http://www.shorpy.com/image/tid/179
…and don’t forget Duane’s, in Kansas: 
Despite that start date, the product was in development for a while before that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_RTnd3Smy8&feature=related
Kodachrome
Photo Multi-Tasking
Here are a couple of uniquely customized cameras, each of which is capable of contemporaneous exposures.
Tokihiro Sato’s pinhole:
…and Eric Constantineau’s 11×14 collaging camera, named for Hannah Hoch (!):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ericconstantineau/sets/72157623977433033/
What are you prepared to do?
…so saith Sean Connery’s character Jim Malone in “The Untouchables.”
“Naturally the activities presented here are dangerous and concern varying degrees of legality but I’ll spare you the disclaimer and hypocrisy of “do as I say, not as I do” and offer a short list of situations I or my friends found ourselves in from which you can choose for yourself your own (in)actions.
- qx dropping his keys and having them land perfectly balanced on the third rail
- being 10 seconds from running headlong into a ghost train near Vavin
- sprinting out a raccord tunnel after a robot train started up automatically just as we reached it
- hiding on the floor of a layed up train near molitor waiting for the cleaners walking by to leave
- meeting workers in an old station and them being totally cool with us, then having a nap on the ground while waiting for the trains
- Being chased away from a tunnel into a yard by a single security guard yelling “bougez pas bougez pas!”. Yeah right!”
Read the whole dang thing:
http://www.sleepycity.net/posts/252/Demolition_of_the_Paris_Metro
Currently enrolled? Here’s a recapitulation of D.’s semester’s projects.
Any of the following projects may be your final project for this semester, whether you did the project already and want to improve, or weren’t assigned a particular project and want to do it anyway.(1)
3 Amigos: Set up a still life using three carefully-selected objects; rearrange for each shot to create new relationships; make/use a frame in the shot to increase awareness of the available space.
Altered Landscape: Do something, introduce something to change an otherwise “found” scene.
Long, Long, Long: 1/4, 1/2, full seconds; the lengthier exposure times may or may not be apparent at first glance.
Minimum Depth-of-Field Cityscapes: Use pretty much wide open apertures in order to direct the viewer’s attention.
Regarding Snow: Anything but Hallmark or facebook-first-snowfall-shot-from-the-front-door.
http://www.photoeye.com/BookteaseLight/bookteaselight.cfm?catalog=zd188
Simple Portraits: Use the entire frame; the sitter collaborates.(2)
Three (or more) Light Sources: Fill in all shadows, to greater or lesser degrees.
Did I miss anything?
Footnotes:
1. We’re in the Guinness Book now, for using the word “project” the most number of times in a single sentence.
2. I know we did Simple Portraits in two successive incarnations, but it counts as one for our purposes now.
“You get on you have to go to the end.”
Watch the WTTW report on Vivian Maier: http://vivianmaier.blogspot.com/
Board Policy
Electronic Communications/Social Networks
“Barrington Community Unit School District 220 recognizes that electronic communication may be a useful tool for employee/student/parent communication about instructional matters. In order to assure that electronic communications between employees and currently enrolled Barrington 220 students are appropriate and consistent within the goals and policies of the school district, and to protect the welfare of both employees and students, this policy applies to online communication with both students and parents. This policy does not apply to communication with alumni of the Barrington 220 School District.
“Employees may communicate with currently enrolled Barrington 220 students only about school-related matters and only through district-approved or district-hosted electronic accounts and applications, such as district e-mail addresses and the official district website within the “barrington220.org” domain. A district employee who wishes to utilize any technology (e.g. cell phones, including texting) for electronic communication other than those listed above to communicate with current Barrington 220 students should notify his/her building principal and obtain written or electronic consent from the student’s parent(s) before utilizing the technology.
