Photo of the Day

This just floored me, click to enlarge. REUTERS/Sergio Moraes.

Afternoon Distraction

Love it. Via.

The Polaroid Project

Sad, but inevitable. More here.

The last Polaroid films expire next month. The Observer gave eight of today's leading photographers a Polaroid camera for a day and asked them to capture their final instant images.

Overnight and Open Thread

Sunrise over the Parthenon
Credit & Copyright: Anthony Ayiomamitis (TWAN)

Explanation: Today, the sun will stay in the sky longer than any other day of the year, as seen from the northern hemisphere of Earth. Named the Summer Solstice, today's maximum daylight is indicative of the high amount of sunlight this time of year that is primarily responsible for the heat of the summer season. At the north pole and for all places above the arctic circle, there will be no night -- the entire day today will be lit by sunlight. The situation is reversed in Earth's southern hemisphere, where today has the least sunlight of any day.

As I'm wont to say, that's some gorgeous shit.

Video- Forgotten photos of Obama as a college freshman

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Seems the lady that found the negatives in her basement (jackpot!) has put them together to do an art exhibit.

'New York Times' Launches Large-Format Photo Blog

Very cool. This one gets bookmarked.

NEW YORK After more than a year in development, The New York Times launched a large-format photo blog Monday to showcase photojournalism projects.

Lens, as the new blog is called, joins a growing field of sites that showcase photo projects that might not be able to find a home in print. The blog has the advantages of drawing on the prestige of the Times, which just won a Pulitzer Prize for photography, and the popularity of NYTimes.com, the most popular U.S. newspaper Web site.

“We’re pretty darn proud of it,” says Josh Haner, a New York Times staff photographer and one of three Times staff assigned to produce the blog. The others are senior staff photographer James Estrin and metro reporter David W. Dunlap.

(snip)

Haner describes it as a “centralized showcase of best work” from the Times photo department. “We really wanted a home for photography,” he says.

Pic from.

Helen Levitt: 1913-2009

Love, love, love her work. More here and here and here.

Helen Levitt, a major photographer of the 20th century who caught fleeting moments of surpassing lyricism, mystery and quiet drama on the streets of her native New York, died in her sleep at her home in Manhattan on Sunday. She was 95.

(snip)

Ms. Levitt captured instances of a cinematic and delightfully guileless form of street choreography that held at its heart, as William Butler Yeats put it, “the ceremony of innocence.” A man handles garbage-can lids like an exuberant child imitating a master juggler. Even an inanimate object — a broken record — appears to skip and dance on an empty street as a child might, observed by a group of women’s dresses in a shop window.

An Inside View Of An Oval Office Photo Shoot

Pretty cool. Bet they go thru alot of shoes. Via Greg.

Interactive Feature: Obama’s People

But of course, only because I'm a sucker for interesting photography. Click here.

This fall, The Times Magazine asked the highly regarded portraitist Nadav Kander to photograph Barack Obama’s administration as it was being assembled. The result is “Obama’s People,” 52 full-page color portraits taken in mid-December and earlier this month in Chicago and Washington of the vice president-elect and the incoming president’s advisers, aides and cabinet secretaries-designate, along with the legislators who are likely to be key to moving the administration’s agenda along.

Obama Picks White House Photographer

What do you want to bet that Mr Souza is going to be very busy? I like the fact that's he's a Midwest guy, and since he's already done a book of Obama photography, Obama probably feels comfortable with him. Check out the photos at his website. h/t Ben.

ATHENS, OH (January 4, 2009) - Photojournalist and NPPA member Pete Souza has accepted the position of official White House photographer for President-elect Barack Obama, he told News Photographer magazine tonight.

Souza received the offer for the position from Robert Gibbs, the new president's longtime spokesman who is also Obama's incoming White House press secretary.

It won't be Souza's first time in the Oval Office. He was also a White House photographer during President Ronald Reagan's second term.

Souza, 54, said he accepted the offer today after talking with Gibbs and reaching an agreement that the primary function of the White House photography office will be to document Obama's presidency for the sake of history.

The Year in 40 Seconds

I remember during the primaries thinking this year would never end, and now looking back it seems to have gone as rapidly as this video. Glad we were here to experience it. Via Greg, more of Eirik's pictures here.

LIFE Photo Archive available on Google Image Search

For a fan of photography like me, this is freakin' Christmas!!! Life was an incredible magazine.

The Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination; The Mansell Collection from London; Dahlstrom glass plates of New York and environs from the 1880s; and the entire works left to the collection from LIFE photographers Alfred Eisenstaedt, Gjon Mili, and Nina Leen. These are just some of the things you'll see in Google Image Search today.

We're excited to announce the availability of never-before-seen images from the LIFE photo archive. This effort to bring offline images online was inspired by our mission to organize all the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. This collection of newly-digitized images includes photos and etchings produced and owned by LIFE dating all the way back to the 1750s.

Only a very small percentage of these images have ever been published. The rest have been sitting in dusty archives in the form of negatives, slides, glass plates, etchings, and prints. We're digitizing them so that everyone can easily experience these fascinating moments in time. Today about 20 percent of the collection is online; during the next few months, we will be adding the entire LIFE archive — about 10 million photos.