Vision Slightly Blurred: Recent Episodes

PhotoShelter

Photography has evolved into something more than an aggregation of pixels. Photographer/Photo Editor Sarah Jacobs and PhotoShelter co-founder Allen Murabayashi discuss photography and its intersection with culture and technology in this weekly podcast. From facial recognition to the photographers capturing Beyoncé, Vision Slightly Blurred will help you see photography through a new lens.

After 139 episodes over 3 years, we're wrapping up PhotoShelter's Vision Slightly Blurred podcast. It has been a joy to talk about the intersection of photography, technology and culture and share those thoughts with you, our audience.

In this final episode: Andre D. Wagner is awarded the Gordon Parks Foundation Fellowship, Jonathan Blaustein shares his knowledge of the photo book publishing process, Michael Luo finds photo surveillance of Chinese immigrants in the 19th century, Gabriel Sanchez starts a new photo blog, New York Nico photographs some of NYC's best signs, and Sarah and Allen wax nostalgic.

Thanks to everyone for listening!

During COVID with little work to be had, Joe McNally hunkered down to write a book that's part memoir, part business instruction, and part technical manual entitled "The Real Deal: Field Notes from the Life of a Working Photographer." After a four decade long freelance career, Joe brings a refreshingly candid point-of-view along with an entertaining writing style. In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen discuss the book and Allen's interview with Joe.

Also: AI Engineer Rashed Haq pushes the definition of "photograph" in Wired, Dimitry Kokh captures a family of polar bears at an abandoned weather station, Miami University sets up an automated photo booth in its career center, and surf photographers capture the massive waves of winter.

Although PDN magazine folded in early 2020, its parent company, Emerald, rechristened the list of up-and-coming photographers as "The 30." This past week, the 2022 edition was released, and as always, the nominating committee and jury did a spectacular job identifying and highlighting some of the industry's most promising talent.

In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen talk about some of their favorite photographers, and compare the look-and-feel of the 2012 edition to see what has changed in the past decade.

Also: Satellites and cellphones capture the devastation caused by the undersea volcano in Tonga, writer Caspar Salmon wonders why "hot man in a suit in a pool" is a thing, and Kanye West hires a photographer to document his date with actress Julia Fox.

Still think NFTs are some fringe idea? Yesterday the Associated Press announced that it will start selling NFTs of some of its iconic images at the end of the month. What will the market bear for photojournalism NFTs? Only time will tell.

Also in this episode: Getty Images recaps some of its photographers work on the anniversary of the January 6 Insurrection, Reuter's Leah Mills does the same on Twitter, NYC Mayor Eric Adams shares an portrait of his mom in a brandy snifter, Greg Miller has a new photo podcast, Instagram is testing chronological feeds, and the James Webb Space Telescope has successfully deployed its mirrors which will allow it to take the best space images EVER.

The end of the year means photo compilations, and Sarah and Allen go through some of their favorites from the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times with work by Allen Schaben, Francine Orr, Marcus Yam, Kent Nishimura, Wally Skald, Jay L. Clendenin, Ashley Gilbertson, Brenda Ann Kenneally, Sergey Ponomarev, Ryan Christopher Jones, Kholook Eid, Sandy Kim, Adam Ferguson, Kenny Houston, Michael Cialgo and more!

Plus Instagram allows users to prevent embedding, and Lina Scheynius wonders why Instagram allows her images to be stolen. Happy Holidays, and here's to a better 2022!

If given the chance to go to space, most photographers would probably gear up. But Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa visited the International Space Station with his iPhone, and still got some stunning images and footage in the process. The best camera is the one you have with you?

Also in this episode, photojournalist David Butow chronicles the Trump presidency from election to insurrection in his book "Brink," Mary Berridge captures portraits of autism in "Visible Spectrum," Getty Images gets ready to go public (again), Instagram suspends the @metaverse account of artist Thea-Mai Baumann, and Cook and Jenshel capture a gorgeous photo of the Bryant Park Ice Rink in the New Yorker.

Our first ever live taping of Vision Slightly Blurred features one of our favorite photographers. Longtime National Geographic photographer Jim Richardson held court on Friday, Dec 3 as several hundred viewers joined online.

In this episode, Jim talks about how he used Instagram to engage his audience during the COVID lockdown, his recent collaboration with The Grand Rapids Symphony performing Felix Mendelssohn's Hebrides Overture, the controversy surrounding the Environmental Photographer of the Year, and Twitter's new privacy policy.

HBO's "A Choice of Weapons: Inspired by Gordon Parks" shares its name with Parks' 1996 autobiography, and although much of the movie creates a visually stunning narrative of major milestones in his life, the documentary also covers the lives of photographers and directors inspired by his work. Devin Allen, Jamel Shabbaz, Latoya Ruby Frasier, Spike Lee, Ana Duvernay, Adger Cowans and more share how their work and relationships with Parks shaped their work.

Allen and guest host Caitlyn Edwards discuss this and more including: "Afghan Girl" Sharbat Gula is relocated to Italy and we go down a rabbit hole of controversy surround McCurry's image, Instagram censors Madonna's nipple, and photographers capture the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

While most ex-Presidents opt for lengthy memoirs, Donald Trump decided on a photo book as the first post-White House tome. A new publishing company formed by his son, Donald Trump Jr, will start selling "President Trump's Official Photo Book" starting next month for $74.99.

Also on the show: we celebrate the lives of photojournalist Tom Stoddart and music photographer Mick Rock – both of whom passed away in the past week, Allen interviews Shaun Connell and Nana Kofi Acquah about the winning photo from the Environmental Photographer of the Year, and Leica and Vans team up to produce a checkerboard camera.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Dina Litovsky built a career on observing candid moments of various subcultures – with some of her best work taken candidly on the streets of New York. A few weeks after a photo taken by one of her former students, Paul Kessel, caused a ruckus on Twitter, Litovsky chimed in on the subject while also referencing two past articles on the subject of ethics and the legality of street photography.

In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen continue the discussion of photography and ethics.

Also: Drew Gurian reveals how he captured Yo-Yo Ma for MasterClass and Aperture and Paris Photo announced their photo book awards.

In her book "Sovereign," photographer Jocelyn Lee captures the female nude. But instead of the platonic ideal typically captured in the genre, Lee spent 15 years photographing women between 50 and 90 years old with care and compassion. The result is an incredibly compelling and unique body of work.

Also in the show: Facebook removes facial recognition from its platform, ART CINEMA asked artists about the one photo that helped shape their work, and the AP's Emilio Morenatti photographs the surreal beauty of the volcanic ash covered landscape of La Palma.

In 1981, Parsons Institute of Design student Lori Grinker set out to document a small slice of boxing history unfolding at legendary trainer Cus D'Amato's home in the Catskill. A 13-year old Mike Tyson was training to become a world champion, and Grinker's timing couldn't have been any better.

For a decade, Grinker captured the rise and fall of Tyson, forging a friendship along the way with the shy teen who ascended to the top of the heavyweight division at 20 years old, until his first professional loss at the hands of Buster Douglas in 1991.

A set of images is now being sold through the curated design site 1stdibs alongside a forthcoming book "Mike Tyson: 1981-1991".

Also in the show: Hannah Morales' stunning photos of whale sharks in the Philippines, Frank Herbert captures the weird and eye-catching design of Russian subway stations, Allen places an order for the new Nikon Z9, and a photo of a owl chick is the most popular post on Facebook.

Ethan Moses – purveyor of 3D printed cameras at Cameradactyl – spent the last few weeks in NYC teaching a color reversal printing process using a self-designed and built 20"x24" large format camera. And Vision Slightly Blurred co-host Allen Murabayashi has the prints to prove it. It's a magical process that uses standard RA4 photographic paper and some chemical wizardry to produce a negative-less, one-of-a-kind print.

Also in the show: The New York Times names staff photographer Josh Haner as its Photo Futurist, and Fujifilm releases a wireless Instax Wide printer.

The 2021 Milan Photo Festival catalog includes a group exhibition by students at the Istituto Italiano Fotografia on the topic of Dante's Inferno. One of the students, Andrea Sacchetti, produced an image that is virtually identical to a well-known image by Ethiopian artist Aïda Muluneh without attribution.

After @AFWomeninPhoto tweeted about the plagiarism, photo Twitter shook its collective head in dismay, and the Festival issued a statement that "here was no will to plagiarize against such a prestigious author." Nevertheless, Sacchetti's images remain in the exhibition. Muluneh subsequently issued a video response in which she stated "Just because there’s been one post shared and a couple of messages sent, it’s not the end of the conversation."

Also in the show: Nicola Dove captures Daniel Craig in his final outing as James Bond in "No Time to Die" and you can support the rebuilding of South Louisiana following the destruction of Hurricane Ida through PhotographsForLouisiana.com

An image of a young mother in a short dress on a New York City subway raised ethical questions and the ire of some commentators on Twitter. Some found the "award-winning" photo to be stunning, while others questioned the photographer's methods – sitting across from the woman for 45 minutes while holding his camera on his lap.

