Rachel Been's Blogs

The Mexican suitcase showed up at the International Center of Photography over a year ago, filled with some of famed photographers Robert Capa, Gerda Taro and David Seymours' lost rolls of film. The images have finally been developed, and the New York Times has composed a brief slideshow highlighting some of the most evocative images from the series. The inclusion of the AGFA negative contextualizes the historicity of the images-- they are photographs representing both the Spanish Civil war as well as the inception of Magnum Images, but also became the foundation for snapshot reportage. Check out the wonderful collection here.

If you haven't already noticed, Pixcetera launched a full-screen template last week, allowing photos embedded in the everyday pixcetera galleries to expand full screen...



One of the most visual examples is the disturbing "Congo in Conflict" gallery. Not for the weak of heart, but the gallery definitely showcases the powerful experience of larger images.

I haven't blogged in quite a while, but I'm proud to have a comeback tour featuring the site Women in Photography..

I went to Aperture on Monday for the kickoff of a new series of educational lectures curated by Laurel Ptak of I Heart Photograph. This particular event featured the creators Amy Elkins and Cara Phillips of the female-centric online gallery, Women in Photography, and two of the featured artists on the site, Elinor Carucci and Robin Schwartz.

After an introduction explaining the reasons behind WIP's conception, Elinor Carruci discussed her personal work while flipping through never seen images. If you're familiar with Elinor's style, the work is painstakingly intimate, revealing beautiful yet embarrassingly tender moments.. The portfolio transitioned into images of her children enraged and delicate; the vulnerability once unraveled in herself tenfold within her children.

Robin also touched on the odd vulnerability of her child, Amelia. Her series, Amelia's World, is a surreal portfolio of her crystalline-eyed child interacting with animals. The scenes aren't hesitant dog pettings in the park, but are of feeding deer sandwiches, or sitting alongside a wild elk in the woods. One of the first things often seen in a portrait is the portrait taker... but within the images of Amelia, the quiet and intricate relationship between mother and daughter struck me even more so than Amelia's complete acceptance of her animal kingdom.

Many women photograph familiar relationships, and are subtly criticized by the greater world as being 'complacent' in their role as a woman photographer. Amy Elkins presented a myriad of statistics showing the small percentage of female photographers within museums and galleries, regardless of the percentage of females within the field. There are undercurrents defining niche subjects as traditionally female verse male, and these unfair delineations have perpetuated a severe sexism within photography. Women in Photography is devoted to undercutting these designations by showing that quality work by women, is quality work regardless.

The hullabaloo of fashion week has dissipated leaving a lovely collection of delights.

Stylelist.com hired V. Nina Westervelt to shoot backstage and front row during the Spring 2009 presentations, and she came back with quite an impressive portfolio of portraits. Nina's shots, caught on a medium format camera using a spotlight flash, leave the celebrities unpolished. It's as you found snapshots of your best friend's high-school party...with some familiar faces standing next to the keg... There is a disassociation from the perceived reality of Fashion Week, and a candidness usually not attributed to the likes of Kanye West, Nicole Richie, or pretty models...

Click here to see the works.

I have recently seen a proliferation of photographers' websites created using the same template in LiveBooks. Sigh. The presentation is always clean and viewable, but after awhile all work melds into a single unmemorable slideshow in the same template... This is why, when I stumbled (literally, there was stumbling) across sleeth.info, I was utterly confused.

Matthew Sleeth has created an entire counterfeit world for self advertisement. Instead of maintaining a self-contained and navigable website, Sleeth has developed a page imitating Google with searchable results-- results which always lead to the same six links for Sleeth's career. The imitation continues past the links. Each link leads to a completely disconnected, diversely skinned site, such as the 'Downloads' page which looks like an illegal bit-torrent page complete with porn adverts and ugly flashing banners. Yet all links recirculate back to one of the six original links in the Sleeth network, so don't think topless women will be your end result.

I think it's an interesting to take the variegation of internet trash, information, and interest, and turn it into a single personal page. Sites have become stereotypes (the trashy illegal download site, for example) and Sleeth has appropriated these omnipresent pages and turned the tangle into his representation. Unfortunately, the tangle is what's discernible, while his work appears scattered.

I guess photo websites need a healthy balance between the mundane and absurdly intricate, otherwise the work is lost in the homogeneity or confused in the kitsch.

Previously, Peter commented about the coolness of Piclens, the plug-in that allows a user to navigate through photos in three dimensions most specifically in Google Images and Flickr. I personally was hoping for the plug-in to work with some of the agencies I browse for content... it would make my job seem more like Blade Runner, which I always include under suggestions on work surveys...

Other Blade Runner 'flight' experiences:

One that immediately pops to mind is Blaise Aguera and Arcas development for Microsoft, PhotoSynth. The program renders thousands of high-res images into a three dimensional wire-frame that one can maneuver and zoom through. Think of flying around the Eiffel tower, and deciding to focus on a single beam to detect the urban touch of bird poo. That good.



A simple alternative is Airtight Interactive's flash template called the PostcardViewer, which creates a photo gallery on splayed postcards navigable with arrow keys. I once built part of my portfolio using this template, but found it a little dizzying for advertising content. The whizzing aspect is a lovely cheap thrill, and totally worth throwing a family album in there.

Why just view images when you can jump inside of them like a swimming pool?

Wordle is poetry design meets thrift store shopping. Take a bundle of words, a quote, a shopping list, a love letter gone awry, and ingest the sentences into wordle. Your words are regurgitated as a well designed and seemingly organized thought cloud. Wordle randomly mixes and matches font, layout, color, language, and your input, into a gallery piece or a printable design.

I started creating one a day, documenting my daily food intake. That guilty bag of blue M&M's suddenly became sandwiched between coffee and asparagus and perpendicular to turkey instead of hanging over my head.

The Webby Awards have been announced! There are some overwhelming overachievers who rightfully deserve many a nod (ahem, TED.com), as well as some interesting discoveries. My favorite findings consisted of:

Moo.com- An ingenious printing press allowing users to create paint-swatch-esque "moo cards". The cards come in a petite box and can be used as a mini collection of images or as satisfying business cards.

Richard Serra Sculpture: Forty Years- MOMA's illustrious flash experience devoted to the sculptor. Full screen images of work with a nice splitting zygote menu for effect.

Checkland Kindleysides- The most soothing promotional design site EVER. Imagine: a paper tree blows leisurely in the wind while you look at hard-hitting design work for some of the largest corporations in the world. The navigation is as fluid as the calming background music.

PostSecret- A cheap and easy (yet so gratifying) blog. Concepting off of I can Has Cheezburger, this blog takes random doodlings, drawings, photos and offers them vulnerable narratives.

Blurb- Make your own book. Blurb allows users to download software and put together a collection of images/words for a very captivating price. It seems to offer more options than iphoto and has a FANTASTIC URL.