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A university professor in Oregon dissects the week's news photographs. A guy in Germany posts open letters to Corbis owner Bill Gates. An astrophysicist in Pittsburgh spotlights some of the best fine-art photography on the Web.
With blogging tools and social networking sites gaining widespread use over the last two years, a new generation of thought leaders has emerged to give photographers and photography fans new avenues of information.
Joerg M. Colberg
Website: www.jmcolberg.com/weblog
Day Job: Astrophysicist
With a doctorate in theoretical astrophysics, Joerg M. Colberg works as a researcher at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh by day and writes his influential blog, Conscientious, in his spare time. Since Colberg's first posts in 2002, Conscientious has grown into one of the most reliable and contemporary windows into the creative side of photography, with more than 16,000 visitors a month just to his home page. He's recently started to post interviews with photographers such as Alec Soth, Amy Elkins, and Chris Jordan, which make Conscientious an even deeper resource. When asked which posts are among his favorites, Colberg cites "those where I talk about photographers who challenge people to leave their comfort zones a little bit."
Shinji and Teru Kuwayama
Website: lightstalkers.org
Day Job: Photographer (Teru), Web Developer (Shinji)
A social networking site that pre-dates the popular explosion of MySpace, Lightstalkers is like an online café where professional journalists discuss anything from the best entry points into Afghanistan to ways to win grant funding. The idea sprang from the mind of photojournalist Teru Kuwayama in 2004 as he was covering the war in Iraq. Kuwayama wanted to devise a way for him and fellow journalists in the field to share potentially life-saving information such as the safest route into Baghdad. "I was seeing sites like Friendster and MySpace and realizing that every 15-year-old in the world had a more sophisticated communications system than professional journalists," Kuwayama recounts. "I thought it was silly that we weren't doing it too." Shinji, a web developer in Chicago, brought the idea to fruition. Today the site has close to 12,000 registered users and well over 100,000 unique visitors a month. Features include online profiles, news alerts, private messaging, and a robust online forum -- and so far it's completely free of advertising. "Me and Shinji are not businesspeople," Teru admits, "so all of our energy goes towards making the site functional and interesting." Mission accomplished.
Andy Goetze
Website: talks.blogs.com
Day Job: Software Executive
The first blogger to cover the stock photo industry, Stock Photo Talk founder Andy Goetze is also a respected commentator on the photoblogging, mobile content, and footage industries. One of the earliest pundits to take the micro- payment stock phenomenon seriously, Goetze blogged about Getty Images' $50 million acquisition of iStockphoto three weeks before it became official. That kind of insider knowledge has become a staple of SPT, as is the occasional tongue-lashing he reserves for the industry's sacred cows. Still, recognizing his influence, many photo industry executives give him interviews, including CEOs of Fotolia, Photoshelter and Digital Railroad, to name a few.
Dennis Dunleavy
Website: ddunleavy.typepad.com
Day Job: Assistant Professor
Through his blog, The Big Picture, Dennis Dunleavy has emerged as a recognized authority on everything from the use of cell phone cameras in the London subway bombings to the ethics of photo manipulation. An assistant communications professor at Southern Oregon University and a former news photographer, Dunleavy posts four to five times a week, often paying particular attention to the way images are used in the mainstream media. His blog posts have attracted a wide international audience, and his writings have been translated into several languages. "My mission is directly connected to what I try to do as a teacher -- connect and stay connected with my students," Dunleavy says. "The Web, especially blogging, is an excellent medium for keeping conversations going between us. If I have a mission, it is to extend my teaching beyond the four walls of the classroom." Although opinion occasionally creeps into his posts, Dunleavy tries to maintain a balanced perspective, and his arguments hit their mark more often than not. One recent post, typifying his critical eye toward the media, put two politically charged covers of Time and Newsweek side-by-side for an undressing: "The design seems to follow the rhetoric steaming out of Washington with little regard to maintaining any sense of objectivity or balance." Luckily, Dunleavy's blog is one of the few places in the blogosphere where civilized discussion is practiced as well as preached.
For expanded interviews and more innovative Internet resources, check out American Photo's own blog, State of the Art.
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