Vision Slightly Blurred

On December 19, 2019, Flickr (and Smugmug) CEO Don MacAskill posted a letter entitled “The world’s most-beloved, money-losing business needs your help.” MacAskill described how Smugmug saved Flickr from an imminent demise at the hands of Verizon, and how the company needed the photo community to step up to staunch the money-losing operation.Was the plea an honest and transparent message, or an admission that MacAskill made a critical mistake in acquiring the company. Online reaction was swift, but not necessarily fair. In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, PhotoShelter co-founder Allen Murabayashi shares his thoughts from his experience as an entrepreneur within the photo space, and his hopes for Flickr moving forward.

As with fashion, the camera bag has moved from a purely utilitarian tool to something that expresses your personality, fashion sense, and indecisiveness. The boxy camera bag of the 70s and 80s has been supplanted by sleek backpacks constructed from ballistic nylon, designs that target women, and rolling suitcases for the airborne photographer. No longer the domain of just a few bag manufacturers, the modern camera bag is as likely to be launched on Kickstarter as it is to be found in your local camera store.In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen discuss the psychology of photographers and their bags. And they play show-and-tell with the bags they personally use and explain why they continue to use them.

In the world of appropriation art, there are few that can hold a candle to the notoriety that Richard Prince has built over the past five decades. From cowboys to Rastafarians, his use of other people's photos as source material for his art has led to numerous lawsuits and a frenzy of conversation around whether what he's doing is "art" or not.For the past few years, Prince has looked to Instagram for source material and has created his newest work by inserting a fake comment and selling the work for $90,000. A recent show at Detroit's Museum of Contemporary Art stirred up more controversy because one of the images he appropriated was taken by childhood sexual assault survivor and sex educator Zoë Ligon. In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen compare Prince's work to that of Andy Warhol, build an argument against appropriation art, discuss how celebrities like Emily Ratajkowski complicate matters, and counter argue the value of Prince's work. 

The holiday season is upon us, and it's the perfect time to start dropping hints about all the wonderful gear and experience that you covet as a photographer. In conjunction with Feature Shoot, PhotoShelter has also released "The Photographer's Ultimate Holiday Gift Guide" with practical and inspiring suggestions from working professionals.While you're downloading the guide, listen to the dulcet tones of Sarah and Allen's voices while they subtly tell you what you ought to gift them this holiday season. It's a fun stocking stuffer of an episode. Have some spiked eggnog until your vision gets slightly blurred.

You might expect sophisticated use of imagery by the U.S. Presidential candidates in the Instagram age. But the capture and use of imagery runs the gamut from good to bad. And with cash poor campaigns struggling to stay afloat, they often use whatever image is available to them.In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen take a look at the websites and Instagram accounts of some of the major Democratic candidates, as well as the incumbent President Donald Trump. What they find isn't always pretty, but that's politics for ya.

Google tapped Annie Leibovitz to help launch the Pixel 4 smartphone with a series of diptychs and videos (shot on Pixel) of social activists around the U.S. According to TIME magazine, Google essentially gave Leibovitz carte blanche to select and shoot the subjects as she saw fit. But are the results compelling? In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen recount their visceral reaction to the project (e.g. "sellout"), whether tech brands should keep pushing the "Shot on Pixel/iPhone" narrative, and feeling nostalgia for Leibovitz's earlier work. 

Photographers rely on a certain level of trust with their clients to provide a service often before payment is rendered. And for freelance photographers living from paycheck to paycheck, desperation can lead to less than critical thinking skills. This lack of scrutiny creates fertile ground for con men to take advantage of photographers using tricks like the "overpayment scam" to steal hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars. In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen recount their personal experiences with scams, and describe the increasingly sophisticated methods that scammers employ to take advantage of unwitting photographers.

Biologist and Canon Europe Ambassador Audun Rikardsen creates stunning images on land and in the sea – often employing strobes, underwater housings with dome ports, and other specialized gear to give his images a level of eye-popping polish.Recently, Rikardsen took top honors in the "Behavior: Birds" category in the UK's Natural History Museum's Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest for his incredible image of a golden eagle just inches away from landing on a branch. The contest prohibits "live baiting" or other activity that "adversely affect [the animal's] behaviour, either directly or through irresponsible habituation," but Rikardsen used roadkill to help attract the eagle.In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen discuss wildlife ethics (and how they can vary by locale), contest culture, and how every wildlife photo doesn't need a conservation story. 

The Information Age helped usher in a culture of intellectual property theft that extends from photos to music – even jokes. Some of the most popular Instagram accounts have built huge followings around stolen content, then leveraged those audiences to launch new products and services. In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen take a deep dive into accounts like @fuckjerry, @historycoolkids, @officialseanpenn and more, and discuss the role of curation, theft, and monetization on Instagram – a Facebook-owned content sharing platform that boasts over 1 billion active users per month.

On October 17, 2019, The White House released an image from a contentious meeting between Nancy Pelosi and Donald Trump. Trump quickly tweeted the image with the caption "Nervous Nancy's unhinged meltdown!" and Pelosi responded by using the same photo as her Twitter cover art, writing, "Thanks for the new cover photo realDonaldTrump!"The image quickly went viral – not only because of the use and subsequent appropriation – but because it fell into the category of #accidentalrenaissance, a designation for images that evoke renaissance-style paintings.In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen delve into the ambiguity raised by the dual use of the photos, and talk about other political images that have been even more successful in evoking the #accidentalrenaissance like David Butow's incredible 2018 image of Senators Jeff Flake and Chris Coons during the Brett Kavanaugh SCOTUS confirmation hearings. 

