Year in Pictures 2008

[nikon_sam]

I came across this while online today...I thought some might find it interesting...


www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28192685


Don't forget to vote for your favorite...

[agi]

I love these...if you don't mind here's Reuters...

http://www.reuters.com/news/pictures/rpSlideshows?articleId=USRTX8VHS#a=11

[Leica0Series]

I remembered that there was some controversy about those Georgian conflict photos, one of which made both of these lists ...

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/09/fake-georgia-pi.html

http://www.reddit.com/comments/6vpui/staged_propoganda_photos_of_the_russiageorgia/

[nikon_sam]

I find it most amusing and a bit sad that a post, with a link to photographs and titled "Year in Pictures 2008", in a photographic based forum gets only two responses...:bang:

[craygc]

Just find it interesting that where the identical photo appears in both the Reuters and NBC streams, the Reuters' version is cropped with washed out colours

[dave lackey]

I find it most amusing and a bit sad that a post, with a link to photographs and titled "Year in Pictures 2008", in a photographic based forum gets only two responses...:bang:


Really? Most people on the CONUS are not even awake yet. But, through my early morning bokeh ;), even I can see that these are amazing photos.:eek:

Thanks for the post.

[direwolf101]

Good stuff, thanks for the links!

[agi]

More...

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/12/the_year_2008_in_photographs_p.html

[Damaso]

Why don't we start showing our favs from 2008?

[nikon_sam]

Thanks for adding to the collection of great shots...


Damaso...Go for it !!!

[WoolenMammoth]

Interesting.

I first started feeling this at world press photo last year but looking at these lists its becoming more and more of an issue for me. Motor drives are hardly anything new, not by a long stretch, but still I find too many of these photos the result of being able to shoot sixty frames in a second and largely personally uninteresting beyond the wow factor.

I presume if I didnt start using a rangefinder a while back I would so completely not have ariven at this conclusion. Regardless, I find myself feeling "so what" as the wow factor of reportage gets higher and higher based around the technology brought into the field. And no Im not suggesting journalism should be approached with a view camera, but hopefully someone catches my drift.

[Jamie Pillers]

I have a similar response to pictures like these. Of course there's the initial 'wow' response, but that dissipates quickly and I'm left feeling annoyed that modern news & entertainment media outlets (print and TV) think I need to be blasted with zillions of over-saturated images, lots of pointless over-production, and little in the way of thoughtful content.

[sjw617]

Yes, a few are because of motor drives. All of them are there because a photographer happened to be in "the right place at the right time".
Not all are impressive to me but I can not fathom how you guys can be blase about most of the images in the 2008 round ups.

Steve

[WoolenMammoth]

Yes, a few are because of motor drives. All of them are there because a photographer happened to be in "the right place at the right time".
Not all are impressive to me but I can not fathom how you guys can be blase about most of the images in the 2008 round ups.

Steve


I dont know that Im blaise about most of them, just too many of them. Its because at the root, Im getting nothing from the photographer, anyone standing there pushing the button on some totally computerized digital camera and holding it down and then picking the one frame out of 18 that looks best would make the same photo, its totally uninteresting. Anyone, anyone, anyone could have taken too many of the photos on display in those links.

Ive never felt that way about a single frame of film that henry huet or larry burrows shot. In the midst of chaos, those guys were looking for a picture to take. Too much of this crap is "photographers" looking through the pictures they took. It just doesnt speak to me. Im certainly not trying to convince anyone that it shouldnt speak to them, Im just entirely bored by what has become the convention that people tend to be impressed with. Its just a by product of the technology thats all, the same thing happened to music when people started making records on nonlinear editing platforms, ruined decisiveness in the exact same fashion.

[szekiat]

i think u're over simplifying things. A lot of the work goes into putting yourself in the right place as well. Being able to be there just as things are happening requires much foresight and planning. And as for the logistics of shooting digital in the field, yes 10fps helps, but any of these guys will tell u the last thing they want is to do 18 frmaes of the same scene because there is only X number u can fit before u run dry and u don't know how long u're going to be out, in a sense this is not too different from film days. And also, the last thing u want is to try and transmit gigabyes of info on an unstable sat link. So, no, full credit for nailing the shots and pushing boundaries.

