The Photo Feed 08.20.07

A Katrina Coincidence (New York Times)
Time Inc. editor-in-chief John Huey probably should have known what would happen when he took 12 editors to tour New Orleans last May: They’d all go home and assign Katrina stories. But Huey says he did not assume that would happen. When it did, however, ten of Time Inc.’s mags—Time, People, Essence, This Old House, Entertainment Weekly, Sports Ilustrated, Fortune Small Business and Fortune—coordinated their stories to come out ahead of Katrina’s two-year anniversary next week. The result is several different angles on life after Katrina. Time, for instance, considers why “New Orleans Still Isn’t Safe while This Old House spoke with people who are rebuilding their homes. And Fortune tackles the allocation of relief money. Next up for Time Inc.’s Katrina coverage? A possible 2008 presidential debate in New Orleans. To read the stories and see the pix from the 10 mags’ Katrina issues, click here.

Canon Unveils New Cameras (PDN)
The wait is over. Canon is rolling out the red carpet for the full-frame, 21.1 MP EOS-1Ds Mark III, as well as the much anticipated EOS 30D successor, EOS 40D.

And They’re Off: The Race To Win Rights To Dead Celebs (New York Post / PDN)
Not long after both New York State and California considered legislation that would require photogs to get permission from the estates of dead celebs whose images they want to use, rights management firms like Corbis and CMG Worldwide are aggressively trying to secure licenses to market celeb images. In 1995, Corbis scored big by buying a Beverly Hills firm that held the rights to the images of Andy Warhol, Albert Einstein and 48 other noteworthy faces. Now, says the New York Post’s Holly M. Sanders, growing competition, huge licensing deals and digital tech are transforming “posthumous peddling from a niche business into the realm of mainstream marketing.” The industry’s growth is also aided by a quest to market dead celebs who have traditionally lacked Hollywood luster—civil rights leaders like Rosa Parks, whose image CMG got dibs on last year, as well as politicians and artists like Warhol and well-known intellectuals like Einstein.

MORE BELOW: Four-figure coffee table books?! ... Magnum, reinvented ... The new and improved Elle ... Hundreds of women, same story ... Is black not en Vogue? ... Tom Ford opts for racy ... Museums love photography ... Photo moves community ... Hallmark taps David Langley ... Punk pix on display ... Mary Louise Parker gets naked, readers get pissed ... Spencer Tunick shoots on a shrinking glacier ... Joel Madden tells paparazzi to stay away ... Polyphonic Spree use stills to make music video ... UK National Union of Journalists gets a new discussion list ...

Four-Figure Coffee Table Books?! (Wall Street Journal)
Art books are making the case for why you need more than coasters on your coffee table. There are an increasing number of four-figure coffee table books being published, many by Taschen. Documenta 12 Edition, for instance, is a trim volume featuring 13 signed and numbered pix snapped at Documenta, Germany’s contemporary art fair. The collection, which includes photog Allan Sekula’s image of a welder using a blowtorch, costs $1,000. And Christian Dior, the 400-page tome showing off 150 of the designer’s couture dresses snapped by photogs like Irving Penn, costs $1,500. Five-hundred special editions “will be wrapped in linen hand-embroidered by Lesage, the Parisian couture embroidery atelier,” according to the WSJ’s Juliet Chung. Don’t run out and buy one of these books thinking it’s a good investment just yet. “Though they are typically produced in limited editions of about 1,000,” says Christine von der Linn of New York’s Swann Galleries rare books auction house, “they probably still aren't rare enough to have significant resale value.”

Magnum, Reinvented (Sydney Morning Herald)
With Magnum celebrating 60 years in the business, it’s hard not to notice how what began as a photojournalism co-operative has moved toward fine art. Particularly when Magnum photographer Alec Soth sold his color photos for five figures at a recent New York exhibit. The sale of a single print earned him roughly the same as co-founder Robert Capa made off of his entire 1947 postwar Russia assignment.

The New And Improved Elle (Jezebel)
Recently, we heard about how Elle was getting a makeover, and now we finally get to see it for ourselves. You’ll notice new, classy looking gold lettering for the title, new typeface for the page numbers and some good-looking photo spreads. Jezebel associate editor Jennifer Gerson calls the mag “exceptional.”

Hundreds Of Women, Same Story (NPPA)
At the 18th annual Women in Photojournalism Conference this past weekend, there seemed to be a recurring message: We’re all storytellers. Video editor and television photojournalist Peg Achterman predicted “that next year … we’ll all be in one room and there won't be separate breakout sessions for still photography and television. There won't be any separation between still [photography] and television, because we’re all visual storytellers and we're all going to be doing the same kind of storytelling.” In considering how new tech is creating this convergence, The Philadelphia Inquirer’s April Saul and The Dallas Morning News’ Lara Solt considered how they might have used current multimedia options on work they did earlier in their careers.

Is Black Not En Vogue? (Times Online via Jezebel)
Evidently, white is the new black. Naomi Campbell has criticized Vogue for not using black models on its cover. But she’s not sitting around complaining. The 37-year-old supermodel says she plans to open a modeling agency in Kenya to find “new African faces” and counteract the imbalance.

