The Amazing Ways Coca-Cola Uses Generative AI In Art And Advertising

Sep 8, 2023 By Admin in Art World News

Some say that in the very near future, we’ll need to either adopt artificial intelligence (AI) or be made redundant by it – or by others using it. If this is true, artists, designers and other creatives are more at stake than most.

So, it’s interesting to see big companies like Coca-Cola choosing to kickstart their own generative AI journey with projects directed at including and enabling creatives.

The company has recently appointed a global head of generative AI, Pratik Thakar – becoming one of the first major multinationals to do so. It’s a sure sign of how important it thinks the technology will be.

In addition, it’s won acclaim with a stunning AI-generated advertising campaign that really shows how AI, combined with human talent, can bring the wow factor.

Running through its other initiatives is a theme of empowering independent creators and small studios with the opportunities of generative AI.

The message seems to be that artists have nothing to fear from AI and should instead embrace its power to enhance their own skills.

Which sounds great – but does it actually hold water?

Here’s an overview of some of the ways that the world’s most famous soft drink company is using (or planning to use) generative AI. These are use cases that, while technically excellent, raise interesting questions about how AI will change the relationship between technology, artists and the corporations that put the money on the table.

Head of Generative AI

This year, Coca-Cola appointed Pratik Thakar as the global head of generative AI. Speaking to The Drum, he said that he believes AI will bridge the gap between human creativity and brand identity.

He said, “Coca-Cola has always bridged the divide … how do we make it more approachable … more palatable and something which is useful to everyone?”

Thakar believes that the democratization of AI means the democratization of Coca-Cola – or its brand identity, at least. The plan is to achieve this by making tools that let anyone play around with new ways of communicating that identity.

Ethics are an important aspect of AI, and you’d hope they would be a concern for the man in charge of it across operations as huge as Coca-Cola’s. So it’s reassuring that he’s made a commitment to ensuring his company carefully selects its technology partners based on knowing that their models are trained “in the right way.”

Generative Video Advertising

Among the first fruits of Coca-Cola’s move into generative AI is the advert Masterpiece. This critically acclaimed video brings to life some of the world’s most famous works of art, seamlessly integrating AI-augmented animation with live action.

It was created in collaboration with OpenAI, using their DALL-E2 generative image model and ChatGPT.

It’s a result of a partnership formed earlier in 2023 when Coca-Cola announced it was working with the agency Bain and Company to find innovative generative AI use cases in marketing and advertising.

The drinks manufacturer’s involvement with AI is long-standing, though, with predictive and prescriptive AI already in use for localized and personalized marketing initiatives.

Masterpiece works on several levels. It’s a visually impressive piece of content that communicates brand identity. It’s also a signal that Coca-Cola is looking for people who can use generative AI to do amazing things. Finally, it serves as an announcement that generative AI has arrived in the advertising industry, and it’s about to shake things up.

Empowering Creativity?

In line with Thakar’s stated belief in helping creatives to unlock the power of AI, Coca-Cola held its first Real Magic Creative Academy this year.

The event helped it to build connections with the independent art and design community. By fostering these relationships, it hopes to unearth the talent and inspiration it needs to follow up Masterpiece.

It’s an extension of the brand’s Create Real Magic campaign, which invited artists to use its digital platform to create images using Coke’s platform and assets, with the winning images going on display on billboards in New York and London.

Staying on the theme of empowering creatives, there’s also Coke Studio. This is a free music-making platform, now augmented with generative AI capabilities.

Hosted at various festivals around the US, visitors are able to create songs, music videos and even album covers by answering questions posed by a ChatGPT-powered bot.

Once they’ve completed the process, which involves being filmed in a green room studio and inserted into their video, their creations can be downloaded and shared.

It’s clear that the brand wants to be associated with AI and the upcoming generation of artists and creators that it believes will use it. Of course, it probably isn’t a coincidence that many of them, because of what they do, are likely to be identified by marketers as influencers.

Is this really good for human creatives?

As generative AI becomes commonplace in advertising, we can’t ignore the implications for broader society, and in particular for human creatives working in this fast-changing field.

