Luceo Images

Legal Left, Meet Creative Right –A Dissection

Matt Slaby — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 02:37:31 +0000

I woke up this morning behind the steering wheel of the rental car that I’ve been living in since last Saturday. I just wrapped up a really fun gig that kept me in Montana for a week and, somewhere in the early morning hours of driving home along Wyoming’s northern Rockies, I reached a point last night where it made sense to pull off the road and grab some sleep before carrying on. A hotel bed would have been too comfortable to abandon in the morning, so I pulled the car into a park in Buffalo, Wyoming, unstuffed my sleeping bag, and reclined the seat. Four hours later, I woke up to the dawn light, put the key in the ignition and finished the drive back to Denver. The assignment came up at the last minute and kept me in Montana for a few days longer than I originally anticipated, although the drive gave me nice space to think through the content of this post.

Rather than put out a laundry list of ugly contract language, I have decided that it would be most beneficial to take one clause and dissect it in plain English. If this were an anatomy class, this exercise would be similar to looking at one organ rather than an entire system. It is by no means exhaustive and doesn’t account for the entirety of the contract. However, for purposes of sticking to the broad topic of intellectual property and the photographer, it gets pretty close to helping us look for those places where a contract should address those four big things we talked about in the last post. To recap:

1. Licensing is not like selling toothpaste. It is more like renting a car.

2. When you license an image to a client, you should be discussing and defining:

a. The timeframe or the term of the license

b. The geographic scope or territory in which it will be used

c. The specific type of use for which the client will use your image

To help anchor these vague notions to something a little more concrete, I’ve plucked language from a contract that’s received a bit of resistance from other photographers. The publication’s name has been removed and the language has been shortened to help illustrate these points. The relevant licensing clause reads as follows:

“Photographer will own the copyright to the Photographs and hereby irrevocably grants to [Publication] a perpetual, worldwide , fully-sublicensable and royalty-free license to use and exploit all Photographs…. …in any and all media and in connection with any and all products, services and/or other purposes, so long as such use and usage is tied to a [Publication] magazine. Such license will be non-exclusive… …For the avoidance of doubt, [Publication’s] rights will include and are not limited to: (a) unlimited use of any and all Photographs… …accompanied by articles and/or other [Publication] magazine editorial content of all kinds, (b) unlimited use of any and all Photographs… …in connection with commercial products branded or co-branded with a [Publication] magazine title…”

If you’re still awake at this point, you’ve vaulted the first hurdle. The Devil is always in the details and it’s pretty rare to find a client who will highlight the ugly or contentious language for you; it’s just a chore we all have to suffer through. This particular clause has a few doozies hiding out and it’s probably best if we take this one piece at a time.

Don’t Let the First Words Fool You Into Not Reading the Others

It’s never a bad move to start out a contentious discussion on common grounds. In this case, the publication reminds the photographer that they retain their copyright before going on to murder most of the value the photographer could hope to extract from their images. Specifically, it grants the publication the ability to take photographs that were licensed for a day rate and use them without any further compensation in “any and all media and in connection with any and all products, services, and/or other purposes.”

The only thing that limits the future use of the images is a very vague piece of language that requires the use of the images to be “tied” to the publication. This could be particularly catastrophic in instances where the editorial publication is an arm of a larger company or where the publication has made partnership arrangements with other entities (think record labels, insurance companies with an editorial branch, lobby organizations, corporate partnerships, etc.)

When you tally up this language through the lens of the specific terms of a licensing agreement, the score doesn’t look so hot:

Specific Timeframe: “PERPETUAL” (doesn’t sound very specific, does it?)

Geographic Scope: “WORLDWIDE” (um, er, also not very specific)

Specific Use: ANY AND ALL MEDIA TIED TO A PUBLICATION MAGAZINE (again, it’s vague enough to leave the potential for future, uncompensated uses to the imagination)

Editorial Day Rate, Editorial Use

And the next sentence:

“…For the avoidance of doubt, [Publication’s] rights will include and are not limited to: (a) unlimited use of any and all Photographs… …accompanied by articles and/or other [Publication] magazine editorial content of all kinds”

This part seems reasonable. The contract starts to lay out several possible uses for your photographs. Again, it’s always a good strategy to start on the issues where there’s little debate. In this case, the publication is reminding you that their editorial day rate is purchasing a license for the use of photographs in their editorial publication. Seems fair enough…

But Wait!