Unlike the conversation around "newsworthy" images and the First Amendment, street photography often occupies a much creepier and ethically ambiguous space. But what exactly made this image so objectionable? Sarah and Allen discuss.

Also on the show: Emily Ratajkowski tries using the Fair Use defense in her copyright infringement suit, World Press Photo shifts to a regional model, and photographer/director Joshua Kissi says LinkedIn is the real social network for pros.

Magnum photographer Jonas Bendiksen was troubled by potential for photographers to fabricate a story and photos from scratch using technology and social media to propagate a false narrative. He was so frightened that he "decided to try to to this myself."

The Book of Veles was a conceptual exercise built from background plates photographed in Northern Macedonia and computer generated people. No one in the photojournalism industry seemed to notice, and Bendiksen was even offered an evening presentation at Visa Pour L'Image. But an eagle-eyed Benjamin Chesterton (@duckrabbitblog) spotted a social media avatar that matched one of the subjects in the book, and the intentionally deceptive tale unraveled.

In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen discuss the reaction to the project and the ethical lines that it crosses.

In addition: Paul Ratje's misinterpreted images of Haitian migrants on the US/Mexico border, Instagram postponed the launch of Instagram Kids, and the New York Public Library keeps its image collection open for public browsing.

60 years in the making, Christo's Wrapped Arc de Triomphe opened over the weekend – thrilling Parisians with the artist's first posthumous piece since his death in 2020. But the installation will only be on display until October 3, after which the pieces will be struck and recycled. Like all of Christo's works, the art lives on in sketches, plans, and photos.

In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen discuss the role of photography in ephemeral art and compare other works by Ai Wei Wei and Banksy.

Also on the show, Photoville celebrates The New York Times staff photographer Michelle Agins, Facebook knows Instagram is toxic, and Sebastian Salgado wins the Premium Imperiale 2021 award.

With the benefit of two decades of hindsight, Sarah and Allen re-examine the "iconic" photos from September 11 and talk about the need for photographers to re-share their images and experiences with others.

In the episode, we look at photos from Steven Pyke, Aristede Economopoulos, Stan Honda, James Nachtwey, Suzanne Plunkett, Shannon Stapleton, Robert Clark, Alex Webb, Richard Drew, Robert Clark and more.

Simu Liu, the Chinese-Canadian actor who stars in Marvel's latest blockbuster, revealed that he was once paid $100 to be a stock photo model. Since that single photo shoot in 2014, Liu says he has seen himself on ads hawking everything from software to YMCA memberships. His advice: Think twice before doing a stock photo shoot.

Also in the show: Adam Ferguson documents climate change for TIME over the course of 5 weeks, more and more photographers are publishing newsletters using tools like Substack and Facebook's Bulletin, Facebook apologizes for comparing Black men to primates, and Apple puts its child safety features on pause after experts weigh in.

In late June 2021, Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri declared that the service was no longer a photo sharing app, and that the team was focused on "Creators, Video, Shopping and Messaging." While most of the world shrugged, some photographers expressed outrage at what seemed like a betrayal of the medium that put them on the map. In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen discuss the implications for photographers and whether Glass – a new, subscription-based photo sharing app – can fill the void.

Also: Ed Templeton photographers Jonah Hill for GQ, and Professor Michael Lesy goes nostalgic with found photos from the 1970s.

As the Taliban quickly overran major cities in Afghanistan – culminating in the capture of Kabul – civilian and professional photographers captured the unfolding chaos and the heartbreaking reality of on-the-ground despair.

In this episode of the PhotoShelter podcast, Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen discuss satellite imagery to Falling Man comparisons to photojournalists risking their lives to capture the historical record.

Apple recently announced a new set of features aimed at combatting Child Sexual Abuse Materials (CSAM), which include the ability to scan a user's phone and iMessages. Since the announcement, the company has repeatedly clarified the safeguards that are in place, but privacy advocates have bemoaned the potential for abuse and "mission creep."

The exchange of CSAM imagery through Electronic Service Providers (ESPs) like Facebook, Instagram, Dropbox, Google Drive, etc has reached epidemic-like proportions, and a New York Times report on the issue illustrated how confounding and disturbing the problem has become.

In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen discuss the implication for photographers, and react to the various arguments made by privacy advocates as well as abuse experts.

A photo conspiracy theory is afloat after uncredited, potentially lucrative images of Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck on a yacht were released by TMZ. The images affirmed the rumors that the pair had gotten back together after 20 years apart. Others suggested that they were in the midsts of a shot-for-shot recreation of 2002's "Jenny from the Block" music video! Conspiracy or happy couple????

Also on the show: The New York Times goes from the gold with a square crop of the Olympics, Twitter hosts a hack-a-thon to find bias in their AI, and the New York Public Library announces plans to shutdown public access to a trove of 1 million images that you could check out with your library card.

Ryan Shorosky, photographer and long-haul trucker, built a significant Instagram following while driving a semi around the country. We he made some of his scenic images featuring his signature technicolor skies available for sale, many of his fans jumped at the opportunity. But as the months went by, and the excuses piled on, people started to get suspicious. VICE tracked down some of the victims and Shorosky himself. Is it a case of fraud, or unexpected success coupled with an itinerant life that made fulfillment difficult?

Also on the show: Ken Light published a new book documenting an "empire in decline," Twitter bans a PhD researcher for posting an image of Bree Newsome taking down a confederate flag, a stunning photo of Simone Biles and other Olympic photos, and who says NYC is a cold, heartless place???

Todd Bigelow’s career hasn’t gone exactly as planned. That is to say that no plan from the past few decades could have anticipated the sea of change in the photo industry – from the rapid shift to digital photography to the decimation of staff positions and the rise of the freelance economy. All this has led him to do what any savvy business owner does – pivot with the shifting winds, make informed business decisions, and diversify his income stream. In the process of doing so, he’s become a well-respected business educator, who recently published a book: The Freelance Photographer’s Guide to Success: Business Essentials.

So much of what Todd has been preaching about in the past decade has resonated with me. And after reading his book, I reached out to him to get the lowdown.

Pulitzer Prize Winning Photographer Danish Saddiqui was killed in Afghanistan while covering a conflict between Afghan Security Forces and the Taliban. Saddiqui was the Chief Photographer for Reuters in India and had spent a decade masterfully capturing his home country, as well as much of the Middle East.

Also in the show: photographers capture the terrible flooding in Western Europe, Instagram "experiences" gain private equity funding, the incredible photos of Wyoming pioneer Lora Webb Nichols, and fashion photographer Mert Alas creates a gin(?)

Caroline Fraser takes the Grand Prize in the 2021 Audubon Photo Awards for a stunning image a Greater Roadrunner backlit through a blanket of dust. It was one of many incredible photos in this year's contest.

Also in the show: PhotoShelter's newest guide to mentorship, Norway enacts legislation requiring advertisers to attach a label indicating manipulated photos, Chinese conglomerate Tencent uses facial recognition to police a cyber curfew, and David Hobby spots content creation studios at the mall. Say what?

Five days after the tragic building collapse in Surfside, Miami, over 150 people are still unaccounted for. Photographers have been on the scene capturing images of the debris along with heartbreaking images of grief. Sarah and Allen discuss coverage from the Miami Herald, Washington Post, and the New York Times.

Also in the show: A Brooklyn apartment is transformed into a content creation studio, the Old Houses of Instagram, Jason Fulford's "Photo No-Nos," and Elinor Carucci captures the beauty of grey hair during COVID.

In a Mother Jones piece, Ramenda Cyrus analyzes A1 coverage of last year's George Floyd protests and contends that the media is still relying on old tropes to represent Black Americans. In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Allen and Sarah take a look at her arguments and the supporting voices of author Martin Berger and "Reading the Pictures" publisher Michael Shaw.

Also in the show: The 400 Years Project collects stories of Native Americans, facial recognition errors are preventing people from collecting unemployment, Darnella Frazier receives a special citation from the Pulitzer Prizes for her video of George Floyd being murdered, Emily Ratajkowski sells her NFT for $175,000, and books from Ben Brody, Sebastiao Salgado, and Todd Bigelow.

Unfold, a layout templating app owned by Squarespace, contacted queer photographer Ryan James Caruthers to use 12 of his photos for a Pride Month Instagram feature. When he asked for compensation and to not exploit him especially for Pride, one of the co-founders responded that "I strongly disagree with the sentiment that any effort that doesn't include a dollar sign is 'exploitative.'"

After a flurry of reshares and negative press, Unfold reconsidered their position, apologized, and announced that they would be compensating photographers in the future.