Appointing a head of generative AI is a big statement from any company that they understand the power that the technology has to transform their business. But when a company like Coca-Cola does it, it means they know it’s going to transform an entire industry. If you’re a working artist or other creative, reliant on businesses and enterprises to hire and commission you, is it a transformation that’s in your best interests?

We’ve seen that generative AI enables opportunities to create and express ideas in new and amazing ways. It also democratizes the creative process, meaning independent artists and small studios can create work that can compete with that of large agencies.

But there are very real fears that industries that have always paid creatives for everything from company logos and packaging design to cinematic adverts will divert that money into AI art. So, some creatives might see this as being given the tools to dig their own graves!

Another concern is that the growing closeness between industrial and tech giants like Coca-Cola and OpenAI, fostered by the AI boom, demonstrates that not everyone has equal access to these world-changing tools. We commonly see AI providers offering superior access to enterprise users. By securing access to the newest and most powerful models and algorithms, could we be heading for a future where corporations have even greater influence than they do now on the world of art and design?

Personally, though, I don’t believe any of these are predetermined outcomes. The steps we take in coming years to ensure the responsible and ethical rollout of AI into society managing its impact on human lives, will determine the world we end up with.

I think it will be a long time before human creativity can be completely simulated. The Masterpiece advert wouldn’t have been possible to make without human input. And I don’t think it would be able to come up with something that could become as iconic as the Coca-Cola logo itself. Or of Santa Claus in a red coat.

Of course, that doesn’t mean businesses won’t try to use it to save money where they can, particularly on repetitive work – such as mass personalization, for example. But in the near term, as a commercial artist or designer, being able to augment your skills with AI is likely to open doors to new and interesting opportunities.

Read more about these topics in my new book, The Future Internet: How the Metaverse, Web 3.0, and Blockchain Will Transform Business and Society and and ‘Business Trends in Practice, which won the 2022 Business Book of the Year award. And don’t forget to subscribe to my newsletter and follow me on Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube for more on the future trends in business and technology.

Football team photographer on life support after accident during game

Sep 8, 2023 By Admin in Photography

Linda Gregory called the students in Wichita Northwest High School’s football program “her players.”

The 69-year-old photographer had been on the sidelines for years with her camera, capturing moments of the players in action and snapping shots of fans in the stands. If there was a Grizzlies football game, the Northwest High community in Wichita knew Gregory and her husband, both avid photographers, would be there, standing beside the field with their cameras in hand.

She was doing that Monday night for the school’s freshman and junior varsity football teams at Bishop Carroll Catholic High School when some players suddenly ran into her during the second game. Gregory fell backward, hitting her head on the concrete between the field and the track around it, Northwest High head football coach Steve Martin said.

Gregory has since been put on life support, and her family plans to donate her organs, one of her final wishes. She was a “fixture” of the school’s community, someone who felt like family to him and the players, Martin said.

“Losing her puts a hole in our program,” he said.

Gregory and her husband started taking photos for the program during the 2015 season, said Joanna Chadwick, a close friend of the family.

Chadwick first spoke with the Gregorys online years earlier. They would interact on Twitter, now known as X, exchanging conversations while Chadwick was a high school sports reporter for the Wichita Eagle and the Gregorys were taking photos at the area’s big games. The couple met Chadwick’s husband, Bryan, at a grocery store, recognizing him from her tweets, and the families became fast friends.

Ever since, the Gregorys were a “third set of grandparents” for Chadwick’s children, she said.

The couple had similar relationships with many people in the community, Chadwick said, including the football players and others they had photographed over the years. Everywhere they went, they were greeted with hugs and treated everyone like family, she said.

“They were a gift to those kids,” Chadwick said. “And those kids were a gift to them.”

In 2014, when Bryan Chadwick became the head basketball coach at Northwest High, Gregory and her husband started taking photos of his team. The following year, they asked Martin if they could take photos of the football team’s games, and he agreed.

Gregory forged bonds with the players immediately and “loved sharing kids’ stories” through her photography, Martin said. She also kept up with players after they’d graduated. When running back Breece Hall went on to play for Iowa State, Gregory — who was from Iowa and prided herself on being a longtime Hawkeyes fan — said she would root against her team “for one game out of the year” during the rivals’ matchup, Martin recalled.