The language that follows co-opts images licensed under an editorial day rate for commercial use. It’s not uncommon for magazine contracts to allow the publication to use your photographs to promote the magazine itself, but this language goes several steps further:

“(b) unlimited use of any and all Photographs… …in connection with commercialproducts branded or co-branded with a [Publication] magazine title”

Uh oh. This could create some ugliness. For example, if the publication is owned by Acme Records Inc. and Acme Records Magazine also puts out a CD, don’t be surprised if your images turn up on the jacket. Uncompensated.

Where’s the Problem?

The cornerstone of our businesses turns on pricing related to specific use, specific timeframe , and specific geographic areas of distribution. When the licensing language of a contract attempts to grab commercial use for an editorial rate, it undermines the value of our photographs and debases the pricing structure that is integral to keeping photographers behind the camera for the long-haul. Negotiating for terms that respect limited use, limited geographic scope, and limited timeframes for a reasonable price is not only a matter of self-respect, it’s also a matter of respecting the value of our profession.

***

Matt Slaby is a Colorado-based attorney (and photographer). Matt attended the University of Denver College of Law on a full public interest scholarship. His experiences in law school include a PILG clerkship for ongoing civil work with El Centro Humanitario’s legal clinic as well as handling wage claims and contract issues for DU’s Civil Litigation Clinic. He is a founding member of Luceo and, in addition to his photography, brings his legal background to the organization. Questions, comments, and ideas for future posts are welcome. Please add them to the comments section or reach me here: mattslaby@luceoimages.com

**DISCLAIMER: Luceo Images LLC and Matt Slaby assume no liability for the information provided above. This information may not be correct when applied to your specific situation. Moreover, the information provided is not intended to create an attorney/client relationship and shall not be construed as legal advice.

You Guess It

Luceo Images — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:12:43 +0000

A new week and a new theme! Every week Tim Lytvinenko and Kendrick Brinson post iPhone and archive photos as part of a challenge that involves you, dear photography lover. We post photos Monday through Thursday based on a secret theme provided by a photographer or blogger or anyone in the photo industry, then we wait for you to guess the theme and write it in the comments by Thursday. Every Friday, we will announce who guessed right first or who was closest. If you play your cards right, there might just be a prize involved. (Keep in mind, not every photo has to blatantly follow that theme, but all the photo clues together will spell it out.)

This week’s theme was chosen by LUCEO’s own Tim Lytvinenko! Check out the photos and get to guessing!

TUESDAY CLUES:

photo by David Walter Banks

photo by Tim

MONDAY CLUES:

photo by Tim

photo by Kendrick

Mamou Mardi Gras

Matt Eich — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 20:10:18 +0000

A whooping yell comes from the trees, “Hey, Mardi Gras!” a masked man perched on a low branch screams. “Never fear, the Crawfish Bandit is here!” After a final drag on his cigarette he jumps down from the tree and starts to run, diving headfirst into the nearest mud hole. His attempts to uncover crawfish throughout the day were continuously unsuccessful. This year Fat Tuesday fell on February 16. I was excited to return to the small rural town of Mamou to further explore their traditional Cajun Mardi Gras ritual. The town’s celebrations are self-segregated and while people don’t talk about it much, there is a palpable tension whenever the issue of race arises. The black side of town parades with men, women and children whereas the white side only allows men, 16 or older to ride along. They don traditional Cajun costumes, masks and hats – their outfits resembling colorful klansmen. Starting at sunrise, they begin drinking and the stream of Bud Light never runs dry. I follow nearly 150 men on horseback along with a caravan of tractor-drawn trailers as they roll through the countryside. Every now and then we stop at a farm and the men dance for the residents, who then release a bewildered chicken for the men to chase. Whoever catches the bird carries it like a trophy for the rest of the day before it is put into a pot of gumbo.

