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Cook: Exclusive: Apple CEO Tim Cook on the impact of the iPhone camera and how it has “democratised” photography

By in Photography

Cook: Exclusive: Apple CEO Tim Cook on the impact of the iPhone camera and how it has “democratised” photography

It has been 16 years since the iPhone was first launched. The iPhone changed the mobile phone industry forever but it wasn’t till 2010 that its effect really started to shake things in other industries. 2010 was the year when the iPhone 4 was launched and it was the same year an app called Instagram came out and started catching the fancy on social media. It was also reported that in 2010, an estimated 121 million digital cameras were sold across the world. That was perhaps the all-time recent high for digital cameras as the iPhone over the years has become the go to device for casual, amateur, and even professional photographers. 13 years have ensued and the iPhone has evolved dramatically and perhaps has one of the most consistent and versatile camera a smartphone user can buy.
Apple CEO Tim Cook is aware of the power of the iPhone camera and says that for a lot of people “the best camera is right in their pocket.”
In an exclusive chat with The Times of India, Apple CEO spoke about the impact of the iPhone camera has had on people’s lives. “Apple has always been about democratising everything,” Cook told The Times of India on a recent visit to New Delhi. Case in point:
We meet at an upscale hotel in the capital where Karishma — a rangoli artist from Chandigarh — is here to show Cook her designs. Cook admires the rangoli and kola designs made of flower petsls, rice and coloured sand. He would later tweet and called the “amazing designs vibrant and beautiful.”

rangoli1.

rangoli2.

He shared the images of these designs, which were clicked by two photographers — Joshua Kartik and Apeksha Maker. Cook takes out the time to chat with them. Kartik says that in his brief interaction with Cook he spoke about the impact of iPhone on videography. “What the iPhone and Apple have done is dramatically reduce the processing time. We have gone from spending hours after shooting something on processing the images or footage to instantly upload and share,” says the Mumbai-based photographer, whose #shotoniPhone images have been shared by Cook earlier as well.
Maker also echoes the sentiment. “The most important thing the iPhone has done is give people the confidence to shoot pro-level images and footage with relative ease.” She told Cook that how her love for photography kickstarted because of a product that isn’t renowned for the camera. It was an iPod touch which was gifted to her and the first photo she clicked was from the music player. Since then, there has been no looking back for the photographer, whose images Cook shared with the world from his Twitter account earlier this year on Holi as well.


Giving people the power

In the last couple of years, Apple has really upped the ante when it comes to video shooting capabilities of the iPhone — an aspect Cook spoke about as well. “It’s not just photography but videography and movie making are also now done on the iPhone,” he says.
The iPhone’s Cinematic Mode has caught the attention of movie makers as well. Earlier this year, renowned director Vishal Bhardwaj — in association with Apple — released a short 30-minute film titled “Fursat”, which was shot entirely on the iPhone. “It is incredible that now, with the cinematic mode, full-length movies are being shot on the iPhone as well,” says the Apple CEO.
What Cook calls “democratising” is eminently visible on social media and how people have started looking at photography and videography. Millions of images are clicked on the iPhone daily and people have the freedom to just take a device out of their pocket and get down to work. The iPhone has over the years given users the power to shoot what they like without carrying additional gear. Not just that but what Apple puts inside the iPhone — a processor capable of computing tasks at extremely fast speeds — has made a tremendous impact in making lives easier of those who edit, process their images and footage. “At the end of the day, it is about democratising,” says the Apple CEO.

Barbara Sabaté Montoriol – The Eye of Photography Magazine

By in Photography

Barbara Sabaté Montoriol – The Eye of Photography Magazine

Fragments of them / images, dreamy women and silent animal presences…

A Collection of images, which associate without hierarchy paintings and photographs of artists of all periods, is the source of my work of collages. This digital collection is as much a palette of shapes and colored shades as a support allowing thought to bounce back through associations of ideas and images.
I am part of a current of iconographic artists whose colors are the images of other artists.
The representation of women is my subject. I seek to take a different look at the iconography of women as subject and object of art and to offer another reading of inherited models.
I question the meeting point between different realities, in particular the animal reality, because the presence of an animal is a graceful emergence of difference, of someone who is obviously other (1).
My ambition is, that by leaving the original painting to enter another aesthetic field, “my” women are seen differently, that they acquire a life of their own or perhaps find it again (in the sense of finding their freedom), that ‘they go on a journey and free the viewer’s imagination as one opens a window on another world and they become the heroines of a story to be written.

(1)Jean-Christophe Bailly, Le Versant animal, Bayard

Barbara Sabaté Montoriol
Artist-author, lives and works in Paris and Île-aux-Moines.

https://fragmentsdesens.com/

Earth Day and the ‘new Big 5’: 11 moving photos of vanishing wildlife

By in Photography

Earth Day and the ‘new Big 5’: 11 moving photos of vanishing wildlife
A violent practice rooted in colonialism is being subverted, with the release of a new book that flips the idea of the “Big 5”. Marking Earth Day, 11 striking images reveal the animals that are disappearing from our planet.

“From the towering giraffe to the bright orange and blue rock agama to the deep-sea anglerfish that produces its own light, we live alongside creatures that are a match for anything science fiction writers have imagined to populate alien worlds,” writes Graeme Green in his book The New Big 5, published this month. In April 2020, the wildlife photographer launched a project to flip the idea of the “Big 5” of trophy hunting on its head, inviting people around the world to vote online for their five favourite animals to photograph and see in photos; the New Big 5 of wildlife photography, as decided by the public vote, are the elephant, polar bear, lion, gorilla, and tiger.