Also: Photojournalist Alicia Vera pens an op/ed in the Washington Post about being sexually harassed by David Alan Harvey, the NYT hires 15 photographers under 25 to capture NYC in the month of May, Instagram sheds some light on their algorithm, and iOS 15 will finally allow you to block exes from appearing in your photo memories.

Police body cams were introduced to create a layer of accountability and to dissuade misconduct. And while the jury is still out over the effectiveness of the technology, Professor Bryce C. Newell believes they have the potential to "force sensitive data and stressful episodes in private citizens’ lives into public view, easily accessible online."

In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Allen and Sarah discuss the implications of body cam technology and how visual evidence can be both a blessing and a curse for all parties captured on camera.

Also in this episode: TheBlkGaze interviews Black photographers in the UK, Victor Moriyama captures the dangerous "sport" of bus surfing in Brazil, Balenciaga uses deep fakes for its SS22 fashion show, Gary Hershorn is a damn treasure, and the Big Picture Natural World Photographer winners.

Bartram Trail High School in St. John, FL blew up in the news this past week when it was revealed that a yearbook teacher Photoshopped at least 80 female students' portraits because they showed too much cleavage in her estimation. The school has a history of policing female clothing, so this was par for the course and yet another example of the weaponization of photography. Sarah and Allen discuss the ramifications along with the history of yearbooks.

Also: Alan Levenson's awesome photo of Japanese pop star Mariya Takeuchi goes viral, Twitter's algorithm was racist, and Laura Rowe captures an incredible storm cloud.

After years of relative calm, tensions between Palestinians and Israelis has escalated in recent days through a series of provocations that have been answered with escalating violence. On the ground, photojournalists have been capturing scenes of chaos, destruction, and heartbreak under the incredibly difficult conditions.

On this episode of the PhotoShelter podcast, Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen discuss how on-the-ground reporting helps bring clarity to the conflict.

Also on the show: Stephen Voss captures the first 100 days of the Biden presidency for Politico, photographer and former public school teacher Meryl Meisler publishes a new book about Bushwick Era Disco, and did you know you can make a full-time living as an astrophotographer?

White House Chief Photographer Adam Schultz inadvertently caused a ruckus when he used an ultrawide angle lens to photograph President Biden, Dr. Jill Biden, former President Carter and his wife Rosalynn Carter at their home in GA. The distorted perspective made the Bidens look huge compared to the Carters, and Twitter had a field day. It was so newsworthy that both the New York Times and the Washington Post reported on it. So what the heck, we'll talk about it too!

Also in this episode: Federico Winer uses Google Earth for source images for his Ultradistancia project, Craig McDean photographed a transformed Billie Eilish for British Vogue, and IAMS pet food launches an app that identifies your dog by its nose print.

Instagram is known for being a highly curated destination for photos and video, but a new trend has emerged at the end of the month when users dump all the content they didn't post into a single carousel with no cohesive theme. The end-of-month dump is the new photo album? Sarah and Allen discuss the sociological phenomenon.

Also: It's deja vu with COVID-19 images emerging from the calamity in India, the "Disaster Girl" meme photo sells as a NFT for $500k, Stephanie Hueon Tung writes about Asian-American erasure from the California Gold Rush, and a gorgeous photo of a family making dumplings nets Li Huaifeng the Photographer of the Year 2021 .

Back in March, the artist Beeple sold a digital collage for $69 million. Photographers (and everyone else) suddenly took notice of this relatively new concept of blockchain-based ownership. In the past week, Phase One Ambassador Reuben Wu and longtime Sports Illustrated photographer Walter Iooss Jr sold pieces for nearly $60,000 each. Is it tulip mania or another mechanism for photographers to realize value from their work. In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen discuss the pros and cons of NFTs in the art world.

Also, Sotheby's auctions off a set of William Henry Fox Talbot's photos for $1.9 million, publisher Wildsam releases a Texas BBQ edition travel guide, and Emiliano Granado denies being a millenial.

Emiliano Granado, Jared Soares, and Carmen Chan recently launched F*ckGateKeeping – a website and Instagram resource for younger photographers looking to establish themselves in the industry. Their irreverent approach combined with their impressive credentials make this a resource worth checking out.

Also in this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred: Gwen Katz runs desaturated color photos through a colorization AI. The results aren't pretty. Photojournalists attacked by police in MN during Daunte Wright demonstrations. Hulu's got a new reality TV show for photographers called "Exposure. Dawoud Bey has a new book and a career retrospective at the Whitney, Polaroid reintroduced their "Round Frame Edition," and checkout @museumoflostmemories on TikTok.

In the mid- to late-70s, the Khmer Rouge committed a heinous genocide in Cambodia that killed 25% of its population. The government infamously photographed many of these victims at Tuol Sleng, a school which was converted into a torture facility. Inexplicably, retoucher Matt Loughrey decided to colorize and alter the expression of some of the depicted victims of the Cambodian genocide into smiles, and as you might imagine, people were outraged.

In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen discuss the controvery. Plus, the NYT publishes images from 28 different Asian and Asian-American photographers to show what love looks like in a time of hate, American Photography takes a stand on Chinese censorship, and Annie Leibovitz captures poet laureate Amanda Gorman for Vogue.

Over 100 million people in the U.S. have already received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccines, and we have the photos to prove it. In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred:

Lindsey Wasson captures the surprised expression of a 98-year old nursing home resident who received an in-person visit from her son for the first time in over a year
Getty Images acquires Unsplash to take advantage of their ginormous reach
Chris Buck publishes a new book "Gentlemen's Club: Partners of Exotic Dancers"
Stephanie Mei-Ling captures "Vaccine Daddy" and creator of @TurboVax, Huge Ma
and the NYT reports on the Age of the Vaccine Selfie

Photographer Lynn Goldsmith won a huge victory against the Andy Warhol Foundation last week when the 2nd Court of Appeals declared that the Foundation had infringed her copyright when it licensed artwork based on her photo of Prince in 2016. Sarah and Allen sort out some of the legal details surrounding the 65 page opinion.

Also: amazing photos of the Ever Given blocking the Suez Canal, renown art buyer Daniel Wolf passes away, photojournalist John Moore is denied access at the border after a decade of covering it, time to delete the Dispo app from your iPhone, and hey! It's our 100th episode (not that we were counting).

Slightly over 40 years ago, photographer Rick Smolan convened 100 of the world's best photographers to photograph 24 hours in Australia – an audacious and self-published effort which yielded the first in a series of massively successful photo coffee table books under the "A Day in the Life" moniker.

The intricacies and logistics of producing the books are only eclipsed by the life experiences that led Smolan to embark on the project, and continue to inform his activities as a photographer, author, and speaker. In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen interview Smolan and even get him to share his thoughts about NFTs.

We like the quirk, and that's what photographer Enoch Ku captured while cruising around his hometown of Sacramento, CA. A set of hedges cut into the shape of playing card suits, a manhole cover ambiguously lined up with a street's divider lines, playful shadows cast by a bike rack. Ordinary Sacramento is the name of the project.

Also in this episode: Tim Kane creates a photo/video package of the isolated town of Yellowknife in the Northwestern Territories of Canada which closed itself off to all outsiders during the pandemic to protect its indigenous elders, project images of the fallen on the Brooklyn Bridge, Rally Studios' amazing FPV drone in a bowling alley, Hannah McKay captures the vigil and protest for Sarah Everard, and Nadine Ijewere lands the cover of Vogue US as the first Black female photographer.

Oakland-based Chanell Stone continues to receive recognition for her "Natura Negra" project, which explores the relationship between land, nature and African-Americans in an urban setting. The photos are rich with meaning, and surprising presented as a series of luscious black and white images.

Also in this week's episode of Vision Slightly Blurred: David Morris captures a "flying ship," James Crombie photographs a murmuration in the shape of a bird, Titleist hires Johnny FPV to capture a golf ball in flight, and follow-ups on a number of recent stories.

This week on the podcast, Sarah and Allen discuss the inaugural Silver List, Juergen Teller's controversial covers for W Magazine, Dispo app, MyHeritage's "Deep Nostalgia" and uncanny valley of @deeptomcruise on TikTok.

Since their rediscovery in 1976, the images of slaves known as the Zealy Daguerreotypes have been held by Harvard's Peabody Museum. The images were originally commissioned to provide visual evidence of the racist theory of polygenesis as expounded upon by Harvard professor Louis Agassiz.

For years, Harvard exerted strict control over the use of the images and extracted "hefty" licensing fees for their use. In 2019, Tamara Lanier who claimed to be descended from two of the slaves sued Harvard for possession of the images. And in 2020, Aperture and Peabody Press published a book entitled "To Make Their Own Way in the World: The Enduring Legacy of the Zealy Daguerreotypes" – a compendium of essays that examined the historical creation and context of the images as well as contemporary interpretations of their meaning.

In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen delve into issues of intent and consent, and how inequity in photography should be addressed in the 21st century.