My buddy Denny Culbert covered Mamou this year for his newspaper, The Daily Advertiser in Lafayette, so he left in the early afternoon to file. I decided to wait around for the light to get nice and to explore some street scenes as the day winds down. By the time I get back to my Jeep I realize that somehow during the day’s craziness I bent my car key in half. I only wish there was someone there to make a picture of me as I tried to hammer my key straight with an empty 40 of Miller Lite I found in the ditch. This, of course, was to no avail. I was hard-pressed to find a locksmith in rural Louisiana on Mardi Gras so Denny had to return to drag me out of the bar where I holed up with a whiskey and take me back to Lafayette for the night. This was only the beginning of my Jeep-related logistical hurdles that I encountered during this road trip. Despite this, the day was a blast and I hope to attend again next year. The entire event was a visual playground, though in the grand scheme of things I’m not sure where these pictures belong, but I trust that in time they will find a home. Until then, here is a handful of images from Mamou, Louisiana.

Coming up next, a continuation of Trouble the Water, a project on the alligator people of South Louisiana.

Clean Water for Reach Vietnam Magazine

Kevin German — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 04:14:00 +0000

I was recently sent up north to the city of Da Nang to photograph a clean water program for the NGO East Meets West Foundation.

Transience: A Room With A View

David Walter Banks — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 01:05:32 +0000

There is something I absolutely love about sketchy motel rooms. I know that’s not a normal way to begin a paragraph, but it’s true, I love them. I can’t exactly explain why but there’s a certain mystique that comes along with them to me. I’m not even talking about the two-star Ramada Inn that made you mad because they didn’t bring fresh towels every day. I’m talking the ‘Joe’s Motel & Bar’ type establishment with truck parking around back and a room full of mismatched items ranging from the past 40 years. I’ve always enjoyed staying in hotels and making them my little home away from home, but in recent years with ample travel I’ve fully embraced my motel passion. This may be another reason I feel such a strong connection with the transient lifestyle. However, there’s always something waiting for me at the end of the line – home. Knowing that there is a home is a large part of why the motel stops are so enjoyable to me. They are these unique little single-serving homes that I get to open, use, and disregard as I leave to venture back to my real home. I often wonder though if the appeal would be quickly lost if there was no end of the line, and no place to return to.

Mamou Mardi Gras (Panoramic)

Matt Eich — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 21:10:04 +0000

Here are a few frames with the Xpan from Mardi Gras in Mamou. I’m just starting to get into the rhythm of this camera and am slowly falling in love with the way it breaks me out of my formula and challenges forces me to see differently. I’ve still got a long way to go with it.

Coming up next: Trouble the Water, two days spent at Daneco Alligator Farm in Houma, Louisiana for a long-term project on the alligator people of South Louisiana.

Weekly Roundup | 3-5

Luceo Images — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 18:57:54 +0000

We’ve decided to change this post up a bit. Rather than spelling out a laundry list of links each week, we feel that it’s more important to focus on a few specific people who have brought an unusual amount of zest, energy, or thought to our various forums. Including Facebook.

You can always find our bigger lists and running commentary on Facebook and Twitter.

Here’s our list of favorites for the week of 3-5:

@lpvgallery @Yagamisan @dcuthbert for giving us some Follow Friday Love. (don’t know what follow friday is go here: http://mashable.com/2009/03/06/twitter-followfriday/)

Jeffrey Schear for making the most humorous Facebook comment of the week.

Dvafoto and Allen Sullivan for helping spread the word with the new Luceo Student Award.

Big thanks to everyone who commented about Eich making PDN’ 30 on Facebook.

Matt McLoone for making the most You Guess It guesses in one comment with five (one per comment please!).
And Ian Bates for keeping the You Guess It guesses interesting.

Ken Ross and Noah Darnell for some good thoughts on the World Press disqualification.

If you’d like to be featured here next week, or called out, join in our conversation. We always appreciate hearing from you all.

-Luceo

Mardi Gras: Baton Rouge and New Orleans (Panoramic)

Matt Eich — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:35:17 +0000

Part of my purpose for this recent road trip to Louisiana was to continue laying the groundwork for a new book project I plan to work on for the next four years. While I am still in the beginning stages of this process I want to begin sharing some work through this outlet so I can chart it’s progress over time. Unfortunately at this size it is almost impossible to explore these frames but hopefully they will give a sense of some of the experimentation I have been enjoying of late.