Spotted torrent frog, Santa Barbara Park, Ecuador, Lucas Bustamante; International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) status: Critically Endangered (Credit: Lucas Bustamante)

Spotted torrent frog, Santa Barbara Park, Ecuador, Lucas Bustamante; International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) status: Critically Endangered (Credit: Lucas Bustamante)

The original term referred to five African animals that were considered the most desirable trophies, and the most dangerous animals to hunt: elephant, rhino, buffalo, lion and leopard. But, as Green writes, “it was interesting to realise how many people had heard and used the original Big 5 term without knowing what it meant. Many had assumed it stood for Africa’s biggest animals, forgetting animals such as giraffes and hippos, both of which are larger than leopards or lions. Others thought it meant the most dangerous or lethal, forgetting animals like hippos (which kill more than double the number of people each year than are killed by lions), crocodiles, snakes, scorpions, or mosquitos.”

More like this:
– The photographers changing the way we see animals
– Can photography save the Amazon?
– Striking images that show how climate change is affecting oceans

Golden snub-nosed monkey, Foping National Nature Reserve, China by Qiang Zhang; IUCN status: Endangered (Credit: Qiang Zhang)

Golden snub-nosed monkey, Foping National Nature Reserve, China by Qiang Zhang; IUCN status: Endangered (Credit: Qiang Zhang)

“The Big 5 isn’t the only term connected to Africa’s violent past,” continues Green. “Safari is a Swahili word, meaning ‘journey’, from the Arabic safar. Used by Arab traders in Africa, the word safari was adopted in the 1800s by white hunters, mainly from Britain and other parts of Europe, to describe their hunting expeditions, or hunting safaris, where they’d shoot animals, such as lions and elephants, for trophies. That creates a strange state of affairs today, with many wildlife lovers paying to take safaris (a word rooted in the hunting that wiped out millions of wild animals across Africa) to see the Big 5 (the list of animals most prized by trophy hunters).”

Chimpanzee, Gombe Stream National Park, Tanzania by Thomas D Mangelsen; IUCN status: Endangered (Credit: Thomas D Mangelsen)

Chimpanzee, Gombe Stream National Park, Tanzania by Thomas D Mangelsen; IUCN status: Endangered (Credit: Thomas D Mangelsen)

The new book brings together 146 of the world’s greatest wildlife photographers, conservationists, and advocates – including Dr Jane Goodall, the British primatologist who has spent more than 60 years studying chimpanzees. Her afterword is called Hope in Dark Times.

“People often ask me if I really do have hope for the future,” she writes. “I believe we have a window of time during which we can start to heal some of the harm we have inflicted and slow down the heating of the planet. But only if we get together and take action now.”

African lion, Tswalu Kalahari Reserve, South Africa by Marcus Westberg; IUCN status: Vulnerable (Credit: Marcus Westberg)

African lion, Tswalu Kalahari Reserve, South Africa by Marcus Westberg; IUCN status: Vulnerable (Credit: Marcus Westberg)

Photos have the power to create connections between humans and animals they might never have encountered otherwise, writes Dr Goodall. “I’ve never seen a polar bear or a tiger in the wild, but I’ve seen so many images, such as a mother relaxing as her cubs play around her, or two young play-wrestling males standing upright, or a tiger moving silently through the forest. This is why photographs are so important. For many people, it’s only through such images that they can develop a deep respect and love for animals in the wild, as they haven’t had the opportunity to spend time with them.”

Polar bear, Wapusk National Park, Manitoba, Canada by Hao Jiang; IUCN status: Vulnerable (Credit: Hao Jiang)

Polar bear, Wapusk National Park, Manitoba, Canada by Hao Jiang; IUCN status: Vulnerable (Credit: Hao Jiang)

Polar bear

“A polar bear’s life is tied to the sea ice,” writes Krista Wright, the executive director of Polar Bear International, in The New Big 5. “Sea ice is to the ocean what soil is to a forest. It forms the base of the Arctic food chain. Tiny channels in the ice filter light, creating an environment where algae grows, which feeds what some of our friends in the science community like to call the ‘little squiggly creatures’. These in turn feed the fish, which feed the blubber-rich seals and whales, which feed the polar bears… Trying to picture an Arctic that is ice-free is like trying to picture a rain forest without trees or an ocean without water.”

African Elephant, Kruger National Park, South Africa by Berndt Weissenbacher; IUCN status: Endangered (Credit: Berndt Weissenbacher)

African Elephant, Kruger National Park, South Africa by Berndt Weissenbacher; IUCN status: Endangered (Credit: Berndt Weissenbacher)

Elephant

“With around 40,000 muscles (more than there are in the human body), their trunks are powerful enough to tear branches from trees, but dexterous enough to pick a seed up from the ground… The elephants we see today are the result of minute changes that occurred over the equivalent of 750,000 human lifetimes,” writes Green. The evolutionary biologist Professor Richard Dawkins told him: “Elephants are the product of about 60 million years of evolution. It’s incredible. Their trunk is an astonishingly clever, sensitive instrument. Early elephants would’ve been smaller, with no trunk or a small trunk, like a tapir. The trunk would’ve lengthened gradually over time. The tusks are also remarkable. Tusks started out as incisor teeth and grew out gradually.”