On the sidelines, Gregory had a knack for making players laugh and capturing photos as they posed. But she was careful to do it while Martin was busy, so the coach, who has a “no nonsense” policy for the sidelines, wouldn’t chide them, he said. After the games, she and her husband uploaded the photos to the football team’s Facebook page.

“Whether you are the best player on the team or maybe never played, you always got pictures of yourself,” Martin said.

During Monday’s night’s junior varsity game, Gregory had been talking to parents near the fence before she set her tripod down by the field, getting ready to take more shots, according to Martin. She probably hadn’t noticed that a receiver had made a block and that the play was coming toward her, he said.

The play happened so fast, Martin said, and Gregory was trying to pick up the tripod to get out of the way when the players ran into her. Gregory was taken to a hospital, where she was later put on life support.

After practice Wednesday, Martin gathered the Northwest High players to reflect on what Gregory contributed to the program in her eight years on its sidelines in what he said was an “emotional talk.”

The Northwest High football team plans to honor her in the coming weeks, starting on Friday. When varsity players take the field to face Wichita Heights High School, they’ll each have a sticker on their helmets — a gold circle with “LG” written atop it in navy blue, the Northwest High colors.

“I think that’s when, for a lot of my older guys, it’ll kick in,” Martin said. “They’ll be looking around for Linda and notice that she’s not there.”

‘We All Start Somewhere’: A Defense of an Art World Underclass, the So-Called ‘Gmail Art Advisor’

Sep 8, 2023 By Admin in Art World News

While many major collectors want a Picasso, say, or a George Condo, the first step, usually, is to score something else: a broker with the access to help them actually buy one.

The role of the art advisor has changed over the years, and with it a new underclass has emerged: the Gmail art advisor. These artful gatherers of commissions have been chronicled by Katya Kazakina in Artnet News once before. They were defined as “a pestilence.” They are often “young and related to an art dealer or collector (i.e., nepo babies),” and work in ill-defined ways, sometimes unscrupulously gathering commissions from both buyers and sellers (a major, if not existential, faux pas in among traditional art advisors). Perhaps they use hyphenates, like “advisor-dealer,” Kazakina wrote.

Suzanne Gyorgy, the global head of art advisory and finance at Citi bank—as traditional an advisor as it gets—noted that a key part of her trade’s’ ethics involves a fiduciary duty to the client. “That means no acting as a go-between or intermediary between a gallery and client, no collecting of introduction fees,” she said. “Everything we do is very transparent.”

To some, Gmail art advisors are the bottom feeders of the art market. The term was coined in 2019 by art-meme maker Hilde Lynn Helphenstein, aka Jerry Gogosian. “Back when I was working in a gallery, I noticed that a lot of these half-drunk chardonnay-sipping housewives would come in from Malibu or whatever and ask for discounts,” she told Artnet News. “They would give me their card and it would always say ‘whoever’ at Gmail dot com.”

But some Gmail art advisors are now making a case for themselves as bold new upstarts, who can often be found perusing sales floors and attending big-ticket biennale openings.

Andrea Lledo, head of her own private art advisory service, which she founded in 2019, says that she understands criticism of the so-called Gmail art advisor, but adds that “the term is being used to disparagingly refer to any girl out here hustling. We all start somewhere, but in time you learn the rules and who you can trust in the shark filled waters of the art game.”

Lledo may be independent, but she said she’s on the scene just like any other advisor, attending art fairs and auctions, and gathering as much intel as possible in person. She combs through opaque price points, and finds out if there are third-party guarantees on works that her clients may not be aware of. “If you’re not physically at the auction or on the sale floor,” she told me from the sale floor of Art Basel earlier this summer, “it’s difficult to get information, and this is what makes the difference between a so-called ‘gmail art advisor’ and a seasoned vet.”

Daniel Oglander is a New York-based art advisor who got his start not as the nepo baby of a collector or celebrity, but rather as an art handler working for Phillips. “I got my start in the art game by virtue of the loading dock,” he told Artnet News.

Daniel Oglander attends The New York Ball: The 20th Anniversary Benefit for the European School Of Economics at Trump Tower in 2014. Photo by Monica Schipper/FilmMagic.