From the Archive

Luceo Images — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:31:52 +0000

From the Archive is a regular column that features one image from our archive and appears every Thursday. LUCEO Images has a thorough group archive (keyword search bar, top right) and it can be found here.

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Matt Eich one of PDN’s 30

Luceo Images — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 18:50:35 +0000

LUCEO would like to congratulate Matt Eich on being named one of PDN’s 30 Emerging Photographers to Watch. After four consecutive years of being nominated for PDN’s annual feature, he is incredibly jazzed to have been included in this year’s collection. The final 30 photographers were chosen from nearly 500 nominated who submitted portfolios for consideration.

In My Back Yard: James River Blues (Part III)

Matt Eich — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 18:19:10 +0000

Lately I have become concerned that I am projecting my own idyllic perception of the James on the scenes I have encountered thus far in this body of work. All I see when looking at the images is what isn’t there. What they don’t say. They’re so quiet. Too quiet. They aren’t risky enough, they aren’t intimate enough. The other day I was talking with friend and confidant, Rich-Joseph Facun, about these struggles. He has always found a way to be incredibly supportive of my work without cutting me any slack. He wrote this in a recent email.

“I was thinking about the James River Blues project. If it is the “Blues” then shoot it this way. Blues songs reflect the good times but then interject what trials and tribulations are happening now or that have happened recently. Like BB King when he sings something along the lines of this: “I gave you five children and now you want to give ‘em all back…I bought you a five course dinner and you said thanks for the snack…” He gives the past pleasantry but then brings you the present drama. He makes you laugh when you should be crying. This is what the James River Blues should do. You are dreaming of the past but now you want to show the present. Yesterdays dreams interwoven with todays reality. Maybe that is what you’re concerned with and why you feel the need to show both.”

Each project I embark on is it’s own journey with a unique set of problems and answers. These dialogues with other photographers, editors and artists are crucial not only for my growth as an individual, but also for the development of these long-term bodies of work.

________________________________________________

Matt Eich is a photographer who is based in Norfolk, Virginia. His column, “In My Back Yard” appears every other Wednesday. He is a Founding Member of LUCEO Images.

Stop and Smell the Pumpkins

David Walter Banks — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 15:02:43 +0000

I often get wrapped up in the big picture of my photographic life – the career, daily assignments, projects, marketing, and office work. I feel this can cause me to forget what drew me to pick up a camera in the first place. It’s all the little things that originally sparked my attention. The small details and observations of my daily life are so easy to pass by when I’m constantly concerned with what’s next instead of what’s in front of me. In an attempt to remind myself of all these little things, I’m keeping a personal journal of daily life with my 35mm point-and-shoot film camera. It’s certainly not a new practice for me, but a resurrection of an old one with a new twist. So please, don’t forget to stop and smell the pumpkins.

hanging on.

Tim Lytvinenko — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 14:30:04 +0000

to the edge of the world.

Toxic Waters for The New York Times

David Walter Banks — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 20:03:08 +0000

I spent last Friday fighting my way through the evil tangled invasive-mess we call privet along the steep bank of a creek between two industrial factory complexes. My guide, Nelson Brooke of the Black Warrior Riverkeepers, was kind enough to lead me to the discharge pipes along Avondale Creek where McWane Cast Iron Pipe Company is dumping pollutants. The creek feeds into Village Creek, which is a tributary of Black Warrior River’s Locust Fork. By finding a loophole in the Clean Water Act, McWane managed to set the EPA back by years, and legally destroy the environment while they’re at it. Read more about the issue in the New York Times article here, or on the Black Warrior Riverkeepers site here.(...)
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Tuesday Tech Stuff: Mobile Media Machine

Tim Lytvinenko — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 17:31:03 +0000

The software and hardware on these fancy phones are getting better and better with each year and iteration. This is a list of apps I like that will help turn your iPhone into a Mobile Media Machine.

Shooting: Snapture – This app adds a whole slew of options to the dismal default camera app. First off you can press anywhere on the screen to take a photo. You can also press and hold the screen then trigger the camera when you release your finger. Pretty handy if you need to take a photo when not looking at the screen. One of its better features is its almost motor drive. Theres a 3 photo burst mode but the app will let you save a whole set of photos at once, instead of shooting a photo then waiting for it to save while missing the photo you want. For $0.99 its a great replacement to the default camera app.

