now. Sure we've seen patience porn like this before ... But this one's got Queen!
Each day is numbered on the screen, along with his age at each given frame, starting at age 15 and cresting at age 18. Then, a neat trick reveals itself -- the fast forward button (also on the screen) flips to rewind, and he begins to return to his younger self, while still singing along to Queen. In a nice twist, he had been taking two pictures every day, predicting where in the song he would be on the way back.
California On Fire
California Governor Jerry Brown declared a drought emergency in California on Friday because the state has received the lowest amount of rainfall in its entire 153-year history. As proof of how bad things have gotten, firefighters are currently battling the Colby fire, which as of Friday, had burned 1,700 acres and destroyed five homes in an area about 25 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles.
California always struggles with wildfires, but it’s rare to see it happen this early. About 3,600 people were originally evacuated because of the fire, but some have been let back in and firefighters made progress in containing the blaze. Three people have been arrested and accused of starting the blaze with a campfire.
Photo: Firefighters fight the Colby fire as it burns above Glendora, Calif., Thursday Jan. 16, 2014. (AP Photo/Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, Will Lester)
95-Year-Old Detroit Photographer Awarded $50K for Six Decades of Shots
Bill Rauhauser was recently handed the Kresge Eminent Artist Award. “It’s an honor that really turns me on,” said Rauhauser of the top gong for any Detroit metro-area artist.
Rauhauser is a regional stalwart but less well-known nationally. Primarily a street photographer, his legend is overshadowed by bigger names who tended to stalk the streets of Los Angeles and New York City. The award is long overdue.
Our take away? Rauhauser’s “Iron Laws of Street Photography”:
1. Be there. “With street photography, you don’t dream up what you want to do, you find it.”
2. Be ready. “It doesn’t mean having the right exposure. Seeing is important.”
3. Nurture a cultural background. “Recognizing significance is what counts. Your involvement in general culture is what matters. If I could start all over again, this is how I would teach – two-thirds of an artist’s education should be in history and literature. If you don’t have it, you will miss the shot.”
4. Be lucky.
More at Detroit Free Press.
GoPro Ski Jumping
This GoPro video of Anders Jacobsen ski jump training in Lillehammer, Norway caught our attention because the dude is doing something pretty hectic but never shows an ounce of hesitation. He’s got his poker face on the whole time. We all know that if it was us up on that ski jump we’d be screaming the whole way down and not trying to mess ourselves.
We’re also digging the video because the Olympics are just around the corner and the video gives us a little inside look at just how poised and talented these athletes really are. It’s hard to get a sense for skill level when you’re watching the events from the normal camera angle. Maybe NBC will take note and in four years we’ll have GoPro video included as a central part of the regular Olympic coverage.
Photog/Writer Duo Awarded $20K for Reporting on Immigration and Deportation
The Alicia Patterson Foundation, one of the more prestigious organizations to dole out cash to worthy journalists announced the recipients of its 2014 Fellowships. Friend of Raw File and all-round nice guy Graham MacIndoe along with his partner writer Susan Stellin won support to the tune of $20K for their project The UnAmericans: Detained, Deported and Divided, a project of interviews and photographs documenting the stories of immigrants and their families who have been ordered deported from the U.S.
President Obama is not shy of deporting people. The establishment of an extended archipelago of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facilities — is a post 9/11 phenomenon. Stellin and MacIndoe’s subject will provide us with first-hand testimony of conditions and, in some cases, Kafkaesque circumstance within deportation proceedings. Interviews by Stellin, who has reported previously on topics such as Homeland security and border technology and search, will provide context for MacIndoe’s intimate portraits.
Immigration and deportation are arguably two of the most pressing human rights issues on American soil. “These are not just individuals who crossed the border illegally,” says MacIndoe, “but asylum seekers, legal permanent residents and immigrants trapped in the bureaucracy of adjusting a visa.”
The other photographer to receive Alicia Patterson support is April Saul of The Philadelphia Inquirer for her work on youths’ experiences in Camden, New Jersey.
Missing Man's Parents Find Him By Chance in Newspaper Photo
For all the freezing temperatures that swept much of the country this week, at least one heartwarming story came out of it. On New Year's Day, Nicholas Simmons vanished from his home in upstate New York. He left without his wallet or cell phone, and his family had no idea where he was. Four days later, AP photographer Jacquelyn Martin happened to snap a picture of him warming himself on a grate near the Capitol while documenting the effects of the freezing weather -- it made its way into USA Today, where his parents recognized his unshaven face.
The photographer wasn't even supposed to be filming in the area -- assigned to the White House, she was near the Captiol only because President Obama was (wisely) vacationing in Hawaii. She said he struck her for how young he was, but she didn't give it much thought until she was notified the next day that her picture had helped reunite a family.
"It could have been months before we had a lead on his whereabouts," Simmons's mother said on the Facebook page set up to help find him. "My baby looks so lost and I will be spending the rest of my life making him well."
New Photobook of Slain Photojournalist Chris Hondros’ Life’s Work
PowerHouse Books announced this week the release of Testament, a collection of photographs and writing by late photojournalist Chris Hondros spanning over a decade of coverage from most of the world’s conflicts since the late 1990s, including Kosovo, Afghanistan, the West Bank, Iraq, Liberia, Egypt and Libya.
Hondros was killed in Misrata, Libya in April 2011 alongside Tim Hetherington when they were both struck by a mortar shell. Hondros used photography to strip away at cultural artifice and reveal common humanity among us all. His own writings are interspersed throughout the 160 pages of the book, reflecting Hondros’ determination to broaden our understanding of war and its consequences.
Hondros was a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist for his work in Liberia, and posthumously in 2012, for his coverage of the Arab Spring. During his career, he received dozens of awards, among them honors from World Press Photo, the Pictures of the Year International competition, Visa pour l’Image, and the Overseas Press Club, including the John Faber Award for his work in Liberia and the Robert Capa Gold Medal, war photography’s highest honor, for his work covering the conflict in Iraq.
Getty Images which was Hondros’ agency has supported the publication making it possible for all book-sale profits to go to The Chris Hondros Fund.
Luca Locatelli Wins $20K for Photos of War Games and the Arms Trade
The Aftermath Project Grant for 2014 has gone to Italian photographer Luca Locatelli for his project United Colours of War which examines the increased trade in military hardware since 9/11. See chapters War Games and The Business of War.
In recent years, many photographers have taken up issues relating to war, psychology, simulation and commerce. Locatelli's United Colours of War builds on investigations by photographers such as Mari Bastashevski, Spencer Murphy, An-My Lê, Simon David, Simon Norfolk, Lisa Barnard, Richard Mosse and Christopher Sims.
The Aftermath Project also recognized four finalists: Philippe Dudouit for his project on rebel movements in the Sahel region of Africa; Diana Markosian for her look at young Muslim girls raised in post-war Chechnya; Javad Parsa for his work about Iranian refugee diaspora; and Olga Ingurazova for her photographs of Abkhazia.
Check out an extended feature on Locatelli’s photographs of war game competition in Jordan for the New York Times.