African elephant, Lower Zambezi National Park, Zambia, by Marsel van Oosten; IUCN status, Endangered (Credit: Marsel van Oosten)

African elephant, Lower Zambezi National Park, Zambia, by Marsel van Oosten; IUCN status, Endangered (Credit: Marsel van Oosten)

The number of African elephants once reached upward of 30 million. Today, only around 400,000 remain. According to Professor Dawkins: “Every time a species goes extinct, especially something like an elephant, you’re wiping out tens of millions of years of evolutionary research and development in the blink of an eye.”

African lions, Naboisho Conservancy, Kenya by Graeme Green; IUCN status: Vulnerable (Credit: Graeme Green)

African lions, Naboisho Conservancy, Kenya by Graeme Green; IUCN status: Vulnerable (Credit: Graeme Green)

Lion

“There are fewer than 20,000 lions remaining in the wild,” writes Dr Moreangels Mbizah, the founder and executive director of Wildlife Conservation Action, in The New Big 5. “In Africa, they currently inhabit less than 8% of their former range. Although lions also previously existed in many other countries, outside of Africa, lions can only be found today in the wild in one location: Gir National Park in India.”

Threats include shrinking habitats, a decline in prey because of illegal bushmeat poaching and an increase in human-wildlife conflict – but there are solutions, writes Dr Mbizah: “The communities that live with the lions are the ones best positioned to help lions the most.” Local people should be at the forefront of tackling the problem, she argues. “In the past, conservation has just been about protecting wildlife species and habitats, and very little concern was given to the people that live around these areas. Conservation should be about both nature and people and should aim to reduce the costs local communities face from living with and protecting wildlife, as well as increasing the benefits. If local communities don’t have a direct connection or benefit from protecting lions, they have no reason to want to do so.”

Mountain Gorilla, Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda by Mark Edward Harris; IUCN status: Endangered (Credit: Mark Edward Harris)

Mountain Gorilla, Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda by Mark Edward Harris; IUCN status: Endangered (Credit: Mark Edward Harris)

Gorilla

“Gorillas have long fascinated us because we see ourselves in them,” writes Dr Tara Stoinski, president, CEO, and chief scientific officer of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, in The New Big 5. “When you spend time with them, you can’t help but see so much of our behaviour reflected back. Like us, they have friends and enemies. They form relationships that last for decades and risk their lives defending their families… When a silverback called Titus died in 2009 in Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park, his family stayed beside his body, grieving, trying to rouse him for three full days. I mourned along with them, as I do every time we lose a gorilla.”

Despite their at-risk status, there is some hope – Dr Stoinski highlights how, due to the work of Dian Fossey and other campaigners, Rwanda’s mountain gorilla population has increased from a low of 250 in the 1980s to an estimated 600 individuals today.

Bengal tiger, Bandhavgarh National Park, India by Thomas Vijayan; IUCN status: Endangered (Credit: Thomas Vijayan)

Bengal tiger, Bandhavgarh National Park, India by Thomas Vijayan; IUCN status: Endangered (Credit: Thomas Vijayan)

Tiger

“I’ve had countless fascinating interactions with tigers in Indian jungles over the last 30 years,” writes Dr Anish Andheria, president and CEO of the Wildlife Conservation Trust, in The New Big 5. “Each incident is vividly etched in my mind.” Dr Andheria points to the success of the Indian conservation programme Project Tiger, which in the early 1970s “achieved the impossible: aligning the government and local communities in a battle to bring a large carnivore back from the brink”. Between 2006 and 2018, the tiger population in India doubled from just over 1,400 to nearly 3,000.

Sadly, the story in other nations with tiger populations hasn’t been as positive – of the 13 countries where tigers were once present, three now have none, while two others have few left. In the remaining countries, tigers often number fewer than 1000.

Florida Manatees, Florida, United States by Gabby Salazar; IUCN status: Vulnerable (Credit: Gabby Salazar)

Florida Manatees, Florida, United States by Gabby Salazar; IUCN status: Vulnerable (Credit: Gabby Salazar)

Despite the urgency of the crisis, there are reasons for hope. Green recalls how in recent decades, two communities whose stories he covered as a journalist – in the Peruvian Amazon and in Chile’s Aysén region – successfully fought off plans by energy companies to construct dams that would have flooded hundreds of square miles of land, displacing people and wildlife.

As Green writes in The New Big 5, “Commercial whaling wiped out 2 million whales in the 19th and 20th Centuries, but, since whaling was banned in 1986, humpback whale populations have recovered in the South Atlantic ocean from just 440 in the 1950s to 25,000 today. West African giraffes plummeted to near-extinction, just 49 left, before Niger’s government and communities rallied. They’re now standing tall at around 600. Siberian tigers, Jamaican rock iguanas, Checkered skipper butterflies, Nassau groupers, sea otters, and Hula painted frogs are among the many other species saved from extinction by people taking action.”

The photos in the book help to reinforce the connection between humans and all wildlife. “Every creature deserves to exist,” writes Green. “From bees to blue whales, from tigers to termites, all wildlife is essential to the balance of nature, to healthy ecosystems, and to the future of life on our planet.”

The New Big 5: A Global Photography Project For Endangered Wildlife by Graeme Green is out now (Earth Aware Editions), with a foreword by Paula Kahumbu and an afterword by Jane Goodall.

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Reclaiming Georgia’s Stone Mountain Through Haunting Landscape Images

By in Photography

Reclaiming Georgia’s Stone Mountain Through Haunting Landscape Images

It was a windy day when photographer Sheila Pree Bright brought her father’s Bible to the site of her latest project. Just east of Atlanta, and towering beside the city named for it, the lone, massive chunk of granite that is Georgia’s Stone Mountain looms large in the history of the American South, the Confederacy, and the legacy of racism. Bright went to the mountain to photograph it, and to tell its story in a new way. “I get emotional about it,” she says, remembering the moment, years later, when she feels her late father endorsed her effort.