Tom Ford Opts For Racy (Women’s Wear Daily)
Five years after using some full-frontal male nudity to sell Yves Saint Laurent’s M7 fragrance, Tom Ford is counting on a naked lady to sell his Tom Ford for Men fragrance. Ford originally had Marilyn Minter snap the campaign back in April, but after doing a shoot with Terry Richardson in Milan, Ford decided to nix the Minter pix and have Richardson shoot “dewy” pix of a female body. The most provocative of the set shows a bottle of Tom Ford for Men “wedged between a woman's glistening thighs, with the bottle barely covering her bare genitalia.”

Photography Rising (Wall Street Journal / Amateur Photographer)
The Wall Street Journal isn’t the only one showing some photography love these days. The Met, of course, opens its first gallery devoted to contemporary photography next month, and Washington’s Corcoran Gallery is hosting huge exhibits of Annie Leibovitz and Ansel Adams’ work this fall. Until then, there are several other big photo exhibits to tide you over: London’s Tate Modern is currently hosting its first big—we’re talking 500 pix here—photography exhibit. The National Gallery of Art is hosting “Foto: Modernity in Central Europe: 1918-1945” through September 3. The exhibit boasts 150 pix—many on display for the first time—by European photogs. Meanwhile, the Getty Center, as we told you recently, is featuring “Edward Weston: Enduring Vision” through November 25. Forty-one pix snapped by Canadian photog Jeff Wall will be on display at The Art Institute of Chicago through September 23. And Magnum is celebrating 60 Years of Fashion Photography with a show at London’s Atlas Gallery, featuring pix from legends like Robert Capa and Eve Arnold (through October 13), as well as an exhibit at The Magnum Print Room, featuring the work of Martin Parr, Bruce Gilden and Alec Soth (through November 2).

Photo Moves Community (Buffalo News)
When it comes to journalism, nothing tugs at the human heart quite like a poignant photo. Some Buffalo residents discovered just that when the Buffalo News ran an image of seven-year-old Jermaine Varner and his 10-year-old cousin Brandon Louis crying at an anti-violence rally. The photo was shot by staff photog Harry Scull Jr.. Murders have left both boys fatherless. Now members of the community are expressing sadness and wishes to improve the boys’ lives. One reader, Sharon Mozeko, arranged for the boys to attend a Buffalo Bills football game. “The pain of the faces of those two boys said it all,” she said. “They just looked so heartbroken. It just puts things in perspective. You think you’ve got problems, and you really don’t—I mean, I grew up with a mother and a father.”

Hallmark Taps David Langley (PR Web)
Langley is the newest addition to the Hallmark Institute of Photography’s faculty. A 45-year photo veteran, Langley is best known for his shots of cars, including a VW campaign for Doyle Dane Bernbach that helped VW become one of the best known car brands.

Got Punk? (Paste)
Attention punk and post-punk lovers: Eugene Merinov’s got a show for you. The New York photog is exhibiting his late 1970s/early 1980s rock shots at NYC’s Ethera Records from September 19 to December 12. The show features B&W pix of Bauhaus, the Ramones, Wire and Gang of Four.

Mary Louise Parker Gets Naked, Readers Get Pissed (Sacramento Bee / AP)
Last week the Sacramento Bee ran an AP story about Parker posing with a live snake to promote the newest season of Showtime’s Weeds, along with a photo of the actress wearing nothing but the snake. Many readers took the photo a little too seriously, complaining that the photo—which appeared in the paper’s celeb “Names & Faces” section—was demeaning to women and wasn’t newsworthy. Some threatened to cancel their subscriptions. Deputy Managing Editor Mort Salzman figured there’d be this sort of backlash when he signed off on the photo’s publication and pointed out that celeb “news” is rarely newsworthy. He also reminded readers that the paper ran a similar pic of Demi Moore when the pregnant actress posed nude for Vanity Fair in 1991. “I was aware some readers would be offended by [Parker’s photo],” Salzman said, “and if they were, I would point them to the lingerie ads run by Macy’s.”

Joel Madden Just Says ‘No’ (Light ‘em Up!)
Now that Nicole Richie is having Madden’s baby (and is rumored to be engaged to her baby’s daddy), she appears devoted to maintaining domestic bliss. In a Nicole-urged effort to keep the rumor mill at bay, Madden has reportedly warned paparazzi not to shot him with other women. Good luck with that one …

Cold As Ice? Not So Much (BBC)
Spencer Tunick has done it again. Almost 600 people took their clothes off for his latest shoot on Switzerland’s melting Aletsch glacier. Commissioned by Greenpeace to raise awareness about global warming, the photo shoot did just that, at least for those who got naked. Despite being 7545 high and on a glacier, it wasn’t particularly cold—somewhere between 50 and 59 degrees Fahrenheit. See the shoot here.

A New Kind Of Music Video (E! Online)
What would happen if someone shot over 70,000 still photographs and made them into a music video? This is the question that the Polyphonic Spree’s video for “Running Away” asks. Shot by band member Julie Doyle during a 10-day tour, the pix are edited together so smoothly you might almost forget you’re watching a series of stills. See for yourself.

Out With The Old, In With The New (EPUK)
Following last month’s shutdown of the UK’s National Union of Journalists Photo discussion list, photogs have a new place to discuss union and business matters: the National Visual Journalists discussion list, which bears a striking resemblance to its predecessor. Only this time, the list isn’t being endorsed by the NUJ. It’s owned and operated by union members alone.