One in 8 Million

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One in 8 Million is a wonderful set of stories over at the New York Times, from everyday people in New York. It’s simple in format… recorded voice with accompanying photographs, but the stories are very engaging.

The series is produced by Sarah Kramer and Alexis Mainland, with photographs by Todd Heisler, and Interactive Development by Tom Jackson.

A new story is added each week. I highly recommend checking it out.

via swissmiss

I Don’t Sell Girl Scout Cookies!

Lets get one thing straight… I do NOT sell Girl Scout Cookies!

Three years ago I wrote a post talking about how I bought some cookies online. Since it’s cookie time again this year, people seem to be finding that post via search engines. Instead of actually reading the post, they’re assuming I sell cookies, and are using my contact form to email their orders to me.

I guess people really don’t read anymore.

On a related note, my favorites are still Tagalongs, Thin Mints, and Do-si-dos. We got a box of each last night. Mmmmmmmm…. cookies.

The Photography of Erwin Olaf

Hope, by Erwin Olaf
© Erwin Olaf

One of my all-time favorite photographers is, Erwin Olaf. His images are simply amazing. He primarily shoots people, and although he shoots most of his models with little to no facial expression, his images convey quite a lot of emotion. The image above is from a series called, Hope.

I have to admit, part of why I like his work so much is he has quite a few series that are set in the 40’s and 50’s, a time period I find visually fascinating.

His website is all Flash, so I can’t link directly to the various series I like the best, but I highly recommend checking out Hope, Grief, Rain, and Mature.

Photowalking with Miss Aniela in San Francisco

The smothering, by Miss Aniela
©2008 Miss Aniela

For a long time now I’ve been a big fan of the photographic work of Natalie Dybisz, better known on the internet as, Miss Aniela (pronounced ‘Ann-yella’). She’s a fine-art photographer based in South East UK, who originally received a lot of notoriety on Flickr for her self-portraitrs. She took multiple shots of herself in the same space and then combined them. Since then she’s primarily stayed in the self-portrait genre, but has expanded her work quite a bit.

I just read on her blog that she’s coming to Seattle (Jan 31st), San Francisco (Feb 2rd & 3rd), and Los Angeles (Feb 4th), and she’s inviting all who want to come, to a studio shoot and some photowalks. She’s posted her full schedule, here. Although I’m not normally one for group photography, I’m going to try and make one of the photowalks here in San Francisco. It would be great to get the opportunity to meet her.

If you live in the Bay Area, and you’re into photography, you should try to make it out. Maybe I’ll even see you there.

If you’d like to know what other photographers I like, I have a long list over at my photoblog.

Miss Aniela: Website | Flickr

President Barack Obama Takes Ofice

Barack Obama in the rain at the University of Mary Washington
Image Credit: AP Photo/Alex Brandon

Today was the day. George W. Bush officially moved out, and Barack Obama moved in. Everything seemed just a little brighter today. I have much higher hopes for the future.

President Obama’s official portrait was released the other day. There was a lot of fuss made about the fact that it’s the first presidential portrait taken with a digital camera (Canon 5D Mark II). Personally, I think it’s a little uninspired. I much prefer the image above by Alex Brandon. Whenever I look at it I think to myself… there is no spoon.

Homer Every Day

This is another one of those things that I totally forgot to blog about when I first saw it. In this episode of the Simpsons, they parodied a video called, Everyday, by one of my favorite photographers, Noah Kalina.

Noah took a picture of himself everyday for 6 years to make his video. It’s actually a work in progress, so he’s continued to take his daily photos. He’s now up to 9 years. Since then I’ve seen several other photographers take on projects like this. I’ve considered doing one of these myself, but I would probably lose interest after the first week.

Leonard Nimoy Nude Photography

Leonard Nimoy Self Portrait
© Leonard Nimoy. All Rights Reserved.

No, no, no… not Leonard Nimoy nude… but rather Leonard Nimoy shoots nudes.

Some friends told me about this a long time ago and I totally forgot to blog about it. Leonard Nimoy, known to most as Spock from Star Trek, shoots some pretty nice nude photography.

He’s produced several series of black and white images, but the set that received the most recent attention is the Full Body Project, where Leonard challenged the notion that big isn’t beautiful. I think he has some really nice work. Definitely worth checking out.

Leonard currently has 2 photography books on Amazon: The Full Body Project and Shekhina.

The Future of JPG Magazine?

JPG Magazine

I’m not sure where to begin with this post, as the story is kind of in flux at the moment, and I have kind of a love / hate relationship with JPG Magazine anyway, but…

If you haven’t heard of JPG, it’s a monthly photography magazine (and online community) made up of user-submitted photographs. I’ve been subscribing to the magazine for about a year and a half, and generally I really like it, even though they occasionally do things that piss me off.

On January 1st, 2009, there was a post to the JPG blog that said they would be shutting down the site and the magazine on January 5th, 2009. They basically said they’ve run out of money and couldn’t find any more.

I totally understand that these are hard economic times, and bad things are happening to companies all over the world, but this is exactly the kind of thing that occasionally pisses me off about how JPG does things. JPG only gave us 5 days notice before they planned to shut everything down. They buried the announcement on their blog, instead of prominently featuring it on the home page. And, even though I’m a member of the community and a paid subscriber to the magazine, I have yet to receive any notification from them directly about the closure. I know they have my email because they send me lots of other announcements. WTF JPG?

Since their initial announcement, they’ve updated the blog a few times saying that they are now in talks with several companies who have expressed interest in buying the magazine. They’ve given those companies until tonight to submit their bids, so we’ll see what happens.

Even though I’m not always happy with how JPG does things, I don’t want them to go away. I really do like the magazine, and the community. I hope it survives.

The future of JPG is uncertain to be sure, so if you’re a member of the online community, and you’ve gathered favorites or made contacts, you may want to make note of those photographers and URLs just incase the site suddenly disappears.

The Big Picture

Web Stencil
Image Credit: REUTERS/Sigit Pamungkas

When looking back through the One Digital Life archives, I can’t believe I’ve never blogged about this, but if you’re into photography you have to check out, The Big Picture. In fact, even if you’re not into photography, this incredible site offers an amazing glimpse into what’s going on around the world.

Make sure to click on the “MORE PHOTOS” link under each post. You won’t be dissapointed.

The Big Picture is a photo blog for the Boston Globe/boston.com, entries are posted every Monday, Wednesday and Friday by Alan Taylor. Inspired by publications like Life Magazine (of old), National Geographic, and online experiences like MSNBC.com’s Picture Stories galleries and Brian Storm’s MediaStorm, The Big Picture is intended to highlight high-quality, amazing imagery – with a focus on current events, lesser-known stories and, well, just about anything that comes across the wire that looks really interesting.