Blog - Links to other blogs: April 2005 Archives

Since the real estate bubble burst in the 1990s followed by the recession compounded by flat population growth, abandoned buildings have greatly increased in numbers in Japan. There's an interested web gallery called 廃墟デフレスパイラル　〜ぼくたちの秘密の場所〜 (roughlyAbandoned Buildings of the Deflation Spiral - Our Secret Places which features photographs of these abandoned buildings in Japan.

こちらは、このＨＰのメインである廃墟探索写真館です。 現在は神奈川県やその周辺を探索しております。これから少しずつエリア拡大していきたいです。 まだまだ粗末な廃墟写真達ですがどうぞごゆるりとお楽しみください。

This home page consists of photographs of abandoned buildings that we have found. Right now, we are centering around Kanagawa Prefecture [southwest of Tokyo] and the surrounding areas. We hope to expand this in the future. The photographs are of rather shabby abandoned buildings but we hope you enjoy them.

It's often said that we receive just as about as much radiation exposure flying than we do getting a low-dose chest X-Ray (see this page; this page; or this page). Apparently we get about 0.05 mSv per seven-hour flight (a chest x-ray is 0.04mSv). What does this mean for our film? Perhaps we shouldn't be as worried about the carry-on X-ray machines as much as background cosmic radiation. High-energy radiation can also flip bits in flash memory cards, so you digital photographers aren't as safe as you think you are.

Vern Faulkner has published PDFs with very useful tips and techniques for photojournalists on his site http://www.camerapro.ca/. In his words, it's designed for " newspaper journalists, a horde of lesser creatures known for their singular ability to take perfectly good equipment and produce utter garbage.... in other words, you're liable to find a few tips that may help you."

Continuing our soviet theme, the photo archives of the Soviet-era TASS news agency are online here: TassPhoto.com. Click on the "English" button at the top left of the screen to switch to english. Photoethnography.com blog co-editor Mehyar suggests this link:
English -> Photoarchive -> Social Problems

Tim Frank recently wrote to me from Pokhara, Nepal. He and his partner Chris Dixon have a website called Frank & Dixon which features their travel and documentary photography. Check out some of the work in Nepal:

POOREST ON THE PLANET? People in Nepal's Mugu district are among the poorest on earth. In September 2005 we had the opportunity to visit this remote, mountainous area, which is badly affected by the Maoist ･People's War. This woman lives in Karkibada village near Gamgadhi, the district capital of Mugu....

This has to be the most bizarre link to this site that I've seen yet:

Blogshares.com

BlogShares is a fantasy stock market for weblogs. Players get to invest a fictional $500, and blogs are valued by incoming links.

Photoethnography.com blog is currently worth over B$5000/share. If only this were real money!

PostSecret is an incredible blog project that I recently discovered:

Gaijin resident in a small town in Iwate prefecture, Mark James Adams sent me a link to his new blog A Study of Nothingness. I want to particularly commend him on his photographic study of Christian signage in Japan and hope he continues the series.

From The New York Times > Education > For Women in Sciences, Slow Progress in Academia:

"Even as the number of women earning Ph.D.'s in science has substantially increased - women now account for 45 percent to 50 percent of the biology doctorates, and 33 percent of those in chemistry - the science and engineering faculties of elite research universities remain overwhelmingly male. And the majority of the women are clustered at the junior faculty rank.

Rangefinderforum.com will be giving away a brand new Bessa R3A rangefinder camera. The rules are:

Write a comprehensive article on rangefinder cameras vs. SLR’s. If someone is considering the purchase of a camera, this article should convince that person to consider a rangefinder camera. In other words, the article should provide information which will spark interest in a rangefinder camera. It would be nice for the article to detail digital photography and the future of rf's .as it relates to it

New York photographer - Naomi Harris' website is making the blog rounds. She does very warm, very humanistic documentary portraiture. I've been quite taken by it. Check out her series on a nursing home in Florida or the World Rubik's Cube Championships.

Feli on the LUG posted a link to the The Digital Journalist Columns Archives, with the comment, "Here is an easy way to waste a few hours..." How true.

(Via The Leica Users Group.)

From Nuts & Bolts by Bill Pierce - The Leica, the SLR, and the Eye of the Photographer - The Digital Journalist:

"Last month I mentioned that Dirck sent a number of us an email about the two 35-MM still cameras that he uses on assignment, the Leica rangefinder, and the Canon EOS. I was bowled over by the simple intelligence of his comments. I think most of us are used to being told, 'The new Whamoflex is the best camera in the world, and anybody who uses anything else is an ass.' Of course, it isn't true. No single tool is the best in the world. Try building a house using just a hammer. 

The Leica and the EOS are a relatively popular combination. They are very different cameras that don't step on each others toes. Each outperforms the other in specific situations. "

(Via The Leica Users Group.)

The BBC has an online article titled Blogging from East to West that talks about the important role that blogs have in promoting democracy.

"According to Reporters Sans Frontières, at least 63 bloggers [in China] have been arrested, and most of those are publishing articles outside of the country.

"These are people who are really resisting government oppression."

So why are authoritarian governments so worried about blogging? Perhaps it is because the internet is so virulent. In the same way that spammers can reach millions of people in an easy way, ideas deemed dangerously democratic by many regimes can spread faster than bacteria on a petri-dish.

Julien Pain, of Reporters Sans Frontières, says: "Blogging is a very, very important tool in terms of freedom of expression.

This week's NYT Magazine has another interesting article titled Food: Eat, Memory: Our Lady of Lawson, about convenience store culture in Japan. Another must-read although like convenience store food, a bit light in nutritional content. There's a doctoral candidate at Yale who is working on mass culture and convenience stores, we'll have to wait for his definitive word on the subject.

The New York Times Magazine has a very interesting article about Hellen van Meene's photographs of young Japanese women and Japanese youth culture. Be sure to check out the multimedia slideshow.

Although it has only been updated sporadically, this blog may be useful to other scholars: Disability Law Blog: U.S. Supreme Court Archives. Also, check out this page, titled the Supreme Court Addresses the ADA (Graziadio Business Report).