Pano – Exactly what it sounds like, this app lets you stitch together an entire scene of photos into one huge panorama.

Editing:

Camerabag – The Helga filter makes your iPhone photos look like holga photos. Its quick and easy photo editing. Theres also a good polaroid filter.

Best Camera – This runs more like photoshop for me on the iPhone. Im able to add contrast, lighten, darken, cool filter, warm filter and a bunch of filter sets that I’m not too much of a fan of. Most photos I’ve tried this with don’t hold up well.

before:

after:

Now if only I could find something to get the noise out of the photos. Or figure out how to get one of Canon’s image chips in the dang phone.

Music: Melodica – This is a no brainer for making some soft background music for a quick multimedia piece or slideshow. Its also really fun to just play on it. To record from this app you will need a male to male headphone adapter.

Jailbreak Apps: Or hacking. Or what I like to call it: making your iPhone awesome. Don’t be fooled either, jailbreaking isn’t for everyone but jailbreaking is easy enough that anyone can do it. Theres a new desktop app called blackra1n, should be easy enough to find it via google, that will jailbreak and install Cydia or Rock (my new favorite installer) with 2 clicks. Its really that easy.

The benefits include: Cycorder – Video on iPhone 3G. I’ve used this and Cycorder works great. Obviously not as good as the video on the 3GS (or the 7D) but its good enough and best of all free. The audio recording works surprisingly well and the video does up to 15fps depending on the light. Its great for shooting some of those photos that need to breath for a couple seconds or normal videoing.

PdaNet/MyWi – These apps tether your computer to the iPhone’s data connection. Someday AT&T will let us tether our iPhone to our computer. Until then these two apps are tops.

Putting this all together: Now that you have photos, panoramics, video and music all in a little device that you can have with you all the time I want to see your projects.

Mardi Gras Weekend (Baton Rouge and New Orleans)

Matt Eich — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 17:27:34 +0000

On Saturday and Sunday we attended vastly different Mardi Gras celebrations in two different cities. The first, in Baton Rouge, was the Spanish Town Mardi Gras. It was early morning and the streets brimmed with people grilling out and drinking beer. It was more of a street party than anything else but was incredibly warm and colorful. The next day we got up and went to New Orleans where we haunted Bourbon Street for a while and saw the Bacchus Parade later in the evening. Still fresh from the Superbowl, the whole city seemed jubilant. While the appeal of being crammed between hundreds of intoxicated people grabbing for beads is lost on me the visual opportunities from those situations isn’t. We made it through the night and thankfully had the next day off from drinking and partying before we headed to Mamou for Fat Tuesday.

Coming up next is a different perspective from these two days that is part of a new long-term project I am embarking on.

On the Road: To Louisiana and back

Matt Eich — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 18:52:00 +0000

‘

On February 11 I left Virginia on my way to Louisiana via Atlanta. Over the next ten days I pushed my aging Jeep Cherokee to 250,000 miles, saw some dear friends, met some fascinating people and made a lot of pictures. The night of the 11th I crashed in Atlanta, at David and Kendrick’s pad before heading down to Baton Rouge where I met up with Kevin Martin and Denny Culbert on the 12th. On Saturday we went to Baton Rouge’s Spanish Town Mardi Gras celebration on Saturday and the New Orleans Bacchus Parade on Sunday. Monday was a much needed recovery day before Denny and I went to Mamou for Fat Tuesday. From there I headed down to gator country (Houma in particular) for a couple days before making the return trip home. Over the coming week I will be blogging new work from my time in the Deep South but for now here are some orphan frames, made for no other purpose than to remember what it felt like to be there.

Colorado Dispensary for TIME Magazine

David Walter Banks — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:10:52 +0000

This week’s ‘Postcard’ section in TIME Magazine features one of my images from the Cannabis Culture essay I shot last year and will be continuing when time and access allot. This particular photograph depicts the display case at the Cannabis Therapeutics dispensary in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

You can check out TIME’s story here. You can also find out more about the fight for legalized medical marijuana from Sensible Colorado, the outstanding organization that my friend Brian Vicente founded in Denver.