[tom.w.bn]

I dont know that Im blaise about most of them, just too many of them. Its because at the root, Im getting nothing from the photographer, anyone standing there pushing the button on some totally computerized digital camera and holding it down and then picking the one frame out of 18 that looks best would make the same photo, its totally uninteresting. Anyone, anyone, anyone could have taken too many of the photos on display in those links.


So you look at a photo and can tell if it's taken with a motor driven camera and that the photographer made x photos to get a specific photo? I am really impressed! :D
Photojournalism is always about being there at the right time and that you see scene. And then you also need a camera. Any camera that is fast enough to get it.


Ive never felt that way about a single frame of film that henry huet or larry burrows shot. In the midst of chaos, those guys were looking for a picture to take. Too much of this crap is "photographers" looking through the pictures they took. It just doesnt speak to me. Im certainly not trying to convince anyone that it shouldnt speak to them, Im just entirely bored by what has become the convention that people tend to be impressed with. Its just a by product of the technology thats all, the same thing happened to music when people started making records on nonlinear editing platforms, ruined decisiveness in the exact same fashion.

And once again: the way you write you must know all the photographers whose pictures are on the photolinks. Otherwise you couldn't write about their techniques, right?

[tom.w.bn]

Thank's for the links. Some impressive photos there.

[WoolenMammoth]

And once again: the way you write you must know all the photographers whose pictures are on the photolinks. Otherwise you couldn't write about their techniques, right?

Tom, in regards to the photos in the links I dont know any of the photographers nor the techniques they used to capture them and because of the content that the photographs communicated to me I couldnt be bothered to investigate either aspect. A work of art either speaks to you or it doesnt and more and more Im less and less moved by what is considered to be "list worthy" by other people. There are some great photos in there but also an increasing amount of flash that is totally lost on me. Honestly, Im slightly jealous of all the people that this stuff does speak to as they are definitely having a better time than me and Im positively not trying to convince anyone to view this subject through my glasses, just the way I see it.

cheers

[anoldsock]

thanks for posting

[agi]

More...

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/12/19/yipgallery.DTL

[dll927]

And exactly WHO decides what are the "pictures of the year"? Such lists of various items seem to have become an end-of-the-year necessity.

As for whether or not pictures were posed, the news media these days are so taken with themselves that they would scarcely be willing to admit any such thing. They do everything they can to engineer elections, so why not photos, too?

[nikon_sam]

On the MSNBC News site they have a section call "Photos of the Week" and one can vote for their favorite...The photos of the year list may come from photos with the highest votes during the whole year...
As for me, I just enjoy viewing any good photograph, taken by anyone, anywhere...

[agi]

As Sam said, I just like looking & learning from photographs.

[williams473]

I can relate to what Woolen is saying - I think part of it is that in photojournalism, a single image apart from the rest really doesn't carry the power that a series or entire photo essay does, because it lacks context and the power of the supporting images. My guess is all the images selected are from a series covering the entire event depicted, and if we could see all the images in a storyline, they might speak more to us both individually and as a whole. I think maybe we expect a bit too much from photography sometimes when we look at individual images, especially in photojournalism. Art photography is a different thing, in which images are meant to be consumed more as a painting or sculpture might.

That said, I felt there were quite a few very impressive images in that group - thanks for the link! As always, it doesn't matter how many frames were burned to get these images - I like to loosely quote one of the greatest photojournalists of all time - W. Eugene Smith - when battling for editorial control of what got into Life magazine...

"My negatives are private... as in my bedroom."

Matt

[agi]

New York Times...

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/photo/2008-year-in-pictures/index.html?hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1230684744-dbFLNHJ4L1L/tzLQk5sg+w

[agi]

Telegraph UK:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/pictures-of-the-year/

Sydney Morning Herald:
http://www.smh.com.au/interactive/2008/world/photos-of-the-year/index.html

Seattle Times:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/photogalleries/photography2008553844/

Editor & Publisher:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/resources/photo_contest/photos_year2008.jsp

[nikon_sam]

John, Thanks for adding to the collection of photos...
A lot of shots in there I haven't seen before...