According to Georgia law, Stone Mountain in its entirety is a designated memorial to the Confederacy. The north face of the mountain is home to the largest bas-relief sculpture in the world, depicting Confederate leaders Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Stonewall Jackson on horseback. The idea for the carving came from Helen Plane, a member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, in 1914. After watching the infamous film The Birth of a Nation, Plane also expressed admiration for the Ku Klux Klan, going to great lengths to include them in the memorial. At the time, the mountain was owned by the Venable Brothers, who granted the Klan access to the mountain for their rituals. On November 25, 1915, Alabama preacher William J. Simmons held a ceremony at Stone Mountain announcing the second coming of the Ku Klux Klan.

imageThe Carving, from the series Invisible Empire, 2019″ width=”auto” data-kind=”article-image” id=”article-image-94344″ data-src=”https://img.atlasobscura.com/iThcT0T9sr5sEApeGR-Oay8PaOccDDgj22fRC1Jgp0I/rt:fill/w:1200/el:1/q:81/sm:1/scp:1/ar:1/aHR0cHM6Ly9hdGxh/cy1kZXYuczMuYW1h/em9uYXdzLmNvbS91/cGxvYWRzL2Fzc2V0/cy9mYWI2NzQ2OTU2/YzBmMDEyNGRfX0lu/dmlzaWJsZSBFbXBp/cmVfVGhlIENhcnZp/bmcgKFdlYikuanBn.jpg”>
The Carving, from the series Invisible Empire, 2019 Sheila Pree Bright/Copyright of the artist and courtesy of Jackson Fine Art

The mountain’s history was raw for Bright when she began work on two series, “Behold the Land” and “Invisible Empire.” The photographs are meditations on the Georgia landscape, specifically Stone Mountain and its haunting history. Selections from both series are featured in an exhibition called The Rebirth of Us at Atlanta’s Jackson Fine Art Gallery.

It’s Bright’s latest chapter in a career that began with the desire to capture the lives and experiences of communities that have been historically overlooked. Now, from taking portraits of ’90s rappers in Houston, one of the birthplaces of Southern rap, to documenting the 2014 and 2015 Black Lives Matter protests, Bright uses photography to challenge dominant narratives and to put contemporary stories into social and historical context.

Atlas Obscura spoke to Bright about the exhibit, the choice of doing landscapes, finding inspiration in the essays of W.E.B. Du Bois, and what she hopes viewers will take away from her work.

You’ve mentioned you grew up in Germany, at the military base where your father was stationed, and weren’t really exposed to Black culture. What draws you to the subjects that you photograph now?

The people, especially African-American people. When I was photographing the portraits of the men who wanted to be rappers, they came out with guns and all for me to photograph and they said, “you’re like a white girl in a black body.” So for me, photographing African-American people was the experience of searching for home.

I look at what is going on in pop culture, too, and how it affects marginalized communities. For example, when you look at the #1960Now series [Bright’s 2018 portraits that connect the Civil Rights and Black Lives Matter Movements], I was very curious about the young people back during the Civil Rights Movement and I started thinking about it generationally. With all the stuff that was going on with Black bodies, I had to go to the ground and photograph. That’s what started that series.

imageBehold the Land, Untitled 3, 2021″ width=”auto” data-kind=”article-image” id=”article-image-94339″ data-src=”https://img.atlasobscura.com/zyRVd9q9ORvBKuCd3s71e3gM3QUytZSnc6mYJ9bu70I/rt:fill/w:1200/el:1/q:81/sm:1/scp:1/ar:1/aHR0cHM6Ly9hdGxh/cy1kZXYuczMuYW1h/em9uYXdzLmNvbS91/cGxvYWRzL2Fzc2V0/cy9mYWI2NzQ2OTU2/YzBmMDEyNGRfX0Jl/aG9sZCB0aGUgTGFu/ZF8zIChXZWIpLmpw/Zw.jpg”>
Behold the Land, Untitled 3, 2021 Sheila Pree Bright/Copyright of the artist and courtesy of Jackson Fine Art

How did your Stone Mountain project come about?

For seven years, I was photographing the project #1960Now, lecturing, and exhibiting all at the same time. I didn’t realize until after 2017 that I was actually traumatized and needed self-care from being on the ground, what I’ve seen, what I’ve experienced.

The photo editor of the Washington Post called and wanted to commission photographers to do a photo essay about racism. I said, “oh my God.” I was so exhausted but I knew I needed to talk about it in a different way. I live 10 minutes away from Stone Mountain and as an artist, I wanted to show different ways of seeing, to unpack instead of just photographing people.

We learn of each other through the media and it’s always negative, especially when it comes to us [Black people]. So I wanted to challenge myself to do landscape. I started reading a lot about the land by reading essays by W.E.B. Du Bois; one of them was called “Invisible Empire.” It’s about how Georgia is so beautiful but yet … there’s something strange and disturbing.

The Washington Post photo editor told me that I had to shoot people but I said no, I don’t. I wanted to make these landscape photographs beautiful because it [Stone Mountain] is beautiful but it has all this symbolism with it.