Above the horizon, a melting sky

Kendrick Brinson — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:06:20 +0000

because sometimes, when you let yourself just go with the ebb and flow, the mistakes are more beautiful than the things you put your all into.

and that can be so much more enchanting than the on purpose.

(I’ll be packing and moving, and then traveling –to Las Vegas and then back to my beloved Sun City–the next two weeks, so forgive my absence.)

You Guess It

Luceo Images — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:46:35 +0000

This week’s theme was chosen by LUCEO’s own David Walter Banks who is also filling in for Kendrick Brinson to provide clues this week. Check out his photos and get your guessing on!

Congrats to Breana T for being the first to guess this week’s theme – Waiting. Please send an email to tim[at]luceoimages.com or kendrickbrinson[at]luceoimages.com to claim your prize. Thanks for guessing, and see you next week.

David Walter Banks Photo

Matt Eich Photo

THURSDAY CLUE:

David Walter Banks Photo

Matt Eich Photo

Tim Lytvinenko Photo

WEDNESDAY CLUE:

Tim Lytvinenko Photo

Matt Eich Photo

David Walter Banks Photo

TUESDAY CLUE:

Tim Lytvinenko Photo

Matt Eich Photo

David Walter Banks Photo

MONDAY CLUE:

David Walter Banks Photo

My Backyard: The Salton Sea

Daryl Peveto — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 07:54:37 +0000

So after a considerable break from my nomads project, I decided to venture back south last weekend to the Salton Sea. Mostly to reconnect with old friends, bring a mess load of prints that I have been sitting on and see what sort of new directions I could take the Nomads project in.

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Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming.

Matt Slaby — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 00:06:55 +0000

In that order. I’m heading out tomorrow morning for Portland. An assignment in Montana will take me and whatever rental car I have waiting at the airport through Idaho and into one of my favorite states. Planning on returning to Colorado before the week is out. Cell phone will be the easiest way to reach me, though I expect to check email twice daily and would love to have an excuse to stay out longer.

Pigeons for Newsweek Overseas

Matt Slaby — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:24:40 +0000

Newsweek’s overseas edition picked up an old photograph of mine form Mexico. The final layout ended up using it as a cropped graphic element to divide up the page, but that’s life. The initial appeal for making the photograph was to remember the quote behind the statue. It’s one of my favorites, something that I come back to periodically. The caption follows along with the layout.

A pigeon covered statue of Benito Juarez –Mexico’s first, and only, full-blooded indigenous president –sits just off Tapachula’s main plaza. Inscribed behind the statue is Juarez’s most famous quote which reads: “Among individuals, as among nations, respect for the rights of others is peace.

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Weekly Roundup | 2-26

Luceo Images — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:44:38 +0000

You can always find our bigger lists and running commentary on Facebook and Twitter.

Here’s our list of favorites for the week of 2-26:

WillMedia and jessicalowry for giving us some Follow Friday Love. (don’t know what follow friday is go here: http://mashable.com/2009/03/06/twitter-followfriday/)

David Root for making the most unsuccessful attempts at this week’s You guess It post with 5 comment guesses. You were oh so close with soaking which I also think was your downfall. Wet came only 3 hours later, finishing out ’soaking wet’. Thanks for playing and better luck next week.

Ian Bates also guessed five times but you put four of them in the same comment so you don’t get the crown of most guesses.

Matt Roth, Matt Craig, and Tom Leininger for bringing their usual level of sophistication and thought to their comments.

William Widmer for a nice question and some nice work on his website. Particularly the shanty still lifes like this one.

Thanks again to everyone joining in our conversation. We always appreciate hearing from you all.

-Luceo

Sisterhood: North Augusta Varsity Cheerleaders

Kendrick Brinson — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 17:31:27 +0000

This short essay is from my second attempt at this sisterhood project in 2008. I tagged along with North Augusta High’s varsity cheerleaders only a couple times for a quick piece for the newspaper I used to work for. It’s funny, these girls definitely were a great team and a family, and even with a camera and just shy of ten years their elder, I felt like the nerdy high school outsider. Here’s the short text that accompanied the photo page:

North Augusta High School’s varsity cheerleaders are more than dedicated athletes. They are a sisterhood.