PLUS Coalition co-founder and CEO Jeff Sedlik filed suit against LA Ink star Kat Von D for infringing his copyright by using his 1989 Miles Davis portrait in a tattoo that she used to promote her businesses. Some have compared the case to Richard Prince and called it fair use. Others have said it resembles the AP's lawsuit against Shepard Fairey for his Obama "HOPE" poster. But the devil is in the details, and Sedlik registered his copyright.

Also: a lawyer buys a building and finds a trove of photos in a hidden attic, including a portrait of Susan B. Anthony, the New Yorker reviews Seiichi Furuya's latest book Face to Face, and Alec Soth vlogs about William Eggleston's "Democratic Forest."

Out-of-focus end zone shots and The Weeknd's meme-worthy "dance" with a camera raised a lot of eyebrows. Innovation or gimmicks? Sarah and Allen discuss all the Super Bowl coverage.

Also: The Biden White House is live on Flickr, a free PhotoShelter webinar on the Social Effects of Photography, and RIP to photographer Ricky Powell, the "4th Beastie Boy."

MoMA photography curator Sarah Meister was named Aperture's new executive director after a year long search to replace Chris Boot. Meister worked her way up from intern to full curator after receiving her degree in art history from Princeton.

Also in the show, the incredible portraits of Sioux by Frank Bennett Fiske and Artists for Uyghurs wants you to donate the sale of your art to raise money for the Uyghur Tribunal; a People's Tribunal investigating China's mistreatment of Uyghur Muslims.

While covering the inauguration of President Joe Biden, AFP photographer Brendan Smialowski focused his camera onto Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders for two quick frames. Somehow the totally unremarkable photo perfectly captured Bernie's spirit and a thousand memes were born much to Smialowski's chagrin.

In this episode of PhotoShelter's Vision Slightly Blurred, hosts Sarah Jacobs and Allen Murabayashi discuss Bernie Memes, Quil Lemons becomes the youngest photographer to get a Vanity Fair cover, Marzena Skubatz captures an Icelandic weather station, and NY's MTA remembers the employees lost to COVID with a beautiful portrait exhibit.

Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer, Nick Ut of "Napalm Girl" fame, received the National Medal of the Arts from President Trump. While many celebrated the achievement, a number of people expressed dismay over Ut's decision to accept it from the twice impeached President.

In this episode, Allen and Sarah discuss the controversy, and also tackle the copyright grab at Penn State's Collegian, and Joe Biden's official White House photographer, Adam Schultz.

January 6, 2021, an infamous day in U.S. History when citizens overran the Capitol was also a day when photojournalists delivered incredible work under heavy duress. In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen review some of the exemplary work and discuss the outsized influence that social media had on the "performative" acts of many of the rioters.

A quarterly print publication of top notch photojournalism for $300 per year? Seasoned photojournalist Kenneth Jarecke believes there's a market for it and has launched The Curious Society to prove his point.

Also in the show: Congress passes the CASE Act which establishes a 3-person copyright tribunal as an alternative to filing copyright cases in federal court, and the New York Times licensing department informs photographer Daniel Arnold that they gave away his portrait of Jerry Seinfeld to a real estate developer for free!

Happy 2021!

Two weeks ago, we solicited voice memos and stories from you, the listener, on how you're coping during the pandemic, projects you're working on, or places where you're finding inspiration.

This is your show! Happy Holidays and best wishes for 2021.

The New York Times recently published their annual Year in Pictures, and Sarah and Allen discuss their favorite photos, the role of editing in making sense of the world, and what they missed.

Intellectual property attorney Richard Liebowitz was ordered to stop practicing law in the Southern District of New York following a unanimous decision by the Grievance Committee stemming from repeated misconduct. Liebowitz has been a staunch advocate of photographer rights and has successfully sued for copyright infringement. Have his transgressions crossed the line? Sarah and Allen discuss in this week's show.

Reuters is the first major wire service to publish a year-end "best of" photo gallery. The photos are an incredible collection of well-composed images that convey so many of the seminal moments of the year including COVID-19, protests, wildfires, and more – but the images are highly compressed and the presentation doesn't do the photos justice.

Diana Markosian's latest project, Santa Barbara, is named after the 80s soap opera which she watched as a child in the Soviet Union. Little did she know that a short while later, her mom became a mail order bride in order to move the U.S. amid economic collapse in the USSR. In addition to an Aperture monogram, Markosian is releasing a film – a semi-autobiographical account of her early life in America.

Also, Women Photograph's Mentorship Class of 2021, the Alexia Foundation announces its grant winners, Evgenia Arbugaeva's latest arctic dream for NatGeo, Instagram moves the Activity button out of reach of your thumb, and fashion photographer Norman Jean Roy trades in his camera for a bakery.

After most major news outlets called the election for Joe Biden, a collage of former VPs and VP-elect Kamala Harris began to circulate on social media. Where did it come from? Allen does some sleuthing, and wonders why the major social media platforms don't have a reverse image search feature.

Also, photos from Election Day around the country, The 30 (formerly PDN30) announces its 2020 winners, and super size German art photo prices have plummeted.

MGM has acquired the rights to "Minamata" a drama about Eugene Smith's last photo assignment documenting the horrific mercury poisoning in Minamata, Japan. Smith expected to work on the project for 3 months, but ended up working on the story for 3 years with his wife Aileen, and photo assistant Takeshi Ishikawa.

Also, an interview with Joe Biden's official photographer Adam Schultz, Kennedi Carter becomes the youngest ever to grab the cover of Vogue UK, Tyler Mitchell photographs Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for Vanity Fair, Instagram changes its nudity policy after criticism from Nyome Nicholas-Williams, and Chrissy Tiegen doesn't care what you think about her photos.

The long awaited documentary featuring the Obama administration's Chief White House Photographer Pete Souza recently made its debut on MSNBC, and Sarah and Allen share their thoughts, and why they shed a few tears.

In addition, Pari Dukovic's photo of Joe Biden kissing his son Hunter goes viral on Twitter (do you think that's appropriate????), a comparison of campaign photos in key senate races, Joe McNally recalls photo shoots with Biden and Trump in the 80s, and a lightning round featuring the work of Kriston Jae Bethel, Evan Vucci, Jim Watson, Jabin Botsford, An-My Lê, and finally, Elaine Thompson captures scientists capturing murder hornets!

Free stock photo site Unsplash entered the news cycle again when the UK government used a photo of an Atlanta-based dancer as the subject of their "Cyber First" ad campaign, suggesting that dancers would be better served with a job in cyber security.

Photographer Krys Alex, who previously had uploaded the image to Unsplash, was horrified that her image could be appropriated in such a way. But folks, that's how Unsplash works! It's almost like Zack Arias told you so...

Also: The Grammy's encourage artists to #GiveCredit, photographers band together to encourage voting in the States of Change print sale, Maggie Shannon's midwives essay, the NYT's on-going "World Through a Lens" travel column, and the winners of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year.

Adobe Photoshop Element's Face Tilt feature allows you to repositions faces in your photos to direct their gaze back towards the camera (or anywhere else you see fit). Washington Post photo editor Olivier Laurent asks whether Adobe has gone too far.

Photographer Melissa Golden gets critical of pandemic portraiture, Gary He launches a subscription-based food newsletter to diversify his income, and we celebrate Indigenous People's day and the work of Edward Curtis.

A small controversy occurred this past weekend when the AP circulated handout photos taken by White House photographer Joyce Boghosian of President Donald Trump signing documents without a mask while being treated for COVID-19 at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

Were they staged? How are presidents depicted while they are sick? Sarah and Allen discuss the details and nuance of staging photos for political propaganda.

Also in this episode, Chrissy Tiegen releases photos on social media following the loss of her unborn child, and a bird's eye view of cruise ships being dismantled in Turkey.

Since its inception, Photoville has used outdoor space to display a wide range of incredible photographs on the Brooklyn Bridge waterfront – which ironically makes it a perfect way to celebrate photography in the era of COVID-19. This year's show runs from Sept 17 - Nov 29 at multiple locations around the NYC, so check it out.

Also in the show, TIME tapped multiple photographers for its TIME 100 issue of influential people, and Sarah and Allen tell you why it doesn't create visual cohesion; PhotoShelter's Caitlyn Edwards interviews Isadora Kosofsky who gained access to an all-COVID-19 nursing home; Antwuan Sargent interviews Joshua Kissi; Luke Gilford's upcoming book "National Anthem: America's Queer Rodeo"; HONY raises $2.6m for an incredible woman, and Sarah loves cake.

Last week, New York Magazine's The Cut published a lengthy essay written by model Emily Ratajkowski on her experiences working as a model, actor, and influencer entrepreneur. She gives numerous examples where she felt unable to control her own image from being sued by a paparazzo, having two Instagram posts appropriated by Richard Prince, and being sexually assaulted by a photographer who later sold photos taken the night of the assault as "art" without her consent.