“I think that when it comes to the nature of art advisory, it’s about building trust through scrupulous and trustworthy relationships, which have to be constructed over time.” Since 2014, Oglander has been advising clients and taking commissions as a percentage of the retail price. He deals primarily in contemporary art, on the secondary market, charging his client a 10 percent fee on the final sale price.

Independent advisors today may take to a Telegram group to try to match buyers with sellers, or there may be young art historians or curators flipping the occasional artwork to supplement their income. These hustlers may actually perform an essential function of the mid-level art market; not everyone can—or wants—to be Sandy Heller or Philip Hoffman. There are plenty of art advisors content to work with close family and a small network of collectors within their social network.

Oglander sees his role as more of an educator and connector of dots, creating dialogues about what his clients are interested, or organizing trips and studio excursions for collectors to meet and congregate with the artists and galleries in his network.

What separates a Gmail art advisor from a traditional one, to him, is not necessarily pedigree, but rather industry access and the upholding of accepted standards in terms of fees and transparency. “You’re not going to get anyone to admit to being a Gmail art advisor,” he said, “but what I can say is that there are gatekeepers who patrol access to the market for art, and our role as young and more ambitious advisors is to help our clients navigate that.”

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Vigil held for popular missing DC photographer in Southeast

Sep 8, 2023 By Admin in Photography

An emotional vigil was held in Southeast D.C. Thursday night — to honor the memory of popular D.C. photographer Joseph Shymanski.

Shymanski, 51, was reported missing from his Calvert County, Maryland, home on Labor Day by a family member. Law enforcement has since arrested a Pennsylvania man of a murder charge in connection to his disappearance.

An investigation into his disappearance is still ongoing.

Human remains were discovered by police shortly before the vigil. In a Facebook post, detectives said they believe the remains may be linked to Shymanski’s murder.

“While we have yet to formally identify the remains discovered, we do believe they are associated with our ongoing investigation,” the post read.

But friends, family, colleagues and others who gathered Thursday said the night wasn’t about the “senseless loss” of Shymanski.

For good friends of his like Anneli Werner, it was about celebrating his life, and his vigil saw the community come together in a profound and special way.

The evening saw many a tearful embrace, all shared in a room filled with memories, snapshots of Shymanski’s life in photos — just the way those who knew him best said he would’ve liked it.

“Joe was the most loving, giving, generous, accommodating, kind soul that you will ever, and that I have ever met,” Werner said.

A moment of silence with family and friends of Joe Shymanski at a vigil in Southeast D.C. (WTOP/Matt Kaufax)

Werner told WTOP she first met Shymanski in 1998 in her 20s when she stumbled upon his photography booth, which he would set up in Eastern Market in Southeast D.C.

“I asked him to commission an art piece for me, which was all the way in Cathedral Heights,” she recounted. “He said it was no problem, and showed up a couple weeks later with this perfectly wrapped gift of the photos he’d taken.”

Werner said when she asked Shymanski how much she owed him, he responded, “Whatever you feel like.”

“That’s just how he was,” she said. “He had a heart of gold, and would do anything for anyone he cared about at the drop of a hat.”

Werner said she would go on to hire Shymanski to take photos for her law firm, and before his passing, they’d been good friends for 25+ years.

“It feels like I’m in some sort of sick joke,” she said of Shymanski’s passing. “But it’s appropriate we’ve gathered here in this place, in Eastern Market. He was an artist.”

Werner said her Shymanski story is just one of many.

And one by one, by candlelight outside Eastern Market on a muggy late summer night, people shared tales of Shymanski’s kindness, hilarity, generosity and fierce love.

“Joe was such a light, and such a beautiful spirit and beautiful soul. He never said a bad word about anybody, and everybody who was around him just felt happier,” Werner said.

Candles lit for Joe Shymanski at a vigil in Southeast D.C. (WTOP/Matt Kaufax)

At one point, those who knew Shymanski in the District, to family and friends who flew in from places like Michigan, Los Angeles and beyond, united in song to sing “Here Comes the Sun,” as a way of showing how Shymanski’s light shines on, even if he’s physically gone.

Werner said Shymanski lived larger in his 51 years than most do in their lifetimes. She said he will live on, both through those who loved him and also through the photographs that he leaves behind.

