This is a really nice little video/slideshow if you are looking for a little inspiration today and insight into the mind of one of the world’s leading photographers, Maggie Steber. I first became aware of Maggie and her work when I was lucky enough to listen to a presentation of hers, when I attended Look3 in 2008. It was a really interesting talk and I wanted to take this opportuntiy to share this video here and share some of her insights into photography.

Thanks to the ever thought-provoking Duckrabbit for posting this over on their blog earlier this week.

A quick post today to share with you a great video from a TED talk by David Griffin, former Director of Photography, at National Geographic. It’s a few years old now but it’s well worth your time to watch, in case you missed it the first time around.

From TED: “The photo director for National Geographic, David Griffin knows the power of photography to connect us to our world. In a talk filled with glorious images, he talks about how we all use photos to tell our stories.”

Philip Jones Griffiths | (c) Alice Smeets | Used with Permission

Tomorrow marks the 3-year anniversary of the passing of Philip Jones Griffiths, one of the leading photojournalists of the 20th Century. Born in the small town of Rhuddlan, in Wales, Philip became a member of Magnum Photos in 1971 and was most famous for his work in Vietnam, most notably for his book Vietnam Inc., a seminal piece of photojournalistic war reporting on the Vietnam War which was credited as helping change the tide of western opinion on the conflict.

Philip was one of my heroes. It’s not often that people get to meet their heroes. It is less often that they ultimately can be able to call them a friend. I am lucky that I can, if only for a short period of time. On this anniversary, I wanted to share a couple of thoughts about my time with this inspiring photographer and man.

Vietnam Inc.

I first discovered Philip’s work in 2003, whilst undertaking a 1-month internship at Magnum, in their London office. I spent my brief internship filing slides and cataloguing prints. It wasn’t glamorous but I had fortuitously gotten the job when I rang Magnum by phone to see if they had any internships. I was fresh out of studying a Zoology degree and I was looking for any chance to learn about photojournalism. Another intern had just cancelled and they asked me if I could start two days later. I jumped at the chance.

As I stood there filing slides, I became distracted however by the bookshelves which contained many of the photographers’ books. One of the first books I picked up was Vietnam Inc. The book took my breath away. I had never realised the real power of photojournalism until I picked up this book. Leafing through the pages, every image captivated me. Philip’s witty and intelligent captions intrigued me and brought about another level of relevance and importance to these images. I was entranced.

In 2004, I was invited back to Magnum to undertake their 1-year paid internship. This was a wonderful year, which allowed me to spend time with many of the wonderful staff and great photographers. I was most excited though when the opportunity arose for me to meet and spend time with Philip, whose work I had been pouring over since my first encounter with Vietnam Inc. the previous year.

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NGC 2841 Galaxy - NASA - http://www.spacetelescope.org/

I thought I’d start the week with something spectacular. I wish I could claim that this is my picture, but alas, it belongs to NASA shot with the famous Hubble telescope. What you are seeing is NGC 2841, a spiral galaxy that is located some 45 million light years away. I’m captivated by astrophotography sometimes and like to peruse astronomy blogs and dip into the Hubble-archives to peruse some of the amazing images out there. This one caught my eye and I thought it would be a great image to start the week with.

As an added extra, I thought I’d throw in a little Carl Sagan for futher inspiration too. Have a great week.

Bruce Lee Statue in Hong Kong. 2008

Last Saturday (November 27th) saw the 70th birthday anniversary of Bruce Lee. As a belated birthday tribute, I decided to write this post not just as a personal homage to a movie star who had a big impact on me growing up, but to also relate some of Bruce Lee’s thoughts on martial arts and how they can be transferred to photography. “Seriously?” you might ask. It was Alex Majoli of Magnum who started me thinking about this many years ago when he said “We should think of a photographer as a Samurai who makes rituals, moves and gestures in order to develop his techniques and his instinct.” Now, Bruce Lee was not Samurai, however bear with me as I take you through some of his writings and thoughts and think how they can be easily related to our practice as photographers.

Bruce Lee 'the photographer?'

I discovered Bruce Lee, as did most my age, as a teenager watching movies such as ‘Enter the Dragon’. I was inspired to take up martial arts and practiced them throughout my teenage years. Whilst acquiring a certain discipline that comes from studying martial arts, it also planted the seeds of interest in Asia for me. Bruce Lee was from Hong Kong, which obviously drew my attention to China. I now find myself having lived in China for 4 years and am sure those early seeds of interest were planted in my teenage years.

So, what can photographers learn from Bruce Lee? Well, as well as a widely popular movie star, Bruce Lee was also an extensive writer and philosophizer on martial arts, notably culminating in his book ‘the Tao of Jeet Kune Do’. This book was a cronicle of physical and mental methods in practicing the style of Wing Chun Kung Fu which he developed himself. Below, I have jotted down ten of my favourite quotes from this book and other sources. I don’t think it’s too difficult to relate these to photography. Try to think how they might relate to you and your approach to photography.

1. “When there is freedom from mechanical conditioning, there is simplicity. The classical man is just a bundle of routine, ideas and tradition. If you follow the classical pattern, you are understanding the routine, the tradition, the shadow – you are not understanding yourself.”

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