Tonchidot: Sekai Camera

Canned demo vaporware, or possibly the greatest advance in the integration of mobile location-based contextual video-driven telephony with user contributed content the world has seen?

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/17/tonchidot-madness-the-video/

Thanks Haru-chan!

Get to know WeeGee the Famous

He captured tenement infernos, car crashes, and gangland executions. He found washed-up lounge singers and teenage murder suspects in paddy wagons and photographed them at their most vulnerable -- or, as he put it, their most human. He caught couples kissing on their beach blankets on Coney Island and the late-night voyeurs on lifeguard stands watching them. And everywhere he went, he snatched images of people sleeping: drunks on park benches, whole families on Lower East Side fire escapes, men and women snoring in movie theaters. He was the supreme chronicler of the city at night. --bio continues at http://www.soundportraits.org/on-air/weegee/

Selected Works online at the Weegee's World courtesy of the International Center for Photography Midtown

more biography here:
Weegee: Paparazzi or Social Documentarian?

Thanks Koga-san!

Tell It to Judge, and Photographer

NYT spotlight on Steven Hirsch, the photographer behind Courthouse Confessions

Video link here

FAIR USE NOTICE:
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. It is being made available in an effort to advance the understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, and so on. It is believed that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Dangers of Street Photography in Kabukicho

did tomoko mention that 3 guys kicked my ass?

[5:13:11 PM] andreszd says: no!
[5:13:13 PM] andreszd says: ?
[5:13:17 PM] andreszd says: what happened?

[5:16:53 PM] Max Hodges - White Rabbit Press says: oh was out with 3 Japanese. two girls and another guy. We were all in suits and had dinner in Shinjuku and drinks in Kabubukicho. On the way back to the station I snapped a pic of some girl sitting on the curb. she had her head down like very drunk. but not puking. didn't get her face or anything, just her sitting there. some guy out of the blue came over and complained that I took the picture. I immediately said "sumimasen sumimasen, keshimasu." (trans: sorry, i'll delete it) and showed him that I was deleting it. (if it was a stellar photo I might have tried to keep it, but I didn't really care about the shot at all). and then he kicked me. so I said again, "keshimasuyo!" (trans: I'm deleting it!) and tried to show them that I'm deleting it, and he punched and kicked me. after about 3-4 times of that, I gave the camera to my friend so I could fight back

[5:17:39 PM] andreszd says: shit
[5:17:46 PM] andreszd says: fighting in a suit!
[5:17:51 PM] andreszd says: then what happened?

[5:18:15 PM] Max Hodges - White Rabbit Press says: his friend joined and I busted his friend's nose. (got blood on my shirt and jacket) :(

some people tried to break it up, and someone held me from behind. at first I was like,, oh this is bad, but then I just figured that the guy behind me was just trying to stop the fight so I relaxed...but then he threw me down to the ground, so I had three guys kicking me.

[5:18:33 PM] Max Hodges - White Rabbit Press says: I managed to take off my jacket at one point...

[5:18:41 PM] andreszd says: jesus
[5:19:07 PM] andreszd says: go to hospital?

[5:19:50 PM] Max Hodges - White Rabbit Press says: dude kicked me as hard as he could in my thigh. it's very bruised. hurts to walk. even hurts when I lay down. kills me on stairs. also hurt my shoulder, jaw, neck, and stomach/adbomin near my lower rib. luckily they didn't break it.

[5:19:52 PM] Max Hodges - White Rabbit Press says: no
[5:20:12 PM] Max Hodges - White Rabbit Press says: no hospital. cops came and the dude who started it manged to walk away while the cops where checking my ID haha

[5:20:30 PM] andreszd says: man
[5:20:34 PM] andreszd says: wtf

[5:21:06 PM] Max Hodges - White Rabbit Press says: on the way home, I saw another fight and took pictures of it. I've seen like 4 fights in the last couple weeks. too many K1 fans in the place. think it gets them all in the fighting mood.

[5:21:49 PM] Max Hodges - White Rabbit Press says: guess my luck in kabukicho ran out. think I'll just take photos of cats and flowers from here out.

[5:22:55 PM] Max Hodges - White Rabbit Press says: hard to fight three people...

Bruce Gilden vid

Bruce Gilden at Magnum

I am showing a slice of life in New York City that in several years won't be there any longer. Many of the people that I photograph are people who have a certain individuality in the way they walk, the way they dress, the way they look. But the world is getting smaller and smaller, so people are tending to look more alike, dress more alike. All of these differences are disappearing, and it's making it tougher to find people to photograph. I believe I'm preserving that so maybe one day my pictures would be considered documentary photographs.

from interview here