Flathead Valley Looking Glass: Kalispell, Montana News

Pulitzer Prize winning photographer David Leeson is speaking tonight, Sept. 21, at the University of Montana. Unfortunately, I am unable to go. For those of you who are not familiar with Leeson's work, he was a staffer at the Dallas Morning News where he won the Pulitzer for his coverage of Iraq. He is a great video journalist as well as still photographer. He works in fine art photography as well as photojournalism. He is incredibly smart. His lecture is at the University Center Theater at 7 p.m. If, like me, you are unable to attend, check out this short video I am borrowing from his Web site. It is the last speech he made as a Morning News photographer during a presentation for the Pacific Area Newspaper Publishers' Association. It is truly inspirational.



Check out his Web site, his images and his vision.

Photographer Craig F. Walker, with a team of editing and production support, has an incredible piece on The Denver Post Web site. For 27 months, the photographer and reporters followed Ian Fisher through recruitment, basic training, deployment to Iraq and eventually his return home from combat. (See the project here.)

I went to the New York Times Web site this morning and was surprised to find a familiar face on the front page. It was Scott Johnston, owner of the Montana Radio Café in Creston. I’ve met Johnston numerous times and written a story about him, as well as a blog. And Lido has an excellent slide show of photos taken when we hung out with Johnston for a morning to do an interview.

Click here for Lido's slide show and click "read more" for more information on Johnston.

Kenneth Jarecke wrote a great essay for the New York Times Lens blog last week, Aug. 25, paralleling photojournalists with cowboys. (Read it here.)

Jarecke is currently based out of Billings, and has an impressive resume of clients. Photographing the Montana Fair sparks his thoughts on the similarities between the photojournalist and the cowboy. Not images of the lone gunman, but the idea that neither is supposed to exist.

Recently, the National Press Photographers Association objected to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's remarks during a television interview on Fox News. In a nutshell, Napolitano said that the public should be suspicious of photographers and asked citizens to report, "when they see something unusual, if they see, for example, somebody continually taking photographs of a piece of critical infrastructure that doesn't seem to make any sense." Read the news story on NPPA.org here.

That's why I'm going to start wearing these nifty stickers, pens and T-Shirts that will convey to everyone, "I'm a Photographer, Not a Terrorist."

I have yet to watch an episode of Mad Men, but there has already been much conversation about the season opener – which premiered last night, Sunday, August 16 – around the office and on a couple of my e-mail groups.

Here is a great behind-the-scenes video of photographer Frank Ockenfels photographing this year's promotional poster. (Thanks to Strobist for finding the video and sharing it with us. If you haven't visited the Strobist blog, make it daily stop while surfing the Web.)

The poster concept is brilliant and kudos to Jon Hamm for going the extra mile by getting very very wet for the image.

Per my request from a previous blog (here), I received an official press release from Andrea Cusick over at Urban Outfitters announcing their partnership with the Impossible Project.

We are excited to announce that Urban Outfitters has partnered with The Impossible Project to support their mission to restart and reinvent instant film photography. When Polaroid ended production of Instant Film in 2008, The Impossible Project bought all the machinery and equipment at Polaroid’s Dutch factory where the instant films were made. We will help them bring back instant film in 2010.

Although I never could find an official press release (so if you've seen one about this please forward it on to me), a number of blogs are announcing that Urban Outfitters has teamed up with The Impossible Project and will present a limited edition of 700 hand-numbered Polaroid camera kits. The kit will include one pack of Polaroid Instant Film and one Polaroid ONE600 Classic camera – the last Polaroid camera produced.