One year ago, America was gripped with controversy over the Florida shooting of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman, who claimed he was shooting in self-defense under the "Stand Your Ground" statute, while many
believe the shooting, subsequent police inaction, and even the court actions had racial undertones - given Martin was black and Zimmerman Hispanic. Now, furor somewhat quieter, the trial is beginning, with startling (and occasionally hilarious) presentations and demands from each side, including
cellphone photos and texts from Martin's phone showing drugs and someone holding a gun, which the
defense claims the prosecutors withheld,
a list of words Zimmerman's attorneys want not to be used during the trial, which include any mention of racial profiling, and a (rejected)
request that all 500 potential jurors be sequestered until their selection. [more inside]
posted by corb
on Jun 13, 2013 -
197 comments
Only for Children: [via: DIY Photography]" The ANAR Foundation is a Spanish organization which helps kids in risk. They Operate a unique phone number - 116 111 - where minors at risk can get aid and consultation.
Anar did a campaign advertizing the number, but were facing a problem where they did not want potential aggressors to see that a kid was even looking at the ad.
The solution was using
Lenticular printing [wiki] on street signs."
[more inside]
posted by Fizz
on May 6, 2013 -
13 comments
We all know that people messed around with photos long before there was Photoshop. But you might not have realized how crazy the Victorians were about headless portraits. They literally lost their heads over this trend.
Check it out.
posted by flapjax at midnite
on Apr 12, 2013 -
25 comments
The Englishman and the eel is a
photo essay of 93 images
(thumbnails here; 2 pages) and
article by London photographer Stuart Freedman that "attempts to look at (amongst other things) the significance and the decline of the eel and its fading from the changing London consciousness" with snapshots of "those palaces of Cockney culture, the Pie and Mash shops."
[more inside]
posted by taz
on Feb 24, 2013 -
30 comments
This iconic photo of the first Aboriginal woman to enlist in the Canadian Women’s Army Corps was used as a recruitment tool, and "appeared all over the British Empire [in 1942] to show the power of the colonies fighting for King and country." Its original caption in the Canadian War Museum read,
"Unidentified Indian princess getting blessing from her chief and father to go fight in the war." Its current caption in The Library and Archives of Canada reads:
"Mary Greyeyes being blessed by her native Chief prior to leaving for service in the CWAC, 1942." But as it turns out, the two people in the photo had never met before that day. They weren't from the same tribe or even related and Private Mary Greyeyes was not an "Indian Princess."
70 years after the photo was taken, her daughter-in-law Melanie made sure the official record was corrected. Via [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Jan 22, 2013 -
13 comments
The author Samuel Langhorne Clemens, a
popular MetaFilter topic, was
born 177 years ago today (November 30th 1835)
in Missouri. The printer, riverboat pilot,
game designer, journalist, lecturer,
technology investor, gold miner, publisher and
patent holder wrote
short stories, essays, novels and non-fiction under the
pen name Mark Twain. This included
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (recently
adapted into a musical), one of the top five
challenged books of the 1990s, published in 1884-85 to a
mixed reception and with an
ending that still causes debate.
[more inside]
posted by Wordshore
on Nov 30, 2012 -
42 comments
Humans of New York is a Facebook page that posts pictures of the humans (and sometimes pets) of New York. Yesterday, HONY got ready to post a picture of an NYU student named Stella, . Afterwards, she told the photographer about a self-portrait she recently posted on Tumblr. So, instead of just posting of the
photo they took, they also included her
self portrait. In the first 13 hours, the photo was been seen by 2.4 million people, and has been "liked" by 300,000.
[more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen
on Oct 19, 2012 -
106 comments
"I replied to ads people had posted to the casual encounters section of craigslist. I asked if I could photograph them in visual representations of their ads.
Some said yes." [NSFW: naked people.]
posted by davidstandaford
on Aug 29, 2012 -
61 comments
Lisa Kristine, a photographer, gives a thoughtful and very moving talk on the extent of modern day slavery in this
TEDx talk. The photos she shows are absolutely beautiful and the bare-bones stories behind them are exceptionally hard to hear at times. The group she is working with,
Free the Slaves, seems to be doing a lot of good work and working on real solutions for the people involved (such as the one example she gives where the slaves that were freed carried on doing the same work, the only work they had ever known, but rent the quarry themselves and are now the recipients of the profits etc). She has published a book with these photos as well and it's available on her
website.
posted by HopStopDon'tShop
on Aug 15, 2012 -
4 comments
In a
recent episode of
Mad Men titled "
Lady Lazarus," Pete Campbell has an existential crisis when he sees a picture of the Earth from space, but were there color pictures of the whole Earth in October 1966? First some background...
[more inside]
posted by quartzcity
on May 10, 2012 -
87 comments
From Dan Lewis, the same guy who writes
Now I Know, the daily e-newsletter of interesting stories
("Every morning, I share something interesting I’ve learned over the last few weeks. It began in June of 2010. As of January 1, 2012, 35,000 people are subscribed." Previously. Archives.), comes the nascent
Fact and a Photo tumblr. Already, there's a picture of a swimming pig.
posted by not_on_display
on Mar 23, 2012 -
9 comments
Once Upon a Time in Bombay "It is said that Bombay is the Alexandria of India. Its geographical position and commercial relations bear evidently some resemblance to the great eastern
entrepot of the Mediterranean. As the swampy Rhakotis, a mere fishing village which Alexander the Great transformed into the splendid city of Alexandria, the desolate islet of the Bombay Koli fishermen was changed into the present capital of Western India." --
J. Gershon da Cunha in
Origin of Bombay (
google book)
[more inside]
posted by bluefly
on Feb 21, 2012 -
8 comments
On the
6th of December 2011, as has been traditional for the past 9 decades since Finland's Independence, the President, Tarja Halonen and her spouse, Dr Pentti Arajarvi
host what is known as the
Linnan juhlat or Castle Ball, an
extremely popular televised reception for the notables of the nation. Along with the usual dignitaries, the President is also permitted to select invitees based on merit - entertainers, athletes, individuals - whom she feels have been in the news in the past year.
This year Peter and Teija Vesterbacka also were invited due to Peter Vesterbacka's work as the CMO of Rovio. Teija Vesterbacka wore a red dress for the evening that had design concepts from one of the birds in the mobile game Angry Birds.
Highlighted
in the Finnish news by the very select group of photographers permitted entry to this exclusive event, it was when the photograph of this dress went viral among global MSM that
the angry birds began to fly.
posted by infini
on Dec 8, 2011 -
29 comments