Sarah and Allen try to unpack all the legal scenarios and talk about ethics within the modeling and photo industry.

Flak Photo's Andy Adams asked his followers for their website URLs early this month, and was surprised to find that a number of them didn't have a website. Instagram has become the dominant way to follow photographers and see updates, but that doesn't mean it's a good replacement for a website. In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen discuss the limitations of social media, and the value of building your brand and SEO through your own website.

The British Journal of Photography recently released their 2020 Ones to Watch list – a globally diverse list of talent that includes a number of photographers that we've talked about in previous shows.

Also, SFMOMA creates a series of short animations to introduce some of the pioneers of photography. The animation is kitschy, the info is high quality, and you'll want to read up on the names you've heard before, but probably forgot since your college photo history course.

On September 5, 2020, The New York Times published the latest entry in their "The America We Need" Times Opinion series to examine two neighborhoods on Chicago's North Side and South Side and the enormous disparities in wealth and health.

The NYT hired an out-of-towner – Magnum Photos' Alec Soth – to cover the sensitive and complex topic of the effects of segregation and racism, only to discover that Chicago photographer Tonika Johnson had done nearly identical work with a significantly greater depth for years.

In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen discuss the controversy and complexities surrounding the NYT's article, plus John Divola criticizes MFA student William Carmargo, and Jeff Mermelstein photographs your texts for #nyc.

Sarah is back in NYC, and we're ready to talk photography! In this episode, a network of surveillance cameras captures the California wildfires, the Whitney Museum tries to mount a show with Black photographers with images from a charity print sale, Texas Isaiah becomes the first trans photographer to land the cover of Vogue UK, and remembering Chadwick Boseman in pictures.

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Today's episode is an audio version of Allen Murabayashi's piece entitled "What Photographers Can Learn from the Whitney Museum & See in Black Debacle" which can be found at blog.photoshelter.com

Is Alberto di Lenardo the next Vivian Maier? Prior to his death, di Lenardo showed his granddaughter a "secret room" filled with the negatives of over 8,000 photos which she edited into a new book entitled "An Attic Full of Trains."

Also, Aaron Siskind's "Pleasures and Terrors of Levitation," Hannah Beachler requests that we use color photos from the Civil Rights era, and Bill Shapiro on the strange lure of other people's photos.

In this jam-packed episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen discuss how citizen journalism and professional photojournalism gave us an incredible point of view of the tragic explosion in Beirut, Andy Day and Benjamin Chesterton uncover Magnum Photo images of child sexual exploitation, Instagram censors (then allows) images of plus-size Black model Nyome Nicholas-Williams, CJR interviews Art Greenspon, Robert Hodierne, David Burnett and David Hume Kennerly on covering COVID, the #ReeseChallenge, and a wild boar steals a man's laptop!

With a $765 million loan under the U.S. Defense Production Act, Kodak has pivoted from film chemistry to pharmaceutical ingredients. The loan sent Kodak's stock price soaring from $2.61 to as high as $60 before settling in the low $20s. Eyebrows were also raised when it was revealed that Kodak Executive Chairman Jim Continenza scored a stock option grant the day before the announcement that could net him close to $100 million.

Also, Judge Nelson Lee stays his own ruling for three weeks to allow Seattle media companies to prepare their appeal to the Seattle Police Department's subpoena of unpublished photos and video, we remember Civil Rights icon John Lewis through photos at Comic Con, Rite Aid uses facial recognition in their stores, AP announced they're switching to Sony, the Potato Photographer of the Year, and mesmerizing drone footage of a dog herding sheep!

After 18 months, a campaign started by then 18-year old Mercedes Baptiste Halliday, a Black photo student in London, to stop the sales of a republication of Gian Butturini's "London" by Martin Parr has come to and end. An official apology plus Parr's request to destroy the remaining inventory (although publisher Damiani has apparently put the books on sale rather than destroyed them) has given Halliday a well-earned victory against racism and an entrenched "generation of white, middle-aged men who do what they want without any consequences."

Plus, three male doctors create fake social media accounts to spy on female medical professionals for the purposes of moral judgement, some great photos of NEOWISE, and an octogenarian couple in Taiwan become the latest hit on Instagram.

After the controversy surrounding Annie Leibovitz's Vogue cover of Simone Biles, Vanity Fair published a beautiful photo spread of Viola Davis taken by Dario Calmese. The images were spectacular, but Calmese used an old photo as a reference image for the cover, which caused controversy and discussion on Twitter.

Co-host Allen Murabayashi recounts his participation on an ICP panel about protestors and ethics with panelists Tara Pixley, Brent Lewis, and Joshua Lott, David Burnett writes a letter to NPPA, Amy Scott responds, Women Photograph announce their grant winners, and Twitter does not like Annie Leibovitz's photos of GOAT Simone Biles.

In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen breakdown the week's photo news right now!

President Trump gave a Fourth of July Speech at Mount Rushmore, which provided a perfect spectacle for Presidential propaganda. Did the media get played by circulating these "patriotic" images, or was the publication more nuanced?

In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah Jacobs and Allen Murabayashi also discuss controversy surrounding diversity at Magnum Photos and of members Martin Parr and Lua Ribeira, and finally some images of hot dogs to round out the holiday weekend.

As Pride month comes to a close, we highlight just a small number of photographers doing thought-provoking work from Robert Mapplethorpe's controversial sex images to tender images of middle-aged love by Matthew Papa.

Also in the show, the Photo Bill of Rights is unveiled (controversy follows), the Robert Giard Foundation's grant for emerging LGBTQ photographers, Tom Bianchi, Collier Schorr, Ryan McGinley, Muholi, Queer Appalachia, and a comparison of three kiss photos by Elinor Carucci, David Uzochukwu, and Ryan James Caruthers.

Juneteenth, the Summer Solstice, and Father's Day – all in one weekend – with some fantastic photography to boot.

In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen discuss the wonderful work of Jake May in Flint, MI, Linda Tirado sues the police for shooting her in the eye, Jesse Dittmar takes an assignment with the Washington Post to photograph TikTok star Charli D'Amelio, and the NYT's "Self-Portraits From Black Photographers Reflecting on America."

As photographers responded to the controversial Poynter article entitled "Photographers are being called on to stop showing protesters' face. Should they?" PhotoShelter co-founder Allen Murabayashi published a series of pieces that intensified the conversation around the First Amendment and the well-being of protesters and vulnerable populations.

Allen and co-host Sarah Jacobs also discuss Michael Christopher Brown's response to criticism of his NY Mag cover, Michael Santiago takes a buyout, Apple gets a patent for "socially distanced selfies" and BIPOC photographers create the viral #VogueChallenge.

In the midst of global protests in support of #BlackLivesMatter, the Poynter Institute caused a ruckus within the photojournalism industry last week with the provocatively titled “Photographers are being called on to stop showing protestors’ faces. Should they?”

At least part of the outright dismissal of the article by some photojournalists stemmed from the second sentence which reads “But there’s a growing movement that calls for journalists and citizens to blur or not show protesters’ faces.” In the same week, the encrypted communications app Signal released a feature to blur faces in photos, which served to conflate journalism ethics with social media norms.

In this episode, Sarah Jacobs and Allen Murabayashi discuss:

Photojournalism ethics and the Poytner article
Darnella Frazier, the 17-year old who captured the killing of George Floyd on video
John Edwin Mason's essay on protest photos
Controversy at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Buzzfeed keeps embedding Instagram posts
NYMag's cover of the BLM protests

In the span of less than a week, concerns about COVID-19 have taken a backseat to the nationwide protests against police brutality and racism sparked by the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmad Aubrey, and Breonna Taylor. Photojournalists covering the scenes have been confronted with violence against them by police and unknown agitators.

In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah Jacobs and Allen Murabayashi discuss the incredible photography being produced around the country – including by many smaller newsrooms, discuss whether we should be calling images "Pulitzer Prize worthy" in the moment that the work is created, and how ordinary citizens with cellphones are capturing incredible (and often unbelievable) scenes..

Finally, we meditate with graduation photos and a piece about skateboarding in NYC.

Harvard professor Sara Elizabeth Lewis raised the ire of some photojournalists by suggesting that there weren't enough photos of COVID-19-related death to create "mental images" of the breadth of the pandemic and the wake of destruction. In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah Jacobs and Allen Murabayashi discuss the reactions by Gary He, Lucas Jackson and Reading the Pictures, Philip Montgomery's work for the NYT, plus a visualization of the news by Josh Begley.