“He just inspired us all to be better people,” she said, fighting back tears. “And if we can carry that out in this crazy world we’re living in, we will all be a little bit better for it. I know that’s how I’m going to honor his legacy.”

Longtime friends recount Shymanski’s life

Two of Shymanski’s friends, Mike and Robyn Goecke, told WTOP that they remember him as an “upbeat, positive, caring, fun” person.

“He wanted people to be happy,” Robyn remembers. “Everywhere he went he brought such warmth and love and positivity and fun.”

Mike had known Shymanski since high school, and he remembers him being incredibly adept at making people comfortable and committed to capturing “things that were beautiful,” which helped with his D.C.-based photography business.

They said Shymanski’s focus in his portrait and artistic photography was to “capture the happiness and what was going on around him,” which extended from his caring personality. The Goeckes remember seeing Shymanski’s work at many friends’ houses and have heard from many people that own a piece of his work in the past few days.

“He just touched a lot of people,” Mike said. “And it brought him so much joy. Because he got to make people happy for a living. He would say to me, ‘People like my stuff, and it’s fun and they like to put it in their homes and it brings them joy on a daily basis. And I get paid to do that.’ And he just thought he was the luckiest guy ever.”

Shymanski was also able to expand his business with his partner Alton McDougal, who he met as a D.C. public schoolteacher.

“It’s just a great story,” Mike said. “How he was a teacher, developed this relationship with one of his former student’s siblings — they’re now business partners. And Alton’s just a great guy and was critical [and] instrumental in just making Joe’s life run the way it has the last several years.”

Shymanski moved to Calvert County with his ex-wife a few years ago, but remained connected to his community in D.C. by selling his artwork at stands at D.C.’s Eastern Market, as well as the Holiday Market in Gallery Place.

Mike recounted how Shymanski “was such a hands-on, tireless dad” over the past few years, even missing trips with long-distance friends to focus on his two kids and three stepchildren.

“Joe hasn’t been there to do any of that the last couple of years because he’s been going through a tough divorce. And his focus was on his kids,” Mike said. “And my heart’s just breaking for them right now.”

WTOP’s Scott Gelman contributed to this report.

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Photography group captures life on the Kenai Peninsula in new exhibit

Sep 8, 2023 By Admin in Photography

The Kenai Camera and Coffee photography group is currently displaying its first public art installation at Kenai River Brewing Company in Soldotna. The exhibit centers around the question: what inspires you about your life on the Kenai Peninsula?

“That could mean many different things to a lot of us; what we do with our families, what we look forward to seasonally or every day, what gets us through the harsh times and the really exciting times of living down here,” said Colette Gilmour, photographer and founding member of the Kenai Camera and Coffee group. “All of our pieces reflect that, and every artist wrote an artist statement answering their question.”

The installation features twenty photographs from eight central Peninsula-based photographers. For a few of the featured artists, this is the first time they’ve had work on display in a gallery.

Upon walking into the brewery, onlookers will recognize the various landscapes and scenes that make the Kenai Peninsula so unique. On display are photographs of the Kenai River Estuary in the winter, Mt. Iliamna in the summer, and a caribou resting in the grass, among others.

“There is incredible beauty out there, and sometimes it’s in the simple things,” said Irene Howdek, a member of the group whose work is on view in the gallery.

What started as a passive hobby while backpacking in the early 1980s has since turned into a passion Howdek regularly pursues. With a focus in nature photography, she has two pieces on display in the exhibit.

“The one piece is some fall leaves with a really cool hoarfrost on it,” Howdek said. “I [also] have the beach down on Land’s End where the emphasis was on the rocks, and it’s late evening lights so the rocks are lit up really cool.”

Hanging adjacent to Howdek’s work, Kimberly Sparacio’s photographs focus on the fishing scene of the peninsula. Sparacio and her husband, a fishing guide, moved to the area from Northern California in 2016.

“It’s pretty much our culture,” Sparacio said. “We fish every year, harvest fish, and it kind of just brings our family together. I thought both of these pieces would really explain my life and story, I guess.”

One of her pieces highlights a fly rod placed next to a line of sockeye salmon. Sparacio hopes that onlookers, specifically fishers, resonate with her two photographs.

