Best of the Web

• Posted By: Albert Lee
• Posted On: 9:03 p.m. | August 17, 2012

A successful photograph reaches its audience.  It can evoke a feeling.  It can capture the imagination.  A good photograph can capture the essence of a story within a single frame.  This week we look at the craft of photography.

The World’s Most Powerful Photographs

Buzzfeed’s The World’s Most Powerful Photographs highlights some of the more memorable images that show the power of photography.  Some images record history, some revealing things that need to be seen, these images reach us in a place that is often beyond words.  These are images where the photographer turned a lens upon the world, reflecting back humanity.

Picture Perfect with Christopher Anderson

Vice magazine’s Picture Perfect, an ongoing series on photojournalism, visits Magnum photographer Christopher Anderson in his Brooklyn studio to talk about his ongoing relationship with photography.  Without formal training in photography or journalism, Anderson was brought into photography before he even thought it could be a profession.  Starting as a photo printer, he learned as he went.  In 1999 Anderson boarded a wooden boat named The Believe In God to document Haitian refugees trying to sail to America.  The boat ended up sinking, and Anderson continued to photograph what he thought would be the last moments of their lives. As he shot photographs he thought would never be seen, he realized that it was photography that helped him understand his world. Anderson’s photography has taken him around the world and now as a member of Magnum Photos, Anderson is in the company of luminary photographers such as Robert Capa and Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Capture with Platon and Dylan McDermott

Photographer Mark Seliger hosts Capture, a new series on photography that invites photographers and celebrity photo buffs to talk about photography.  A series for YouTube’s new RESERVE Channel, this episode brings in portraitist Platon and actor and photographer Dylan McDermott to talk about the influence of technology on photography, the power of photography to humanize world issues and how the story behind the image is not always as it seems.

A Conversation with Jim Estrin, New York Times Lens Blog

David Alan Harvey, curator for Burn magazine, an online journal for emerging photographers, has a conversation with James Estrin, senior staff photographer for the New York Times and founder of the New York Times photography blog Lens, about the industry. As veteran photojournalists and supporters of new photographers, their insights are invaluable.   This is a must-read for any aspiring photographer.