But wait there's more! Is it unethical to use a telephoto lens to portray crowds during the pandemic? Jörg Colberg reacts to a photo of nurse Colby Hutson, Caitie McCabe's FaceTime photos, The Joys of Deleting Photos, and New York Nico's #BestNYPhotos

In this episode of the PhotoShelter podcast, Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah Jacobs and Allen Murabayashi talk about Travis Long's photo of a missile launcher-carrying protestor, Nicola Cordi's "Italy in the Spring of 2020" diptychs using Google Earth, Robert Pattinson's selfies for GQ, an interview with New York Magazine's Jody Quon, Emman Montalvan's portraits of Kehlani, and Justine Kurland's new book featuring the work of her Girl Pictures project.

Happy belated Mother's Day to all the moms out there!

In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen laugh at Daniel Arnold's remote portraits of Jerry Seinfeld, critique Spencer Tunic's latest attempt at photographing nudes via Zoom, fawn over Justin von Oldershausen's apartment building portraits, compare Olivia Harris' sun worshippers to Greg Miller's Primo Amore, review more quarantine shoots by Nikola Tamindzic, Elizaveta Porodina, and Grace Gelder, and give a final wave goodbye to Deanna Dikeman's parents.

Spring is in the air, and we've got the photos to prove it. Er, we're talking about the photos to prove it.

In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah Jacobs and Allen Murabayashi go gaga for Bryan Derballa's Brooklyn Botanic Garden photos, laugh with Liz Devine and her roomies, talk race with Elijah Nouvelage's viral nail tech photo from Georgia, those crazy UFO videos and much more!

Your weekly dose of photography and culture with hosts Sarah Jacobs and Allen Murabayashi. In this episode, we talk about a collection of 15 essays written by NYT staffers and contributors, DJs and strippers on Instagram, the trend of recreating famous artwork at home, and cool images of dolphins and whales to end the show!

A judge dismissed Stephanie Sinclair's lawsuit against Mashable after the website embedded an image she posted to Instagram without permission. How should photographers react and protect themselves?

Photojournalist Joshua Bickel's image of protestors in Ohio has been likened to zombie movies, and for good reason. But he's a bit uncomfortable with the comparison.

Matt Mendelsohn is trying to photograph an entire 500-student graduating class in Arlington, VA, while Calla Kessler captured students in their prom attire with an assist from her father.

In this week’s episode of PhotoShelter’s podcast “Vision Slightly Blurred,” @sarahjake and @allen3m discuss sheltering in Dallas and Honolulu, the dystopian photography of empty places, how teachers are dealing with distance learning, and the creative things that photographers do.

What once seemed like a distant threat has turned into a major nightmare for photographers. The rapid spread of coronavirus (COVID-19) has led to major uncertainty for freelancers dealing with a "black swan" event that has resulted in cancellations of music festivals, tech conferences, weddings, and nearly every sporting event.

In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen discuss how COVID-19 has already impacted freelancers, how photo editors are trying to help, how the media is using photography to illustrate the outbreak, and much more.

TikTok, the video-based social media app, usually conjures visions of teens mimicking the latest dance craze, but it's probably better described as short attention span YouTube. In 2017, ByteDance, the Chinese-owned parent company of TikTok, acquired the Musical.ly app, which had gained a toehold with an under-18 demographic by becoming a replacement for the comedy-oriented Vine app along with a burgeoning lip synching community.

Although the app still skews heavily towards music, it has predictably evolved as a youth-oriented, generic video delivery platform. As such, a whole gaggle of teen photographers has emerged as "experts" – delivering pop song-soundtracked mini-tutorials that are largely devoid of narration.

On this week's episode of the PhotoShelter podcast Vision Slightly Blurred, @sarahjake and @allen3m discuss how TikTok is helping inspire a new crop of photographers.

Late Winter and early Spring bring another cycle of photo contest season – that time of year when many major prizes are announced (especially in the photojournalism realm). And with each year bring another round of punditry regarding the value of photo contests and an almost inevitable controversy regarding the winners.

In this week's episode of PhotoShelter's Vision Slightly Blurred podcast, Sarah (@sarahjake) and Allen (@allen3m) discuss the controversy around the 77th Pictures of the Year contest, as well as the Sony World Photography Awards' decision to censor images of the Hong Kong protest taken by Ko Chung Ming (高仲明) and David Butow.

The New York Times investigative reporter Kashmir Hill uncovered some unsettling details about Clearview AI – a facial recognition start-up that scrapes publicly available photos from sites like Facebook, YouTube, and Venmo and makes the data searchable by law enforcement – even if you're not suspect or convicted of committing a crime.

Facial recognition is an incredibly useful consumer tool for organization burgeoning albums, but the privacy implications are enormous when third parties start to aggregate images and make the data commercially available.

In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen revisit the issue of facial recognition (first covered in the inaugural episode of Vision Slightly Blurred last year), and see how far the technology and ethical implications have come in less than 12 months.

As a part of the launch of the Fuji X100V, Fuji posted a video of Japanese street photographer Tatsuo Suzuki at work. Suzuki's aggressive style rubbed people the wrong way, and within the week, he was scrubbed from the campaign, and then erased from the Fuji website.

But Suzuki is an accomplished street photographer who has also helped build a community of street photographers with his zine/collective Void Tokyo. Why does Suzuki get canceled when photographer like Bruce Gilden earn gallery shows? In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen discuss Suzuki's body of work, his aggressive style, and the effects of cancel culture on the arts.

Last week, Emerald Expositions, the owner of Photo District News (PDN), announced that PDN would no longer publish new content online or in print. The magazine was a staple of the professional photography industry, particularly for advertising and commercial photography. Their articles covered a wide range of topics from pricing to major campaigns to the venerable PDN 30 list. In addition, PDN produced a number of photo contests including the PDN Annual.

In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen discuss the climate that makes it nearly impossible for niche print publications to exist, what PDN could have done to potentially thwart its demise, and ideas for the future of PDN 30.

The crash that killed Kobe Bryant, his 13-year old daughter Gianna, and seven others aboard a helicopter shocked millions around the world. Near the Staples Center in California where Bryant played for 20 years as a member of the Los Angeles Lakers, make-shift memorials appeared. And online, fans posted messages of grief and condolences on social media.

Unsurprisingly, images of Bryant were widely shared as if a way to collectively remember him through the most accessible and visceral medium available to us – photography. And photographers who had the opportunity to shoot Bryant during their careers expressed a connection for having done so. Even in the most public of settings, there is something intimate about taking someone’s photo.

In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen share some of their favorite images that they've seen on social media in the wake of Bryant's death, and talk about the role of photography in creating a collective memory.

Does knowing the science behind photography help us create better pictures and/or get more out of our equipment? Or does the accumulation of such knowledge simply make more technical photographers feel superior?

In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Allen Murabayashi makes the case that beyond understanding the exposure triangle and acquiring specific knowledge for the types of photography that you practice (e.g. astrophotography), it's unnecessary to be pre-occupied with understanding the physics of lenses or how sensors work.

On January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded during liftoff due to a faulty O-ring design on the rocket booster which allowed hot gas to ignite a fuel tank. STS-51-L was the 25th space shuttle mission, and in the mid-1980s, launches still captured public attention and imagination.

On hand that day was photographer Bruce Weaver, who has been a mainstay of Cape Canaveral launches for over 30 years. Although the NASA video of the tragedy was available immediately, the grainy, low-resolution video couldn’t hold a candle to the still image that Weaver captured.

Weaver’s image perfectly captured a major inflection point for NASA and space travel. NASA grounded the program for three years, and there was a palpable sense that the heroic age of space flight had ended. The image was just an explosion, but it carried with it the baggage of hubris, bureaucracy and seven dead astronauts.

On Sunday, January 19, 2020, Elon Musk blew up a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on purpose to test a crew escape system – and I’ve never felt so hopeful after seeing a photo of an explosion.

Freelancer Joe Rimkus Jr., a long-time Miami Herald staff photographer, captured the moment in an image widely circulated by Reuters. Unlike the unruliness of Challenger’s unplanned explosion, the Falcon 9 explosion appears almost orderly. It's the emerging phoenix. The cloud cover mutes the color palette, turning the image into something almost painterly.

On December 19, 2019, Flickr (and Smugmug) CEO Don MacAskill posted a letter entitled “The world’s most-beloved, money-losing business needs your help.” MacAskill described how Smugmug saved Flickr from an imminent demise at the hands of Verizon, and how the company needed the photo community to step up to staunch the money-losing operation.

Was the plea an honest and transparent message, or an admission that MacAskill made a critical mistake in acquiring the company. Online reaction was swift, but not necessarily fair. In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, PhotoShelter co-founder Allen Murabayashi shares his thoughts from his experience as an entrepreneur within the photo space, and his hopes for Flickr moving forward.

As with fashion, the camera bag has moved from a purely utilitarian tool to something that expresses your personality, fashion sense, and indecisiveness. The boxy camera bag of the 70s and 80s has been supplanted by sleek backpacks constructed from ballistic nylon, designs that target women, and rolling suitcases for the airborne photographer. No longer the domain of just a few bag manufacturers, the modern camera bag is as likely to be launched on Kickstarter as it is to be found in your local camera store.