About 40 girls tried out in the spring. The 16 girls who made the team started practicing in August.

They practice every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoon from August to February — from the start of football season to the end of basketball season. They practice three hours each week, not counting the running and stretching beforehand.

The girls give up at least four hours of their Friday nights for home games to cheer on their classmates on the field. For away games, they can spend two hours on the bus.

Practices, games and travel time equates to roughly 83 hours, not counting pep rallies, painting fans before games and more.

Coach Cindy Cawthon views cheerleading as a performing art.

It is also extremely athletic, she said. “What other athlete has to lift up a teammate over their head?”

The teammates must trust each other. Four cheerleaders lift a teammate above their heads, supporting her by her ankle, before tossing her high into the air and catching her.

They get ready together, often sharing meals before and sometimes after the games and practices.

They giggle on the bus together to and from away games, for hours at times.

Senior Taylor Burckhalter said the team is “like a family,” and in a lot of ways they are.

Their coach agrees.

“With all the squabbling and love for each other, they are everything that a family dynamic has,” Cawthon said.

The football season ended with a playoff loss Nov. 14. The team finished with a 7-5 record.

The 10-week basketball season starts Dec. 4, and with it, the cheerleaders’ practices, travel and games will begin again.

Find these photos in our archive »

The Week in Outtakes 2-10

Matt Slaby — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 22:04:26 +0000

Every so often the backlog of outtakes catches up to me. It’s been a while since the last time this happened. Most of the shoots from this month were assignment-based, leaving little scrap on the floor that I can share. Just finished ingesting a card full of images that I’ve been snapping in my daily life. Early morning after a snow, the Denver Aquarium, my favorite smokestack, warehouses, and some test frames from last night at Casa Bonita with friend and filmmaker Kim Shively. Shively’s newest work-in-progress looks at the underground culture of Lucha Libre in Denver (and outside of it too. But seriously, why leave such a perfect city?) At any rate, sans luchadores, we spent a few hours last night in the greatest restaurant on Earth working out lighting for portraits of some of the wrestlers.

This was my first chance to really play with the A2R light setup that Bron sent out. Managed to do some really fun stuff with nothing but an umbrella and some cinefoil.

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From the Archive

Luceo Images — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 15:25:41 +0000

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Mermaids & The Three Headed Monster

David Walter Banks — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 19:57:20 +0000

On the way down to photograph the Elvis Extravaganza Competition at the State Fair in Tampa, Florida, LUCEO photographer Kendrick Brinson and I made a detour to Weeki Wachee, Florida to see the glorious spectacle we had heard so much about. Fortunately, once we arrived, the 60’s-era throwback dank subterranean-theater did not disappoint. The curtain rose, and we peered through the glass-paneled wall as mermaids soared through the underwater theater, playing out scenes from Hans Christian Andersen’s ‘The Little Mermaid’. The whole show fit so well into the thesis of a body of work I’ve been working on for a long time entitled, ‘My Waking Life’. The idea is that the same surreal fantastical images that we find in our dream life can be found all around us if we simply stop and look. I normally find these images to be an elusive way of seeing, which is why the talented mermaids of Weeki Wachee are so refreshing to me. They’re a reminder to anyone who cares to make that detour off I-75 that our everyday life is full of wonder.

As for the three-headed monster, he’s on the other side of the glass. Me. My newfound obsession with film has left me juggling three cameras, the third acquired just before this trip and used for the first time below. So I have my trusty old Canon 5d Mkii as always, along with my new favorite, my clunky Hasselblad 500c, and the newest addition, a Ricoh GR1v which is a 35mm rangefinder point-and-shoot (slim as a deck of cards). Of course it’s the photographer, and not the camera, but I’m finding that these different tools close some doors for me and force others open. So, you be the judge – which eye wins this round?

CANON (including top image)

HASSELBLAD

RICOH

The Motorbike Diaries – Tra Vinh

Kevin German — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 13:31:16 +0000

Three white male photographers on three motorbikes driving through the countryside is always good for a few laughs. We coined ourselves the ‘79 Club as we discovered we were all born in the same year. We met early in the morning for a bowl of Pho and then set out on the planned, two-day journey to a small city named Tra Vinh. Roundtrip was about 350 kilometers south of Saigon in the Mekong Delta.