I think the idea of doing landscapes came before the essays, but what the essays informed me about is how to do them. In “Behold the Land,” Du Bois was talking to a group of Black and white young people about how to move forward. If you think about it, it’s all about the land. That’s what really inspired me even more to really challenge myself with the land.

imageBehold the Land, Untitled 5, 2021″ width=”auto” data-kind=”article-image” id=”article-image-94341″ data-src=”https://img.atlasobscura.com/m-IBZH-HOlJOJLf4hqYhEIumeCRCxGh-ocxXiF-zIbM/rt:fill/w:1200/el:1/q:81/sm:1/scp:1/ar:1/aHR0cHM6Ly9hdGxh/cy1kZXYuczMuYW1h/em9uYXdzLmNvbS91/cGxvYWRzL2Fzc2V0/cy9mYWI2NzQ2OTU2/YzBmMDEyNGRfX0Jl/aG9sZCB0aGUgTGFu/ZF81IChXZWIpLmpw/Zw.jpg”>
Behold the Land, Untitled 5, 2021 Sheila Pree Bright/Copyright of the artist and courtesy of Jackson Fine Art

Why did you choose to do black-and-white photos for the “Invisible Empire” and “Behold the Land” series?

I made them in black and white because if you think about the Confederacy and The Lost Cause, nothing has really changed. We have progressed, yes, but yet, we’re still in the same place. Why can’t we change?

We always talk about change. We talk about diversity. And when the George Floyd protests happened, everybody from PR was doing all this, “I’m with Black Lives Matter,” things but to me, that was just a front, to be honest.

The images in black and white are very haunting, beautiful, and magical. This was actually liberating for me to be on that mountain and to deal with all of that symbolism. How do we, as a society, move forward with all of this? Because if we do not unpack any of this, it’s constantly going to continue. As long as the silence is there, we’re not going to be able to move forward. This work, for me, is presenting a liberation and figuring out a way for us to move forward.

imageI Can’t Breathe, from the series Invisible Empire, 2021″ width=”auto” data-kind=”article-image” id=”article-image-94348″ data-src=”https://img.atlasobscura.com/QFXXBvCbBQwpl52uSnJd5NMKXxGNUWpQcjYvE4M4tdw/rt:fill/w:1200/el:1/q:81/sm:1/scp:1/ar:1/aHR0cHM6Ly9hdGxh/cy1kZXYuczMuYW1h/em9uYXdzLmNvbS91/cGxvYWRzL2Fzc2V0/cy9mMzc1ZGMyNGQ2/ZmMwMGJjZGRfSW52/aXNpYmxlIEVtcGly/ZV9JIGNhbid0IEJy/ZWF0aGUgKFdlYiku/anBn.jpg”>
I Can’t Breathe, from the series Invisible Empire, 2021 Sheila Pree Bright/Copyright of the artist and courtesy of Jackson Fine Art

When you went to Stone Mountain to photograph the landscape, what was going through your mind?

My parents are from the Jim Crow era. They are both passed now. As a child, my parents did not talk to us about the Civil Rights Movement and when I started coming to the South, when I started working on #1960Now, I said to my mom, “why didn’t you ever talk to us about the Civil Rights Movement?” She said that she didn’t want us to hate white folks. When my parents passed, there was a lot of stuff that was going through my mind because we’re all born into a movement, whether we’re conscious of it or not.

I can’t talk to them right now but when I got to that mountain, I was feeling the ancestors, I was feeling my parents and asking them questions about their experiences and being so young and how they dealt with that trauma.

I did a lot of research on the Lost Cause and the Confederacy. I didn’t realize that white women were responsible for funding all of these monuments. They also had rituals and ceremonies in schools about the Lost Cause. Young people at the ages of four and five years old were writing essays about the institution of American slavery. One of the books that I was reading talked about how one boy won an award for talking about how the slaves were better off being slaves. This pulled me away.

The second coming of the Ku Klux Klan was created on that mountain and they read Romans 12. So I brought my father’s Bible up there and I laid it down. It was a windy day. It was in Romans but not in that chapter and I swear to you, when I started to photograph the page it was on, the page changed to Romans 12. I get emotional about it because I felt that my father was speaking to me with that.

imageBible, from the series Invisible Empire, 2019″ width=”auto” data-kind=”article-image” id=”article-image-94340″ data-src=”https://img.atlasobscura.com/KLTqEAOqOq3JKR3UZxHOdesLBK0e__d1U6chyMai4-c/rt:fill/w:1200/el:1/q:81/sm:1/scp:1/ar:1/aHR0cHM6Ly9hdGxh/cy1kZXYuczMuYW1h/em9uYXdzLmNvbS91/cGxvYWRzL2Fzc2V0/cy9mYWI2NzQ2OTU2/YzBmMDEyNGRfX0lu/dmlzaWJsZSBFbXBp/cmVfQmlibGUgKFdl/YikuanBn.jpg”>
Bible, from the series Invisible Empire, 2019 Sheila Pree Bright/Copyright of the artist and courtesy of Jackson Fine Art

How can we reconcile how we feel seeing Stone Mountain’s beauty while also being aware of its dark history? How are your photographs part of that reconciliation?

Even though we are still dealing with the trauma, we have to think about how we move in the future and how we heal, because I don’t believe racism is going anywhere. Another part of the reason I chose landscape is because the land is so important. Across the world, if you think about it, a lot of the people that are hurting because of the land are people of color.

I think it’s about reclaiming the mountain. Indigenous people were living on that land first. There was also a town in Stone Mountain where Black people lived that nobody talks about [Shermantown, a late 19th-century African-American shantytown named after the Union General William T. Sherman]. For me, it’s about reclaiming through the violence and darkness that was there because if we don’t do that, we’re going to be constantly internalizing that.