In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen discuss the psychology of photographers and their bags. And they play show-and-tell with the bags they personally use and explain why they continue to use them.

In the world of appropriation art, there are few that can hold a candle to the notoriety that Richard Prince has built over the past five decades. From cowboys to Rastafarians, his use of other people's photos as source material for his art has led to numerous lawsuits and a frenzy of conversation around whether what he's doing is "art" or not.

For the past few years, Prince has looked to Instagram for source material and has created his newest work by inserting a fake comment and selling the work for $90,000. A recent show at Detroit's Museum of Contemporary Art stirred up more controversy because one of the images he appropriated was taken by childhood sexual assault survivor and sex educator Zoë Ligon.

In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen compare Prince's work to that of Andy Warhol, build an argument against appropriation art, discuss how celebrities like Emily Ratajkowski complicate matters, and counter argue the value of Prince's work.

The holiday season is upon us, and it's the perfect time to start dropping hints about all the wonderful gear and experience that you covet as a photographer. In conjunction with Feature Shoot, PhotoShelter has also released "The Photographer's Ultimate Holiday Gift Guide" with practical and inspiring suggestions from working professionals.

While you're downloading the guide, listen to the dulcet tones of Sarah and Allen's voices while they subtly tell you what you ought to gift them this holiday season. It's a fun stocking stuffer of an episode. Have some spiked eggnog until your vision gets slightly blurred.

You might expect sophisticated use of imagery by the U.S. Presidential candidates in the Instagram age. But the capture and use of imagery runs the gamut from good to bad. And with cash poor campaigns struggling to stay afloat, they often use whatever image is available to them.

In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen take a look at the websites and Instagram accounts of some of the major Democratic candidates, as well as the incumbent President Donald Trump. What they find isn't always pretty, but that's politics for ya.

Google tapped Annie Leibovitz to help launch the Pixel 4 smartphone with a series of diptychs and videos (shot on Pixel) of social activists around the U.S. According to TIME magazine, Google essentially gave Leibovitz carte blanche to select and shoot the subjects as she saw fit. But are the results compelling?

In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen recount their visceral reaction to the project (e.g. "sellout"), whether tech brands should keep pushing the "Shot on Pixel/iPhone" narrative, and feeling nostalgia for Leibovitz's earlier work.

Photographers rely on a certain level of trust with their clients to provide a service often before payment is rendered. And for freelance photographers living from paycheck to paycheck, desperation can lead to less than critical thinking skills. This lack of scrutiny creates fertile ground for con men to take advantage of photographers using tricks like the "overpayment scam" to steal hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars.

In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen recount their personal experiences with scams, and describe the increasingly sophisticated methods that scammers employ to take advantage of unwitting photographers.

Biologist and Canon Europe Ambassador Audun Rikardsen creates stunning images on land and in the sea – often employing strobes, underwater housings with dome ports, and other specialized gear to give his images a level of eye-popping polish.

Recently, Rikardsen took top honors in the "Behavior: Birds" category in the UK's Natural History Museum's Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest for his incredible image of a golden eagle just inches away from landing on a branch. The contest prohibits "live baiting" or other activity that "adversely affect [the animal's] behaviour, either directly or through irresponsible habituation," but Rikardsen used roadkill to help attract the eagle.

In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen discuss wildlife ethics (and how they can vary by locale), contest culture, and how every wildlife photo doesn't need a conservation story.

The Information Age helped usher in a culture of intellectual property theft that extends from photos to music – even jokes. Some of the most popular Instagram accounts have built huge followings around stolen content, then leveraged those audiences to launch new products and services.

In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen take a deep dive into accounts like @fuckjerry, @historycoolkids, @officialseanpenn and more, and discuss the role of curation, theft, and monetization on Instagram – a Facebook-owned content sharing platform that boasts over 1 billion active users per month.

On October 17, 2019, The White House released an image from a contentious meeting between Nancy Pelosi and Donald Trump. Trump quickly tweeted the image with the caption "Nervous Nancy's unhinged meltdown!" and Pelosi responded by using the same photo as her Twitter cover art, writing, "Thanks for the new cover photo realDonaldTrump!"

The image quickly went viral – not only because of the use and subsequent appropriation – but because it fell into the category of #accidentalrenaissance, a designation for images that evoke renaissance-style paintings.

In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen delve into the ambiguity raised by the dual use of the photos, and talk about other political images that have been even more successful in evoking the #accidentalrenaissance like David Butow's incredible 2018 image of Senators Jeff Flake and Chris Coons during the Brett Kavanaugh SCOTUS confirmation hearings.

Photographers often fault the lack of gear as an excuse for why they don't take better photos. But Allen argues that sometimes acquiring more gear can actually motivate you to photograph more. As he battles his current bout of Gear Acquisition Syndrome, he coerced Sarah to begrudgingly talk about gear for a whole episode!

What piece of gear motivated you to shoot more and better? And what purchased do you regret? Is talking about gear a gendered activity? And how many clouds need to be in the sky to prevent Allen from getting up early to do a timelapse?

A record number of women joined the ranks of the 116th Congress in the 2018 elections, and photojournalist Elizabeth Herman pitched the New York Times on photographing them. Along with portraitist Celeste Sloman, the duo photographed 130 or 131 women in congress in six days, and then worked with photo editors Beth Flynn and Marisa Schwartz Taylor to put together print and online editions that launched in January 2019.

In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred recorded live at Photoville 2019, Sarah and Allen have an in-depth interview with Herman and Flynn on how the project went from inception to execution, herding cats and convincing Republicans, and the associated book that is being published by Abrams on October 15, 2019. Get your copy now!

"No one is advocating putting mediocre photographers forward just because they're diverse," Tara Pixley told us at a recent interview at Photoville 2019 in Brooklyn. Tara and Mengwen Cao – two board members of Authority Collective – stopped by to talk about their mission to help support, educate and promote women and non-binary photographers in what has historically been a white male-dominated profession.

In this wide-ranging episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen (mostly Allen) learn some of the ridiculous and challenging situations that minorities contend with on a daily basis while simply trying to do their job of taking photos, and why diversity matters when telling a story through mass media.

Korean-born Jinhee Bae dropped by for a visit at Photoville 2019 to discuss shooting long-term photo projects, why she continues to use large format, the state of Korean photography, and even a little K-Pop (Can BTS save photography???).

With a translation assist from photographer Sylvia Kang, Sarah and Allen chat with Jinhee in a surprisingly candid and refreshing interview.

Travis Fox, the Director of Visual Journalism at CUNY's Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, was inspired by Ta-Nehisi Coates' piece "The Case for Reparations" and decided that he wanted to help tell the story of systemic racism in the USA. But instead of telling the story from the ground, he took to the skies with his drones to show how practices like redlining of neighborhoods have created visible marks on the landscape. Rich neighborhoods abut impoverished ones by a single road, flood zones filled with low income housing, and highways that flow through impoverished areas with no ability to build a political fight.

In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred recorded at Photoville 2019, Sarah and Allen interview Travis about the impetus for the project, why a middle-aged white man is telling the story, and the future of drones in storytelling. It's an episode you won't want to miss.

Vision Slightly Blurred is recording live from Photoville 2019 at Brooklyn Bridge Park!

For 20 years, PDN's 30 has been setting the bar for emerging talent within the world of photography. As a part of their 20th anniversary celebration, they've set up a container at featuring the work of both the 2019 cohort, as well as many past winners.

Holly Hughes, PDN's long-time editor-in-chief and photographer Jessica Pettway join Sarah and Allen in St. Ann's Warehouse to talk about the nomination and selection process for PDN's 30 and how winning the accolade can change the trajectory of a career.

Grocery store checkout lines are lined with magazines using photos by the paparazzi to grab our attention and hopefully add one more item to our cart. Although their tactics can be questionable, there's no doubt that photographs (and video) taken by paparazzi have been a crucial chapter in photographic history – even more so in the U.S. where celebrity culture dominates everything from social media to the Presidency.

In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen discuss icons like Ron Galella, contemplate paparazzi and celebrities suing one another, and remind all photographers to register their copyright! What's your favorite paparazzi photo of all time? Let us know in the comments!

Thirty-five years after his death, Ansel Adams is still one of the most popular (and most searched) photographers. He spent a lifetime creating some of the iconic images in the history of photography primarily using an 8x10 camera and black-and-white film. He developed the Zone System with Fred Archer, wrote numerous books, vigorously corresponded with contemporary artists, and advocated for the environment through the use of photography.

But has nostalgia for the avuncular photographer led us to overrate his impact on the art and industry of photography? In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen go back in history to talk about Adams' many accomplishments, and why they think there's no possibility of overrating his skill and mark on the art form.

