Sushi and cocktails

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Sunday night

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Mannequins

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Jack

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Olaf

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Party-supply store

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Lunch break

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Desk revisited

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Movies

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Palm Avenue

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My view

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Blame

Courtesy of Andrew Hetherington’s blog, I came across an animated short made by cartoonist Chris Ware and animator John Kuramoto for This American Life. (Unlike Jen Bekman, I actually love the sound of Ira Glass’s voice.) The short is an animated version of a true story, told to Ira by Jeff Potter, about how people change when they’re behind a camera, even a fake one.



I know the point of the video—beyond the humor of kids forming their own news crews—is that we become heartless voyeurs, more interested in photographing people than in helping them. The way I see it, though, the kids on the playground who were “filming” their classmate get beaten up probably weren’t kids who would’ve jumped in to stop the fight in the first place. Maybe they would’ve watched from a distance or ignored it. Or maybe they would’ve just crowded around and watched, as kids usually do when a fight breaks out. But it wasn’t because they had “cameras” that they didn’t jump in to save the kid who was being pummeled.

We are different when we have cameras in our hands. But plenty of photographers are actively engaged in helping the same people they photograph. Check out this photo of Magnum photographer Christopher Anderson carrying a Lebanese woman out of the rubble, during the conflict between Hezbollah and Israeli forces in August 2006. (Click here to read an article about photojournalists rescuing trapped civilians in Lebanon. Note: I first saw this photo and got a link to this article here, on Alec Soth’s blog.)

AP Photo/Hussein Malla

Bottom line: Cameras are not to blame for our inhumanity—we are.

P.S. I just received my copy of NIAGARA from photo-eye. Oh, man. Also, click here for an American Photo interview with the incomparable Taryn Simon.

Copyright © 2007 Liz Kuball

John Paul, Mary, and Ajax

Since I got the good news about being part of A Field Guide to the North American Family, I’ve spent some time looking at the photos of the other contributors. Shane Lavalette posted on his blog a tentative list of the photographers who are part of the project. Here’s the list he posted—I’ve added links to the photographers’ Web sites (when links were available), so you can easily find more of their work if you’re as interested as I am.

Jordan Alport, Timothy Briner, Jessica Bruah, Kara Canal, Sandy Carson, Alana Celii, Janice Clark, Jason Curtis, John Paul Davis, Chris Eichler, Amy Elkins, Jason Falchook, Elizabeth Fleming, Catherine Gass, Hans Gindlesberger, Andres Gonzalez, Maury Gortemiller, Jonathan Gitelson, Jennifer Greenburg, Ben Huff, Christy Karpinski, Mickey Kerr, Liz Kuball, Michael Kwiecinski, Shane Lavalette, Jason Lazarus, Stacy Arezou Mehrfar, Nick Meyer, Matt Nighswander, Alexis Pike, Colleen Plumb, Gus Powell, John Putnam, Shawn Records, Rebecca Blume Rothman, Christopher D Salyers, Matthew Schenning, David Shulman, Kevin Sisemore, Brandon Sorg, Brian Sorg, Sai Sriskandarajah, Tema Stauffer, JJ Sulin, Brian Ulrich, Consider Vosu, Grant Willing

Copyright © 2007 Liz Kuball

Box

Copyright © 2007 Liz Kuball

From my ongoing project on storage facilities. (Check out my Web site in a couple months for a revamp, including a collection of my images from this project and others.)

I have no excuse for my delay in adding a link to Shawn Gust’s blog—I finally did it last night (long overdue). I especially love the photos here, here, and here.

I’ve also added a link to Christian Patterson’s blog, which has introduced me to all kinds of things photographic. I know his blog is great because I find myself thinking about what I’ve read there days later. For examples of what I mean, click here and here.

Finally, be sure to check out Amy Stein’s solo show at the Humble Arts Foundation site (click here for the show as well as an informative and inspiring interview with the photographer, both on view through May 16). Congratulations, Amy!

Waiting room

Waiting for word on Sally, arguably the most amazing dog in the world, who had a run-in with a car this afternoon and whose yowling scared me so much I threw down my camera (which I usually guard with my life) and ran to her. My memories are choppy, literally like still images instead of moving ones. (I’ve always seen that way in times of crisis. Maybe we all do.) Word is, she’ll be fine. No broken bones. No internal injuries. Just terrified. That goes for me, too.

Copyright © 2007 Liz Kuball

Haley Street

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Alley

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Car

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Motel

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Crumbs

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Hundredth post in one hundred days

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Van

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Fake house

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Touching trees

Added a link to Kevin Sisemore’s blog tonight. Kevin is one of the photographers whose work is being included in A Field Guide to the North American Family. If you haven’t seen his work, be sure to check it out—his photographs are beautiful, and his blog is cool, too.

Copyright © 2007 Liz Kuball

Near Toro Canyon

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Monitors, cords, card-catalog drawers

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Visitor

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Red couch

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Blue doors

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Pick-up

I got the chance to spend a little time at the Getty today, and the highlight of my visit was A Place in the Sun: Photographs of Los Angeles by John Humble. The exhibit included two projects—The Urban Landscape and The Los Angeles River. Both are wonderful, but I was more drawn to the former. According to the Getty Web site, “John Humble was one of eight Los Angeles–based photographers awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1979 to document the city on the occasion of its bicentennial.” Though the places he photographed have changed (some significantly) since he photographed them, what has not changed is the beauty and sadness of Los Angeles. If you aren’t aware of John Humble’s work, you can find more of it at his Web site (click here).

The Getty exhibit opened on March 27 and runs through July 8. (A catalog connected with the exhibition is available at the museum bookstore or online.) If you’re in L.A., be sure to check it out.

Copyright © 2007 Liz Kuball