What do you want viewers to take away from your work?

When I think about Atlanta, I think about how violent the Antebellum South was. I spoke to an elder named Lonnie King who started the Atlanta Student Movement [in 1960]. One thing that he really instilled in me was that you’re never going to get the masses of the people. He said that even though you would think there were a lot of people on the ground, there really weren’t. But those who were, who fought for human rights and civil rights, helped the culture move forward. So for me, if I can inspire one person to go talk to their children or grandchildren to talk about our history, the violence that many faced, I would have done my job.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

North Augusta student recognized nationally for sports photography

By in Photography

North Augusta student recognized nationally for sports photography

Showcasing North Augusta at the national stage, North Augusta freshman Luke Lobato captured sports for the Yellow Jackets during a peak moment.

Lobato recently was awarded a new Sony A7c camera for winning the School Photographers of America contest for winter sports photography. Lobato’s winning photograph came from a wrestling match held at the school.

“We are seeing some incredible photographs this year. I am stunned at the level of quality and art these students are creating,” said David Crandall, executive director of SPOA. “Seeing students have a passion for photography in high school is incredible for our industry and many others. Having a partner like Sony reward these students with brand new Sony camera kits is amazing and shows their vested interest and investment into education and future professional photographers.”

Lobato first started photography in July 2021. He decided to enter the contest after seeing an ad on Instagram.

He was surprised to win and is looking forward to trying the new equipment.



Lobato_Luke_Sports3.jpg

North Augusta Freshman Luke Lobato took a wrestling photo that earned top honors among student photographers this winter. (Photo provided by Luke Lobato).


Photo provided by Luke Lobato.


“It was cool,” Lobato said. “I didn’t really know what to think about it at the time. I still don’t really know what to think about it. I still am going to keep on doing photography no matter if I win or lose.”

Students from Naperville, Illinois; Forest, Virginia; and Rochester, Minnesota were also awarded for their photo skills across several divisions.

To learn more about the photography contest, visit the SPOA website.

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Are the Latest Camera Technologies Bad for Photography?

By in Photography

Are the Latest Camera Technologies Bad for Photography?

There have been some magnificent improvements in the abilities of cameras over the last few years, not least in lenses and camera focusing systems. The technical advancements have almost taken camera skills out of our hands. But is this good or bad for photography?

Looking Back to the Photographic Past

Going back in time, the camera obscura used a tiny aperture but no lens to create an image that would project onto a wall or screen. It’s theorized that early cave dwellers noticed this effect from tiny holes in the animal skin curtains hanging across the cave mouth. The projected scene on the wall inspired their wall paintings.

You can replicate this effect with your camera. Drill a hole in a body cap, tape some aluminum foil over the hole inside the cap, and prick a tiny hole in the center of the foil. Fit it to your camera’s lens mount and a do-it-yourself pinhole camera. Everything is in focus. Well, nearly in focus.

Early film cameras had a single element, a piece of convex glass. Rays of light would hit that lens, which would make the light converge to create a sharp image on the film. There’s a great interactive demonstration of how that works on the Physics Classroom website.

Similarly, the earliest film processing required precise chemistry techniques, not least because the chemicals could poison you.

Things progressed and lenses with multiple elements evolved with ever-increasingly flawlessness and definition. Modern camera lenses are complex devices with an array of elements. The highest-quality lenses need precision to make and that takes time, which is why they are very expensive.

Advancements in Autofocus

With the improvements in lens quality, the accuracy and versatility of autofocus leaped forward, too.

Back in 1978, Polaroid released the SX-70 SONAR OneStep camera. It used ultrasound to detect the subject distance and focused using that. Three years later, Pentax released the first autofocus SLR with the ME F. Other manufacturers soon followed suit.

When you looked through the viewfinder of many film SLR cameras, you would see a horizontal split in the middle of the screen. At first, what you saw above and below the split would be misaligned. To focus on the subject, you would turn the lens’ focussing ring until what you saw on either side of the split was in phase. When digital photography became mainstream, DSLRs had two focusing systems, one of which used a similar method. The sensor’s focus points would detect if the subject were out of phase, hence phase detection.

However, when you used your live view screen on the back of the camera, the focusing system was different. It employed contrast detection. Pick up your camera and put it out of focus. You will see that the scene loses contrast; shadows and highlights become a muddy midtone. As you focus the lens, the scene gains contrast and the different tones become more defined. The disadvantage of contrast detect is that it struggles in low-contrast situations. It is also slower to find focus than phase-detect because it doesn’t know whether you are focusing too close or too far away. Consequently, it must hunt to find the correct focus. However, like everything in photography, there are advantages too. Contrast detection’s advantage is that it is more accurate.

The Problem That Autofocus Brought Us

At that time, DSLR manufacturers decided for us that the viewfinder became less important because the autofocus was so good. Those eyepieces became small, making it difficult to discern detail; only top-of-the-range models had large, bright viewfinders. I am sure you can see the flaw in their decision here. It was a real disappointment as it was harder to compose the image correctly, plus the viewfinders rarely covered 100% of the image that you wanted to shoot.

Canon introduced their dual pixel focusing system for live-view phase-detect autofocus back in 2013 on the EOS 70D, where phase detection was possible on around 70% of the shooting area. They claimed it made their focusing system faster than any other full frame camera.

Meanwhile, other brands such as Sony, Nikon, Fujifilm, and OM use a hybrid system that makes the best of both phase and contrast detection. Lumix’s latest camera, the DC-S5M2, employs the same system, although most of their previous mirrorless cameras only used contrast detection. Focusing is faster and more accurate with mirrorless cameras than it was with DSLRs, now achieved in a few hundredths of a second.