Street photographer Joshua Rosenthal found himself at the center of a rage-fueled campaign by visitors to the Ventura County Fair. Rosenthal's transgression? Photographing people – including some children – in public without explicit consent.

Street photography has a long history of candidly capturing subjects, but in today's climate, does intent matter? In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen contemplate the work of photographers Daniel Arnold, Garry Winogrand, Diane Arbus, Mary Ellen Mark, Susan Meiselas, Philip Lorca Dicorcia, Vivan Maier, and Martha Cooper.

Before the rise of social media and the ubiquity of apps like Instagram, photographers established and flexed their brands through their personal website and blog. Social media took over the industry (and consumer lives in general) in the late 2010s, and ever since then, the website has seemingly taken a backseat in relevance and importance.

But social media like Facebook and Instagram have a number of shortcomings – both from a feature and experiential perspective – that make maintaining a website, in addition to social media profiles, a no brainer from a marketing perspective.

In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Allen and Sarah talk about how photographers and photo editors are using websites and social media to find and maintain relationships with one another.

With college costs skyrocketing and uncertainty around job prospects, more students are contemplating whether 4 years of photo school makes financial sense. In the age of YouTube, you can learn virtually any photo technique – from capture to post processing – online, and often for free. Content providers are publishing materials at an unprecedented pace, and making a living while doing it.

In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen contemplate a college-free world for professional photographers while profiling some of the YouTube personalities that are leading the way in the photo industry.

Like the senior school photo, the prom photo is a rite of passage for most American teens. The traditional posed couple's photo has given way to trends like professional pre-prom photo, and the niche has been tackled by esteemed photographers Aristede Economopoulos, Gillian Laub, Mary Ellen Mark.

In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen delve into the world of prom, and even share some of their own prom photos.

The school photo – particularly the senior photo – has been a longtime rite of passage for most students in the US. And while schools enforce strict yearbook rules to ensure conformity, a niche industry of more creative photography has emerged that emphasizes individuality.

In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen talk about their own senior portraits, and investigate photographers who are taking different approaches to school photography (laser cats, anyone?)

No one could have predicted that the lowly animated GIF would have survived to the ripe old age of 32. Despite the rise of many more efficient technologies, the GIF remains stubbornly popular, and continues to thrive on social media as a sociological force. Its ability to convey emotion while leveraging popular culture combined with the popularity (and $150m investment) of sites like GIPHY, have made the animated GIF as influential as the emoji.

In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen run through some of their favorite animated GIFs of all time, and also discuss controversy (e.g. copyright, race) that surrounds the medium.

From "Earthrise" to "The Pillars of Creation" to Mars rover selfies to this year's image of a black hole, it's undeniable that space photography captures the attention and imagination of the media and public at large. And space exploration is one area where scientists have successful leveraged photography to market their ideas and discoveries in a way that most branches of science have not.

In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah Jacobs and Allen Murabayashi discuss how NASA's early adoption of photography shaped the public's perception, and how today's off-the-shelf technology allows amateurs to capture stunning imagery of the night skies.

There are thousands of photography workshops to teach specific techniques and/or inspire attendees from amateurs to full-time pros. In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen talk about workshop disasters, evaluating workshops, and whether pros should consider alternate events like a portfolio review to further their careers.

And don't forget PhotoShelter's annual list of "40 Exciting Photography Workshops Happening in 2019 & 2020" which you can find on the blog at https://blog.photoshelter.com/2019/05/have-camera-will-travel-40-exciting-photography-workshops-happening-in-2019-2020/

Did you ever notice that celebrities love photography? Did you ever notice that they always carry around their Leicas and Contax G2s? What's up with that?

But it's not always for show, some celebrities are accomplished and dedicated photographers like Jeff Bridges. Others like Cole Sprouse are honing their craft and getting editorial and commercial gigs to complement their day jobs.

In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen dig into the psychology of celebrities and their Leicas, identify a few celebs who are good photographers, and even talk about gear for about 5 seconds.

The New York Times Lens blog announced that after 10 years, its going on "indefinite hiatus" – a victim of the change in technology-driven consumption habits of photography. From its humble beginnings, it grew into a photography blog that had the might of a "newspaper of record," pushing documentary photography to a much larger audience than industry-specific blogs could.

Lens didn't exist without criticism. Some photographers bemoaned the poor compensation for their often self-financed projects that took years to produce. But in a sea of sites like My Modern Met, Bored Panda, and the ilk, Lens at least offered something.

In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen contemplate the legacy of Lens and what other sites might fill the void.

There was a time when you could make a full-time living producing stock photography. That changed in the mid-90s with the introduction of royalty-free stock CDs. Digital photography and the rise of microstock created enormous downward pricing pressure on the industry.

Nevertheless, stock photography still satisfies a real need for generic photography at a (too) reasonable price when commissioned photography isn't feasible. Sarah and Allen talk about stock as well as the co-opting of stock photos – like the "distracted boyfriend" – as fuel for memes in this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred.

Photo cooperatives and collectives have thrived for decades as a way to share resources (e.g. accounting and marketing functions) for like-minded photographers. But in the past few years, a palpable shift has occurred. Many contemporary collectives aggregate niche or marginalized groups of photographers, and provide a showcase and directory for photo editors to reference.

Sarah and Allen examine the pros and cons of approaching photography through the lens of a potentially unknown "insider" vs the the more traditional method of using the "tried-and-true" photographer. The answer isn't always clear, but collectives are an important part of the photo ecosystem.

Social media influencers build economic viability by amassing as large an audience as possible. This raison d'etre is different than a photographer who sells their skill as a service. Despite this difference, what might photographers learn from their influencer counterparts about how to best take advantage of a medium like Instagram.

Sarah and Allen talk about the Insta-famous from Kim and Kylie to Jimmy Chin and Brinson+Banks in the latest episode of Vision Slightly Blurred.

The fixation of some photographers to document their lives at any cost has led to unsavory behavior around the world – from the poppy fields in CA to the Grand Prismatic Springs in Yosemite to the railroad tracks at Auschwitz. To make matters worse, businesses have started designing their spaces to encourage and maximize Instagrammable moments.

Could leaving your camera at home be liberating? Could it allow you to enjoy the moment even more? Sarah and Allen discuss the possibilities in this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred.

Many photographers have abandoned neutral documentary photography in favor of advocating for environmental causes that are important to them. And with massive social media followings, photographers like Paul Nicklen, Ami Vitale and many others are helping to shine a spotlight on issues big and small, and using photography as a primary storytelling device.

On this Earth Day, we celebrate the photographers who are advocating for clean water, endangered species, and a healthy planet.

Facebook's content moderators have to look at some awful images and video to protect the rest of us from graphic content. The Verge reports that many of these $15/hour contract workers have suffered PTSD or secondary PTSD symptoms, which led Sarah and Allen to ask whether viewing photos could be hazardous to your health. From war photos to images of athletes with catastrophic injuries, what images should be published by the media, and what images should the public consume?

It certainly won't hurt your career if Queen Bey hires you for a photo shoot, but the photographers who have worked with her in the past few years honed their skills and earned their keep before being tapped by one of the most influential people on the planet.

Tyler Mitchell, Raven B. Varona, Awol Erizku and Blue Ivy have all taken a different approach to photographing Beyoncé, but the end result has been visually spectacular and helped to enhance her brand.

In traditional photography, filters were used to block certain frequencies of light or to create in-camera effects like starbursts or soft focus. But in the age of computational photography, "filters" offer a stunning array of creative choices that can simulate film stock, swap your face, or apply other forms of augmented reality to significantly alter your appearance.

In this episode, Sarah and Allen give you the low down on the latest and greatest. #nofilter

The hardliners say never give away a photo for free, and there is definitely a case to be made for not allowing other companies to use your intellectual property without compensation. But not all photos have the same economic value, and how can you evaluate whether allowing apps like Google Maps to use your images makes sense or not? The devil is in the details, and Allen and Sarah give it a go.

Love 'em or hate 'em? Photo contests are ubiquitous in the industry providing contest promoters with an endless source of revenue and free content, and for a few select photographers, fame (sort of) and fortune (sometimes).

Sarah and Allen discuss their own experiences with photo contests and why you might still consider them in this day and age.

Facial recognition software gives consumers a powerful way to auto-tag and organize photos. But like many technologies, the potential for abuse is significant – especially for hackers, overreaching governments and law enforcement agencies. Sarah and Allen discuss the implications in our premiere episode of "Vision Slightly Blurred," a new PhotoShelter podcast.

A brand new photography podcast from PhotoShelter with hosts Sarah Jacobs and Co-founder Allen Murabayashi. But we're not talking about gear or the newest version of your favorite software. Instead we're talking about how photography and photographers influence culture, how technology is shaping the definition of photography, and fun stuff like cool images of Beyoncé.

Join us weekly starting Monday, March 11.