“A lot of local people will enjoy it, they’ll see a lot of their own lives in it, so I really hope they enjoy that” she said.

Kenai Camera and Coffee was formed in 2019 and is open to photographers of all ages in and around the Kenai Peninsula. Although this is the group’s first public showing, they hope to exhibit more of their work at other venues in the future.

“It’s always interesting to look at the world through other people’s eyes,” said Ben Wishneck, a member of the group whose work is on display in the gallery. “When you can do that through photos, it’s a unique opportunity.”

“Alaskans, we’re off doing our own things in the winter and in the summer, but we all share similar values and why we live here,” Gilmour added. “Knowing that we all come from different backgrounds and different cultures, we all wake up and fill our lives with different things, to ultimately do the same thing; to enjoy our life and take part in what the Kenai Peninsula has to offer.”

The installation will be on display at the brewing company throughout the month of September.

Oneglint Acquires AI-Powered Platform Memzo To Expand Photography Offerings

Sep 8, 2023 By Admin in Photography

Oneglint Acquires AI-Powered Platform Memzo To Expand Photography Offerings

08 Sep 2023, 7:22 AM IST

The Functionarization of Photography – The Eye of Photography Magazine

Sep 8, 2023 By Admin in Photography

Thierry Maindrault’s Monthly Chronicle

I grant you, this word is really heavy, relatively indigestible, perfectly dissonant, bordering on banishment. Why am I offering it to you as the title of this column? Because its form and content truly invade and suffocate our entire societal space. Photography, often at the forefront of developments in our social structures, is not deceived after the encounter with this ogre devouring creation. This shapeless and brainless mass which is not adverse to offering itself small treats, by greedily swallowing many of our manifestations, in other times, so prestigious.

At the start, as in all tales, everything went well in this brave new world. All around our planet, a few photographers with more or less talent and some legitimate personal ambitions, imagined events (festivals, meetings, gatherings, etc.) as large as possible to make their works known to as many people as possible. This idea worked well for creative expression, since at the beginning of these trials, photography, still little recognized for its cultural usefulness, took hold and invited itself with recognition and panache into our lives. Objective representation gave way to creative representation, which was overwhelmed by photographic creation. All this worked well with photographers as enthusiastic as they were unconscious, with volunteers as dedicated as they were admiring, with audiences of connoisseurs as eager as they were passionate. A small miracle to discover all these genetically individualist photographers who offered prosperous atmospheres for the development of techniques and their appropriation by enthusiasts. They even ended up imposing some among themselves in the armchairs of the French Academy of Fine Arts (a bit logical for someone wearing a suit made of lights!).

But the great administrators of the well-being of our Worlds do not see it at all with the same lens. Throw me this wide angle with the wide vision that we won’t be able to accept, and close this angle too permissive for our way of life. Let’s put this bunch of photographers back on the right road. How could all these “eggheads”, with or without feathers, succeed in such a public operation to annihilate photography? Quite simply, with a technique that is familiar to them, that of the so-called “ladder”, with the fundamental knowhow of politicians.

When the initial little party, with the festival of friends first, took on a little importance in a society which was slowly returning to leisure, after the war, danger appeared. As anything likely to generate electoral votes (from nurseries to homes for the elderly), the photographic demonstrations attracted politicians who hastened to make many promises. Our initial organizers and managers, a little naive, did not understand that a promise only binds those who hear it. Without realizing that these promises were not lost on everyone. Administration, on the lookout for anything likely to make it indispensable and make it gain weight, rushed into the breach. Certainly, the public authorities were going to release some funds (always much less than the promise); but it is obvious that our happy unconscious photographers had been declared totally incompetent to manage these funds with the lot of procedures and forms, as useless as they are essential to implement. It had become essential to appoint a manager (director if possible) experienced in the workings of this administration, since he came from it. The rungs of the ladder were thus climbed, no longer according to the interest of the event for all, but solely according to the career plans of all those parachuted into the initiate circle. It should be noted that the first responders, other than photographers, were often truly passionate people who took real career risks. Unfortunately, we cannot see the same enthusiasm from their successors, much more attentive to their personal ascension.