These days, good cameras can focus across the entire scene. Furthermore, that split screen analogy is no longer entirely true as there is now a horizontal line sensor and a vertical line sensor at the same AF point, in other words, cross-type focus points. This means that the focus point can detect lines in both orientations. Previously, a horizontal sensor would have struggled to know if a horizontal line was out of phase. This is, of course, a hugely simplified explanation of how focusing works, and this video gives a superb explanation.

As autofocus progressed, and lens technology got faster to lock onto the subject, so too did the ability of the camera to detect eyes and faces. Tracking subjects across the frame also became more accurate too, especially with the introduction of AI technology. Now, even the previously appallingly bad hybrid mode (AI Focus/ AF-A) that switches between single and continuous autofocus, is starting to work reasonably well in some cameras. Canon has a system on their EOS R3 where the photographer’s eye movement focuses the camera according to where the photographer’s eye is looking.

The Return of Manual Focus

At first, I was a bit of a Luddite back then. I was used to shooting with manual-focus cameras that autofocus seemed to be cheating; I wanted to have full control over my photography. Additionally, with early digital cameras, the autofocus was sluggish.

Similarly, although my SLR and later DSLR cameras had an aperture priority exposure mode, I stayed with manual exposure. That was until I learned the advantage of letting the camera do the heavy lifting. Running indoors and out when shooting events, required little messing around with settings, so I was less likely to miss the action. Also, those silly tiny viewfinders of DSLRs pushed me towards using autofocus, unless using the live view screen when my camera was on a tripod.

Things are swinging back the other way to make manual focusing easier than it was. DSLR users who attend my workshops are often taken aback by the size, quality, and brightness of my mirrorless camera’s electronic viewfinder. Furthermore, lenses are produced that have focus clutch rings, making it easier to switch between manual and autofocus than fiddling through menus or fumbling for switches on the side of the lens with a gloved hand.

For example, the following images show the  OM SYSTEM M.Zuiko Digital ED 90mm f/3.5 Macro IS PRO Lens with the focus clutch in its two positions.

Also, the focus assist function in the camera outlines the in-focus edges with colored lines. Therefore, I no longer need to calculate the hyperfocal distance or depth of field for certain lens settings. I just rotate the focus ring until the yellow outline covers the areas that I want to be sharp. Manual focus is once again encouraged.

Using Other Technologies That Make Photography Easier

I was showing a veteran friend the AI-based features of my camera and how it can focus on birds and track them. He called it military precision. The camera can also pre-empt action and record frames before I fully depress the shutter button. A photographer no longer needs to anticipate when a bird is going to take to the wing before fully pressing the shutter button. The camera is buffering images and will save multiple frames as soon as the shutter is released. Consequently, the hit-and-miss technique resulting from the photographer’s reaction time is redundant.

At night or when using ND filters, I can sit and watch long exposures develop on the live view screen in real-time, and I can see the histogram move to the right; I don’t have to calculate the exposure.

Similarly, there is the ability to light paint and see the new light appear on the Live View screen while the unlit areas remain the same brightness.

Most of the time I don’t even have to carry an ND filter as, up to ND64 is available within the camera.

These kinds of features are brilliant. I am all in favor of things that make it easier for me to get photos. Advanced but easy-to-use camera facilities allow photographers to capture images that would have previously taken considerable learning and practice.

Exposure is correctly achieved by a host of facilities that help override the shortcomings of TTL metering. Front-to-back sharpness no longer requires mathematics. In fact, with software now available, it doesn’t even matter if your picture isn’t entirely sharp.

What’s More Important, the Photograph or the Photography?

I have heard it questioned whether the photograph is more or less important than the act of shooting it. This has usually been expressed by middle-aged men acting as gatekeepers who want to keep photography for those who take the time to learn the technicalities of it. Their predecessors probably decried the invention of the pocket calculator and insisted on carrying a slide rule instead.

Although being a late middle-aged man myself, I haven’t got a problem with this new technology. In fact, I celebrate it. Why should creating good photographs be limited to those with the mathematical skills and technical understanding to do all the things the camera can work out automatically? Is that not a kind of snobbery? This democratization of photography is great. Anyone can achieve more interesting and compelling results much more easily than ever before using these facilities. Moreover, these advanced features can be seen as a gateway to learning other techniques, just as scene modes are in cameras.

Many photographers started their photographic journey with entirely automated settings: auto exposure, auto ISO, autofocus and tracking, scene modes, and more recently AI assistance. These features helped them discover the joy of achieving an image they could hang on the wall. They were used as a stepping stone to learning how to take those photos. They would lead to them wanting to learn more and discover the joy of creating photos themselves, without relying on those tools that made photography easy.

Automation Doesn’t Stop You from Doing it Manually

Despite these advancements being available, those of us who enjoy doing everything manually can still do so and get the satisfaction of applying our learning and expertise. Moreover, if we want to, we can also choose to hand over the heavy lifting to these automated functions and get the shots we want to achieve, freeing up our minds to concentrate on the photograph’s story and composition and not the technical process.

What unique features does your camera have? Do you use them? Or do you like to shun automation in favor of doing everything manually? It will be great to hear your thoughts in the comments.