Photographers often fault the lack of gear as an excuse for why they don't take better photos. But Allen argues that sometimes acquiring more gear can actually motivate you to photograph more. As he battles his current bout of Gear Acquisition Syndrome, he coerced Sarah to begrudgingly talk about gear for a whole episode!What piece of gear motivated you to shoot more and better? And what purchased do you regret? Is talking about gear a gendered activity? And how many clouds need to be in the sky to prevent Allen from getting up early to do a timelapse?

A record number of women joined the ranks of the 116th Congress in the 2018 elections, and photojournalist Elizabeth Herman pitched the New York Times on photographing them. Along with portraitist Celeste Sloman, the duo photographed 130 or 131 women in congress in six days, and then worked with photo editors Beth Flynn and Marisa Schwartz Taylor to put together print and online editions that launched in January 2019.In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred recorded live at Photoville 2019, Sarah and Allen have an in-depth interview with Herman and Flynn on how the project went from inception to execution, herding cats and convincing Republicans, and the associated book that is being published by Abrams on October 15, 2019. Get your copy now!

"No one is advocating putting mediocre photographers forward just because they're diverse," Tara Pixley told us at a recent interview at Photoville 2019 in Brooklyn. Tara and Mengwen Cao – two board members of Authority Collective – stopped by to talk about their mission to help support, educate and promote women and non-binary photographers in what has historically been a white male-dominated profession.In this wide-ranging episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen (mostly Allen) learn some of the ridiculous and challenging situations that minorities contend with on a daily basis while simply trying to do their job of taking photos, and why diversity matters when telling a story through mass media. 

Korean-born Jinhee Bae dropped by for a visit at Photoville 2019 to discuss shooting long-term photo projects, why she continues to use large format, the state of Korean photography, and even a little K-Pop (Can BTS save photography???).With a translation assist from photographer Sylvia Kang, Sarah and Allen chat with Jinhee in a surprisingly candid and refreshing interview. 

Travis Fox, the Director of Visual Journalism at CUNY's Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, was inspired by Ta-Nehisi Coates' piece "The Case for Reparations" and decided that he wanted to help tell the story of systemic racism in the USA. But instead of telling the story from the ground, he took to the skies with his drones to show how practices like redlining of neighborhoods have created visible marks on the landscape. Rich neighborhoods abut impoverished ones by a single road, flood zones filled with low income housing, and highways that flow through impoverished areas with no ability to build a political fight.In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred recorded at Photoville 2019, Sarah and Allen interview Travis about the impetus for the project, why a middle-aged white man is telling the story, and the future of drones in storytelling. It's an episode you won't want to miss.

Vision Slightly Blurred is recording live from Photoville 2019 at Brooklyn Bridge Park! For 20 years, PDN's 30 has been setting the bar for emerging talent within the world of photography. As a part of their 20th anniversary celebration, they've set up a container at featuring the work of both the 2019 cohort, as well as many past winners.Holly Hughes, PDN's long-time editor-in-chief and photographer Jessica Pettway join Sarah and Allen in St. Ann's Warehouse to talk about the nomination and selection process for PDN's 30 and how winning the accolade can change the trajectory of a career.

Grocery store checkout lines are lined with magazines using photos by the paparazzi to grab our attention and hopefully add one more item to our cart. Although their tactics can be questionable, there's no doubt that photographs (and video) taken by paparazzi have been a crucial chapter in photographic history – even more so in the U.S. where celebrity culture dominates everything from social media to the Presidency.In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen discuss icons like Ron Galella, contemplate paparazzi and celebrities suing one another, and remind all photographers to register their copyright! What's your favorite paparazzi photo of all time? Let us know in the comments!

Thirty-five years after his death, Ansel Adams is still one of the most popular (and most searched) photographers. He spent a lifetime creating some of the iconic images in the history of photography primarily using an 8x10 camera and black-and-white film. He developed the Zone System with Fred Archer, wrote numerous books, vigorously corresponded with contemporary artists, and advocated for the environment through the use of photography.But has nostalgia for the avuncular photographer led us to overrate his impact on the art and industry of photography? In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen go back in history to talk about Adams' many accomplishments, and why they think there's no possibility of overrating his skill and mark on the art form.

Street photographer Joshua Rosenthal found himself at the center of a rage-fueled campaign by visitors to the Ventura County Fair. Rosenthal's transgression? Photographing people – including some children – in public without explicit consent. Street photography has a long history of candidly capturing subjects, but in today's climate, does intent matter? In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen contemplate the work of photographers Daniel Arnold, Garry Winogrand, Diane Arbus, Mary Ellen Mark, Susan Meiselas, Philip Lorca Dicorcia, Vivan Maier, and Martha Cooper. 

Before the rise of social media and the ubiquity of apps like Instagram, photographers established and flexed their brands through their personal website and blog. Social media took over the industry (and consumer lives in general) in the late 2010s, and ever since then, the website has seemingly taken a backseat in relevance and importance.But social media like Facebook and Instagram have a number of shortcomings – both from a feature and experiential perspective – that make maintaining a website, in addition to social media profiles, a no brainer from a marketing perspective.In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Allen and Sarah talk about how photographers and photo editors are using websites and social media to find and maintain relationships with one another.