Photographers and other visual artists take great pains to create work but when it comes to presenting them, things seem to rapidly fall apart. I am certainly guilty of it. Given how quickly an editor or a client makes up her or his mind about assigning a photographer, sloppy presentation could mean the end of one's career. I am learning, however slowly, that presentation is an art in itself. And it is important to get it right.

These days most photographers depend on web sites to show off their work. You don't have a web site? It's not brain surgery to put one together. I'll go over the steps that I am taking to organize my work online, but what is making it very easy for me these days to exhibit my work online is a program called Shutterbug.

Shutterbug, made by XtraLean Software also brought us the magnificent and free photo editing tool, ImageWell. I was ga-ga about Imagewell and now I am going bonkers over Shutterbug. Read on to see why.

Both ImageWell and Shutterbug operate only on the Apple Macintosh OS X platform. That alone says something. At under 2 megabytes, the program is lean; so your computer won't get bogged down. The drag-n-drop feature saves you from hunting for your images through an archaic (yeah, you windows users!) mapping system. It is possible to have an online slide show in a matter of minutes. As a test, I created a slide show of my cousin's recent engagement. I chose a built-in template to first format the gallery display, then tweaked the background color, positioned the elements on the page by dragging boxes on the fly, made sure that the thumbnail images were cropped just so and set the timing to give the slideshow the right pace. I then uploaded the slideshow to my .Mac account, but one has the option of also saving it to a desktop folder and uploading the entire package to a different server. It's simple, intuitive and it works extremely well.

While the program itself is a hit in my opinion, as a beta-tester, I have been extremely happy with the kind of service I have received directly from the company. Features that I request miraculously appear in the next build, and I am assured in every email exchange that the small New Hampshire based company is batting for me, the end user. There are online forums to post questions and request new features, too. Check it out. You will be pleasantly surprised.

I am in the process of writing a more detailed review of Shutterbug for the local Macintosh Users Group. I'll share that with you by the end of February. Meanwhile, do yourself a favor and download the demo and give it a whirl. For $29, this feature rich slide show program is a boon. I know I couldn't do without it in my arsenal of imaging tools.

Via Sheila Krishnan

Daniel Okrent, The New York Times' Public Editor, justifies the gray lady's use of horrific, yet telling images from the tsunami-struck areas of the world. It's an interesting read, though somewhat unconvincing. He writes:

When I spoke with director of photography Michele McNally, who believes the paper has the obligation “to bear witness” at moments like this, she had a question for me: “Wouldn't you want us to show pictures from Auschwitz if the gates were opened in our time?”

I would be very curious to read Ms. McNally's take on using similarly evocative images right after the 9/11 disaster or the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Would she have published images that showed the human element amongst the carnage at Ground Zero, or the grim remains after the bomb blast? I recall seeing images, surely horrific, of people plunging to their deaths from the disintegrating World Trade Center towers. Can anyone remember more intimate and somewhat grisly images from that ill-fated day? I am struggling to remember any of them. The images from Oklahoma, too, were conservative and restrained.

Their absence may, in large part, be due to the way the press has access to the scene. But it may also be an unwritten policy of self-censorship at most publications; in the interest of preserving the privacy and respect of those who are grieving. While I agree with this in principle, the lack of parity in the administration of this policy has me a little disgruntled.

How do Western publications get away with publishing images of strife and pain elsewhere in the world but fail to do the same right here at home? Does a grieving mother in Sri Lanka not have the same rights as that of a grieving mother in the US? Why is the policy different? Why do we extend this courtesy to those in the West, but disregard it when we train our cameras on people who don't look anything like us?Is this a one-sided coin?

It would be interesting to conduct a study on image usage in publications world wide – putting images side by side from disasters in the West and compared them to images from the recent disasters from South and South East Asia. I wouldn't be surprised if The Poynter Institute has already embarked on it. If anyone know of such a study at Poynter or elsewhere, please point it out to me.

Beginning on January 15, 2005, friend and fellow SAJA member Rebecca Karamehmedovic will co-author the SAJA Photoforum with me.

Via John Laxmi

“Nobody is looking to violate anybody's civil rights or deny anybody's constitutional rights,” Mr. Kelly said. “But when you check with law enforcement agencies, they have uncovered photographs of subway and rail systems from various terrorist organizations. And I don't believe they were going into somebody's scrapbook.”

The New York Times reported recently that photographers have once again been banned from making images near or on subway trains or the bus system that supports most of New York life.

If you are a “serious” photographer, though, you could always apply for a permit. How ridiculous is that? Despite what Mr. Kelly says, I say our rights are being hijacked.

Via John Loomis

“The pictures in our 10th issue are personal, beautiful, and rare — and I think you'll really love exploring the visions that Matt and Juli are blessed with. Be sure to check out the issue, pass the link along to friends, and get in touch with the photographers and myself to tell us what you think!”

Blueeyes Magazine has some amazing photography. Look and learn!