viz.

Image Credit: Hudson Valley Almanac

"If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough."--Robert Capa, founding member of Magnum.  d. 1954, landmine accident

Currently on exhibition at the Harry Ransom Center is a carefully curated selection of Magnum photos, drawing from the organization’s archive housed at the Center.  Magnum, an elite professional photographic cooperative, brings together some of the world’s premiere photographers in a collaboration resistant to the commercial demands of photojournalism.   This week on viz., we’ll feature the exhibit and explore issues central to visual argumentation and mass media.  This post will explore what possibilities arise when photographers become their own producers and distributors—what influence do the conditions of production have on the genre of photojournalism itself?

Image Credit: BookDrum.com

I suspect I was one of very few people thinking of the First Earl of Shaftesbury, Anthony Cooper, as I watched The Hunger Games with my family last weekend. In particular, I was recalling how Shaftesbury lamented in 1711 that the English theater had come to resemble the “popular circus or bear-garden.”

It is no wonder we hear such applause resounded on the victories of Almanzor, when the same parties had possibly no later than the day before bestowed their applause as freely on the victorious butcher, the hero of another stage, where amid various frays, bestial and human blood, promiscuous wounds and slaughter, [both sexes] are… pleased spectators, and sometimes not spectators only, but actors in the gladiatorian parts.[1]

Screenshot, "Pep Boys, 2009,"  Dark Stores, Brian Ulrich

Brian Ulrich's work focuses on the range of our experience with scenes of consumer culture. In one series, aptly titled Retail, Ulrich documents the familiar settings of bustling grocery stores, well-lit mega-chains including Target, and crowded malls. That series is populated with all types of American consumers. However, in a study in contrast, Ulrich has put together a series of photographs of deserted malls, vacant storefronts, and boarded-up restaurants entitled Dark Stores.

"One Day Without Shoes 2011," TOMS via Youtube

Today TOMS shoes conducted its second annual One Day Without Shoes campaign in which anyone (wherever in the privileged world) was encouraged to go without sandals, boots, sneakers, etc. The intention behind the event is to "raise awareness" for what it's like for the millions in less developed countries who daily go without adequate protection for their feet and, as a result, are at risk for serious infections. At the risk of sounding like a cynical jerk, I'm going to raise some questions about how the campaign attracts an audience through compelling visual tools and ultimately how it benefits those for whom it claims to be raising awareness.

Image Credit: Laura Kalman, Cystic Acne, Back (2009)

Via Bioephemera

In a post earlier this week, Cate discusses “Freeze! Revisted,” an art project that literalizes our consumption of violence. In response to the “sensual suicide” of mod-pixie models sucking on gun-shaped popsicles, I offer these blinged-out (and beautiful?) representations of diseased female bodies.