The development became comical when our brilliant administrators found themselves confronted with financial problems. The resources of States are not inexhaustible, even by pushing public borrowing lines, the budgetary concepts of our uneducated managers had to find other sources of income. As always in these cases, the original heart of an event became an accessory pretext to operate a gas factory which no longer had a soul.

The lifeguards are the emperors of finance, these heroes who come from the same mold as the administrators, but in a version less limited by scruples. This is how the biggest international photographic events arrive at the last rungs of their ladder and find themselves in a very unstable balancing. Everywhere, communication replaces photographic interest in highlighting kind sponsors who clearly display their omnipresent presence.

The height has now arrived with a significant number of conferences, meetings, breakfasts, or press conferences focused on photography (its future, its sustainability, its societal place, its role, its ecological function, its social obligations, etc. ). All these essential discussions, more or less subsidized, forget the photographers (the real ones who know how to make a photograph that looks like a photograph) who are never solicited. It must be said that there are fewer and fewer of them, and if they know how to do all this, it is because they are old. But still, it is not acceptable, a little decency is required, I know also excellent young photographers (under 40, too old ?).

Civil servants (more on the financial side), curators (the same, on the cultural side), lawyers (necessarily specialized), exhibition curators (for ten years, they have grown like mushrooms after an autumn rain), journalists (a round table without a journalist is a day without bread), gallery owners (who confuse Indian ink and solarization), they are all invited to speak of nothing, except the end of photography. Some, a little vicious, actively participate in this disappearance of photographer troublemakers.

Let’s return to our photographic scale, professional cultural scale, from top to bottom, it is abundantly stocked with a significant number of specialists who little know the realities and wonders of the photographic know-how.

Should we accept submission to all these diktats, let people walk all over us, or step on the feet of our colleague? Must we hunt for this so-called comfort (I will take care of everything for you) which looks like an authentic deception. I would rather have told a tall story

Thierry Maindrault, September 08, 2023

your comments about this chronicle and its photography are always welcome at

[email protected]

Larger-than-life sculpture created in class featured on campus: Indiana University Kokomo

Sep 8, 2023 By Admin in Sculpture

KOKOMO, Ind. —Since Indiana University Kokomo added outdoor sculptures to its campus in 2016, it has rotated artwork out, to be replaced with new pieces every two years. In 2023, a metal sculpture created by two students and a faculty member took a permanent place in the collection. Victory Unchained, designed and built by Gregory Steel, professor of fine arts, Cybil Johnson, a May 2023 new media, art, and technology graduate (NMAT), and Jimmy Murphy, a junior in the NMAT program, was recently dedicated at the east end of the Kelley Student Center.

Community Driven Art: TheHug.xyz : Social Media Examiner

Sep 8, 2023 By Admin in Native

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Patricia Caulfield, 95, Dies; Battled Warhol Over Use of Her Photograph

Sep 7, 2023 By Admin in Photography

She sued the pop artist while she was executive editor of Modern Photography. She later travel the world as a nature photographer.

Patricia Caulfield, who during her time as a top editor at Modern Photography magazine in the 1960s successfully sued Andy Warhol for misappropriating a picture she made of hibiscus blossoms, then left the publication to become an acclaimed nature photographer, died on July 16 in Manhattan. She was 91.

Her death, at an assisted living facility, was confirmed by her sister, Kathleen Hall, her only immediate survivor.

After about a decade at Modern Photography, Ms. Caulfield became its executive editor in about 1964. Her photo of an arrangement of blossoms taken in Barbados appeared with an article in the June issue that year.

The issue of Modern Photography that featured Ms. Caulfield’s flower photographs, which became the source of Andy Warhol’s “Flowers” series.Guy Minnebach

Warhol soon called the magazine wanting to buy the photo but felt the price was too high. According to the lawsuit, which Ms. Caulfield filed in November 1966, he then clipped the picture from the magazine, cropped it and produced silk screen paintings from it for what became his “Flowers” series, first shown at the Leo Castelli Gallery in Manhattan in November 1964.

“He didn’t think it would be a big thing, but ‘Flowers’ sold like crazy,” Ms. Hall said in a phone interview.

One of Andy Warhol’s “Flowers” series, which was based on a photograph by Ms. Caulfield.The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts/ARS, NY.

