A life in photos — and a few choice words.
This weekend, I was running a slew of errands (if you call shopping errands…) on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. As I was walking across town on 86th Street, I spotted this scene. A young girl scout and her mother were selling lemonade and lemon tarts by the stoop of their building. Needless to say, the lemon tarts were delicious.
Maybe I shouldn't admit this, but last night I got sucked into a British gossip website. I think what particularly struck me was that Rod Stewart was expecting his eighth child (at 66 years old, which I think is terribly irresponsible, but that's a story for another day…). Of course, once you are in a gossip site, you can't disengage. I clicked around for the better part of a half an hour, consuming silly articles about celebs behaving (mostly) badly. I got around to one article about Lady Gaga where the author wrote something along the lines of she'll be performing her next show at "New York's Staples Center."
I could let the reporter slide for not being from the United States, but I won't. For the record, the Staples Center is not in fact in New York but actually in Los Angeles (it is where the Lakers play their games). This error really struck a chord with me in part because it is so lazy. The writer of this article should have done some fact checking prior to reporting something so completely false. If one were to google (or even bing, for that matter) "staples center," it is very clear from the ensuing results (like press releases that begin with "LOS ANGELES, CA") that there is definitely no Staples Center in New York. Furthermore, the writer's editor should have noticed and corrected this pretty egregious error.
In general, though, I've noticed a lot of errors in online journalism (not just the lack of fact-checking, but also spelling and grammar mistakes). It's really a shame because bloggers often are overlooked by mainstream media as amateurs yet it is this kind of thing that fuels that notion. My opinion is if you are doing any kind of journalism (not all blogs do this, but some — like technology-focused blogs, for instance — report on news that very few print outlets touch), you really need to maintain a level of professionalism and maintain that everything that prints (even if it is printed onscreen) has been thoroughly reviewed for accuracy.
Several large magazine retailers (that have been hurting very much with ad sales plummeting) began a campaign a few months back called "The Power of Print." While at first it seemed a bit pretentious, I think they do have a point (besides protecting their livelihood). Something about the nature of a magazine, perhaps the fact that it is written word, makes it tangible. There's also a definite craft to it — a page can only be so long, a layout must be aesthetically pleasing. And I have to say that I do enjoy reading magazines because the distractions (like typos and errant facts) are very rare.
In short, you can distill my thoughts down to the fact that quality control is incredibly important. For any brand, whether you are Conde Nast or Gawker, maintaining a consistent product is vital for enduring in any market.
I love street art (graffiti, kid's sidewalk chalk, etc…) and always find myself incredibly inspired by the stuff found over at the Wooster Collective.
I really enjoyed the Henri Cartier Bresson exhibit at MoMA today but it was a bit mobbed to say the least. While they showed the breadth of his work, I almost would have preferred a more focused, smaller collection.
What I actually enjoyed more was the exhibit "Pictures by Women: A History of Modern Photography" which was exclusive to lady photographers like Dorothea Lange and Helen Levitt among others.
Given that Iceland's been in the news lately, the NYTimes Lens blog has a series of photos depicting its landscapes. Some of these are really great.
In college, I took a black and white photography class. I have to say, it was a ton of fun. I remember developing my own film with pride (I even developed my friend's black and white headshots). I also remember the chemicals — stop, fixer, developer. Good times!
Adorama Learning Center has a run down of the supplies you would need to build your own darkroom. While I would love to have my own b&w darkroom, I don't think I have the space. I've heard stories of folks using their poorly ventilated and poorly lit bathrooms as darkrooms but I'm not sure if my boyfriend Anthony would appreciate the aroma of chemicals in our tub!
You can't write stuff like this. But if the past few days of my life were made into a sitcom episode, it would be called "The Billboard" — or if it were an episode of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" this would be called "The One When Jen Takes a Photo of a Billboard."
It all began with a harmless coffee break. My co-workers and I walked up Broadway to Crumbs for some caffeination when we saw a strange billboard. The lovey-dovey couple on the billboard coupled with the quote "you are my soulmate forever" made us wonder. Since we are media people at first we thought, "this has to be some kind of marketing/pr move!"
When we saw the website that the banner linked to, we were most definitely sure it had to be some kind of marketing scheme. The website was a 90's era (meaning: bad) site consisting of a bunch of photos of the joyous couple and quite a few karaoke recordings we'll have to imagine they did together (who records their karaoke outings…?). Continue reading ""The Billboard""
I had no idea that counterfeit goods (you know, the fake Fendi and Coach bags you find on Canal Street in New York City) come with a world of terrible human rights abuses attached to them!
This is further proof that I just need to shell out the cash and buy really lovely expensive purses. I recently bought a beautiful LAMB bag (that's Gwen Stefani's line). It was a great deal at Century21 — nearly 50% off! I still haven't quite found a bag that I can use to lug around my camera and extra lenses. I'm thinking the Coach Madison bag (in the, unfortunately, more expensive large size) would do the job. If and when said bag is in my hot little hands, I will certainly do a photo series of it!