ECVI Hosts Art Gala to Fund Citizenship Applications

By in Art World News

ECVI Hosts Art Gala to Fund Citizenship Applications

A furry orange armchair, a pair of upcycled jeans, and a legion of prints and pottery donated by YeoPress and the Oberlin Pottery Co-op were among the works of art up for auction at the El Centro Volunteer Initiative Art Gala last Friday. Attendees of the free event, many dressed in the recommended cocktail attire, lined the perimeter of the Root Room, admiring the pieces and placing bids to help fund citizenship applications for Lorain County residents. The annual art auction originated with YeoPress, but in recent years ECVI has taken the reins, putting on the event with the aid of donations from YeoPress and the Pottery Co-op.

“Some of [the donations] are from professors,” College fourth-year and ECVI Co-Leader of Grant Writing and Fundraising Signe Meyer said. “We have some this year from librarians, one from a Dean of Student Life. We had a community member donate the other day. It’s a good mix of people. It is predominantly student art, but we accept art from whoeverʼs interested.”

As the night progressed and the closing of bidding drew near, the energy in the room heightened. Bidders discreetly guarded their desired works to outbid any challengers, and the Mexican banda drew a growing crowd to the dance floor. With its music and food, the gala provided a rare opportunity for Latine students to celebrate their culture alongside Lorain community members.

“Itʼs a fact that thereʼs Latine students in the Conservatory, but there is no band centered on Latinidad or anything like that,” College second-year and ECVI Co-Leader of Grant Writing and Fundraising Angelina Martinez said. “There isnʼt really Spanish music and Spanish bands [at Oberlin]. The reason we brought the banda is because we wanted that type of representation.”

Cultural connection is also a motivation for many of those involved with ECVI.

“Iʼm from Houston, Texas, and the community Iʼm from is all Black and Brown people, so coming [to Oberlin] was a definite culture shock,” Martinez said. “ECVI specifically goes out to a predominantly Latinx community to give citizenship and English classes, so one, [joining] was really important for me because it felt like home, and two, immigration is a personal issue for me and itʼs something that Iʼm really passionate about.”

Lorain’s Latine community has a notable history, with hundreds of men being recruited from Puerto Rico to work in the steel mill in the mid-20th century.

“We want people to be aware of that community, and to be able to have an opportunity to support them and to engage in really important local social justice and community-building work,” Meyer said.

To provide Oberlin students with that opportunity, ECVI works to benefit El Centro de Servicios Sociales.

“El Centro provides so many services, weʼre known as a one-stop organization here in Lorain County with a big reputation,” Executive Director of El Centro de Servicios Sociales Victor Leandry said. “We do English classes, first-homebuyer classes, we do summer camp, ballet classes, we have senior services, legal aid clinics — we do a lot. … Lorain County and Lorain City have the biggest Latino population per capita in Ohio, but we only have one organization thatʼs ours.”

El Centro is the organization for which ECVI is named, though ECVI is entirely student-led. It was students of El Centro’s citizenship test preparation classes whose applications the gala sought to raise funds for. This semester, ECVI-led citizenship classes have been attended by as many as nine participants in one session — a record for the organization.

“This semester, we have the largest number of citizenship students ever,” Meyer said. “Given that every test is $725 just for the application alone, weʼd love to fund at least three if not more, but itʼs super reliant on how many people show up, how much theyʼre willing to pay, how much theyʼre willing to donate to the organization.”

Meyer says they have met the aforementioned goal — out of 136 pieces, all but three were auctioned off, raising enough money to fund four citizenship applications. But regardless of the monetary proceeds from the gala, El Centro values the efforts and con- tributions of ECVI.

“They have organized a great group; they have a group that runs almost like a board of directors,” Leandry said. “Approximately six years ago, they started volunteering at El Centro, doing citizenship classes, [and] educating our immigrant community on how to pass their citizenship test. … They have very good success rates. Most of the people who take the class — in the 90 percent — pass the citizenship test.”

ECVI is not the only avenue through which Oberlin and El Centro have developed a relationship. Professor of Comparative American Studies Gina Pérez recently joined El Centro’s board of directors and has worked closely with the organization and the Lorain Historical Society to create the Latino Lorain History Project.

“We started our project three years ago to collect and capture the history of the Latino community [in Lorain], because it was not captured [anywhere],” Leandry said.

Pérez led students in her class in collecting oral histories from early members of the Latino community in Lorain.

“This year weʼre working on capturing the story of the Latino veterans in Ohio in Lorain to do an exhibit,” Leandry said. “Some of the students are from ECVI, and some are from [Pérez’s] class.”

Turnout at last weekʼs art gala was significantly greater than at the previous art auction. ECVI organizers were encouraged by the show of Oberlin support for El Centro’s cause.

“Itʼs refreshing to see, especially in todayʼs political environment, that people care about immigration issues,” Martinez said.

Perhaps ECVI’s success in marketing the art gala can be attributed in part to their collaboration with Oberlin artists.

“This college has such an expansive network of artists that also want to do social justice work, that want their work to be for good,” Meyer said.

For some student artists, donating their art might’ve been an opportunity to put disused creations to use, but it also provided inspiration.

“Sometimes it can be a little bit hard to find a reason to do art, so I think this is a really good way to use my art for something thatʼs really important,” College second-year and ECVI volunteer Camila Ciembroniewicz said.

At the end of the night, as auction winners claimed their spoils and evaluated how to transport the pieces home — the aforementioned neon armchair closing at a bid of $60 — and feelings of warmth and community lingered in the room.

“As much as Oberlin students want to take care of huge global issues, itʼs also important to take care of the local ones, and this event is a really cool way to be a part of that,” Meyer said.

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