“The school district recognizes that employees may maintain personal blogs or websites, and/or contribute posts to the blogs or websites or web pages of others and/or participate in social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and LinkedIn. If so, employees may not use personal (as opposed to district-hosted) sites to communicate with currently enrolled Barrington 220 students via these means. Additionally, if linking from their classroom website to online resources outside the “barrington220.org” domain, employees should be careful to evaluate the instructional appropriateness of the content and images for use by students.
“Finally, employees who maintain personal blogs or websites, and/or contribute posts to the blogs or websites or web pages of others and/or participate in social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and LinkedIn must abide at all times with all legal requirements, including compliance with student privacy laws. Employees may not, under any circumstances:
Disclose student record information including student work, photographs of students, names of students or any other personally identifiable information about students;
Engage in any communication or activity which violates the district’s anti-harassment policies; (7:180-Students-Preventing Bullying, Intimidation and Harassment), (5:20-Personnel – Workplace Harassment);
Engage in any communication or activity which violates the district’s Internet Acceptable Use policy;
Make or post discriminatory, confidential, threatening, libelous, disparaging, obscene or slanderous comments about the district, its employees, students or parents. Employees are personally liable for their own commentary.
“Violations of this policy are subject to disciplinary review, up to and including termination.”
The e-mail which broadcast the policy said, in part: “Although the policy is effective immediately, we know it will take some time to fully implement. Because we are aware some teachers, team coaches, and extracurricular club sponsors have systems in place for communicating electronically with students, appropriate communication through those vehicles may continue while we develop procedures and forms necessary to fully implement the policy. Examples of appropriate communication would be messages to alert team or club members of a canceled activity or a change in schedule as well as classroom websites created by teachers to provide students with assignment information and other learning resources.
“The new policy addresses electronic communication between staff and students, including use of cell phones (for texting or making calls), social networks (such as Facebook) and private websites, to protect both staff and students by clarifying appropriate boundaries for interaction outside the normal school day.
“Soon, we will communicate this information to parents, particularly at the high school and middle schools, to make them aware there will be a transition period and we expect to fully implement the policy at the beginning of the second semester.
“We appreciate your patience and understanding while we develop the procedures to implement this policy. In the interim, please use your judgment and discretion in the use of electronic communication vehicles such as texting, e-mail and websites as necessary to meet the needs of your students. The procedures and forms to secure parent permission and for communication between staff and students will be shared with you as soon as they are finalized, probably by the end of the first semester. At that point we will fully implement this policy.”
Good news: I met with the Communications Director of the district, we reviewed posts I thought might be questionable, and this blog passes muster. However, I was compelled remove current students from the f/book news feed, in order to prevent myself from clicking on “like” reflexively. Folks, if you’re currently enrolled, please do not send me messages via that format; rather, use the district e-mail address (jdionesotes@barrington220.org), however inconvenient it may seem. Thanks.
Two words: Alec Soth.
Four more: road trip to Minneapolis.
Watch: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/july-dec10/pledge_12-02.html
King’s Sole Solo
For the record, Dr. Martin Luther King addressed jazz publicly once, when asked to contribute a short essay to be read at the 1966 Berlin Jazz Festival. Here is an excerpt:
“Jazz speaks for life. The Blues tell the story of life’s difficulties, and if you think for a moment, you will realize that they take the hardest realities of life and put them into music, only to come out with some new hope or sense of triumph. This is triumphant music. Modern Jazz has continued in this tradition, singing the songs of a more complicated urban existence. When life itself offers no order and meaning, the musician creates an order and meaning from the sounds of the earth which flow through his instrument. Long before the modern essayists and scholars wrote of “racial identity” as a problem for a multi-racial world, musicians were returning to their roots to affirm that which was stirring within their souls. And now, Jazz is exported to the world. Everybody has the Blues. Everybody longs for meaning. Everybody needs to love and be loved. Everybody needs to clap hands and be happy. Everybody longs for faith. In music, especially this broad category called Jazz, there is a stepping stone towards all of these.”
Creative Camerawork 