As part of a settlement that Ms. Caulfield and Warhol eventually reached, he created two new “Flowers” paintings for her (the Castelli gallery would sell them for $6,000) and agreed to pay her a 25 percent share of the royalties derived from a portfolio of “Flowers” prints.

She left Modern Photography in 1967, inspired in part by an article she had written about the nature photographer Eliot Porter and by an article in The New York Times about a drought in the Everglades. It was the beginning of a freelance career, one that did not earn her much money but fulfilled her as a photojournalist whose images reflected her growing interest in wildlife and the environment.

“I guess there’s the hope somebody may see my photographs and think, ‘that’s a wonderful animal, maybe it’s worth making an effort to save,’” she told the Knight-Ridder News Wire in 1977. “But at least I’m effective in making a record of something before it all gets ruined.”

She began making trips to the Everglades in the late 1960s. One picture shows an alligator, illuminated by Ms. Caulfield, with its mouth open and framed by tall grass. Another is of a snail climbing a tree.

Her book “The Everglades” (1970) presented 66 of her photographs and was accompanied by selections from the work of the writer and naturalist Peter Matthiessen and an essay by John G. Mitchell, the editor in chief of the Sierra Club, which published the book.

Reviewing the book for The Miami Herald, John Pennekamp, a columnist and Everglades conservationist, called the photographs “extraordinary” and wrote that its big appeal is “the unusual circumstances under which the pictures must have been made.”

Patricia Marie Caulfield was born on March 17, 1932, in Chicago. Her family moved to New Hempton, Iowa, when she was in the second grade. Her father, John, was an ear, nose and throat doctor. Her mother, Marie (Schilling) Caulfield, was a nurse.

“As a child, I was very animal-oriented,” Ms. Caulfield said in an interview in 1978 with Backpacker magazine, which called her “probably the most successful female nature photographer in the country.” She added, “I had a secret image — a jungle girl — and I wasn’t happy in Iowa farm country.”

She studied English and history at the University of Rochester, where she appeared on a television show in which the host, Beaumont Newhall, the curator of the George Eastman House (now Museum), also in Rochester, taught her the basics of photography.

After graduating in 1953 with a bachelor’s degree, she moved to San Francisco, where she took photography courses at night at the Patri School of Art Fundamentals and worked in a camera store during the day. Her interest in photojournalism prompted her move to New York City, where Modern Photography hired her as a secretary.

Ms. Caulfield rose though the magazine’s ranks over 11 years or so until being named executive editor. She was succeeded by Julia Scully, who died last month.

Ms. Caulfield’s travels, for Modern Photography and other publications, took her to Cambodia, the Galápagos Islands, Suriname, Guatemala, India, the Grand Canyon and the Ocklawaha River in Florida. Her work also appeared in the magazines National Geographic, Audubon, Smithsonian, Nikon World, Natural History and The American Sportsman.

An alligator photographed by Ms. Caulfield on a trip to Everglades National Park in the 1960s. “She captured the Everglades at a point that we may never know it again,” a friend said. Patricia Caulfield photographic archive/Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at The University of Texas at Austin

Her other books include “Photographing Wildlife: Techniques for Portraying Animals in Natural Habitats” (1988) and “Capturing the Landscape With Your Camera: Techniques for Photographing Vistas and Closeups in Nature” (1967).

She recently donated her photographic archive to the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin.

“She captured the Everglades at a point that we may never know it again,” Newell Turner, a friend, said in a phone interview. He added, “It was pretty radical, as a woman at that time, to get deeply into the community of alligator hunters.”

Ms. Caulfield moved away from publishing photographs in the late 1980s, feeling “a lack of a support system in the field, especially as a woman,” according to her Briscoe Center biography. She enrolled at the City University of New York Graduate Center, where she spent about a decade studying biology but did not finish her Ph.D.

“She wasn’t necessarily pursuing a degree,” Mr. Turner said. “She was studying because it was her passion.”

Through nearly all her career, she was a woman in a man’s world.

“Most of the people in the field are men, and they think women shouldn’t be doing what I’m doing,” Ms. Caulfield told Backpacker. “That’s an obstacle.”