I knew nothing of this particular city before. It was only a point on the map on my office wall. But the province is home to more than 300,000 ethic Khmer people. At one point in history much of southern Vietnam was part of the Cambodian or “Kampuchea” empire. And like most history, war tends to redraw the lines on a map. Vietnam is no different. When French Indochina was given independence, the Mekong Delta was awarded to Vietnam who’s people had be settled in that region since the late 17th century. But the Khmer culture and language is still strong here. In fact the province is home to more than 140 pagodas, most of which are Khmer.

The drive began like any other … leaving Saigon. In any one direction this could take hours depending on traffic. The city is massive and the roads are narrow. However since the week of the Lunar New Year holiday was still being celebrated, most of the people were in the countryside and the roads were less crowded. The Main route to the Mekong Delta is on the infamous Highway 1. The highway that once carried fleeing South Vietnamese troops south away from the Viet Cong during the fall of Saigon.

February is a time for harvest. The rice patties are vibrant with a green and yellow glow. Conical hats bob up and down in the grass as workers cut bails of rice and carry them to a hulling machine that separates the stem from the grain. It is a very common site but one that is almost impossible to pass up. We venture from the main road to find a patty with more people.

We park our bikes at a small house which doubles as a coffee shop and we venture behind where a dozen or more people are working. Standing on the edge of the patty I see how muddy the scene actually is. A see black mud coating the bottom half of the worker’s legs. I look down at my white feet slightly pinkish from the exposure to the sun and I smile. The workers all point to the far end of the patty to where I should walk to avoid the mud. But instead we roll up our jeans and shake off our flip flops and jump in toes first. Laughter plays tag as smiles peer out from under the famous Vietnamese hats.

The coffee shop owners point to the water faucet in the bathroom while laughing as soon as we return. We wash our feet and enjoy a few glasses of iced milk coffee. It’s nice to be with photographers. I always say I miss the camaraderie the most from my newspaper days, but it’s true. Like minds discussing the trends, the hopes, the dreams of photography. It’s inspiring. Add the backdrop of the southern Vietnam countryside and I just feel lucky.

The drive continues through the famous tourist delta town of My Tho. Locals used to depend on the ferry system to cross tributaries of the Mekong River into the neighboring province but now a new bridge has opened up. At the apex Vietnamese park their motorbikes along the edge dangerously close to the passing traffic. They sit and stare out at the two provinces and the boat traffic far below.

A meager restaurant sits to the right of the road on the other side of the bridge. The four people eating rice look relatively happy so we stop for a bite. The broken rice and grilled pork is tastier than I expected. We top the pile of food off with one fried egg. The squirrely owner jumps around nervously talking to us using his best English. He talks about his job working for the South Vietnamese Army during the American-Vietnamese War. As soon as we finish our meal the owner trades the empty plates with a piece of coconut candy – a specialty of the Ben Tre Province. We thank him for the meal and promise we will stop by upon our return the following day.

Two ferry rides and we reach our destination for the evening. Tra Vinh. The town has a lovely vibe. Barely a foreigner in sight. Trees line the streets while leading to the river walk way. Pagoda steeples poke through the tree canopy outside the city. We venture into one. Young Khmer monks sweep leaves off the dirt ground. Another group carry large watering cans to their small tree orchard. They take a break from their chores for a cigarette. We exchange conversation and they teach us a few words in the Khmer language. Most of Vietnam’s Khmer population practice Theravada Buddhism. Most boys between the ages of 15 and 20 set aside a few months to live as monks. They are allowed to eat meat but they cannot kill animals.

After dinner we drink a few glasses of local beer and retire to our $8 hotel rooms. The seven hours of dirt and exhaust feels nice to wash off of my face. The black water flows counter clockwise into the drain on the cheaply tiled floor. The morning is quickly approaching and I am exhausted.

The return to Saigon is uneventful. The traffic from the locals returning to the city after celebrating the Lunar New Year in their home towns is less than I had expected. However, most of the drive I am thinking of the man that I met at a lake outside of Tra Vinh named Son. He is a photographer. In fact I immediately think of him as the Weegee of Vietnam.

His clothes are two sizes too big. His large eye glasses look like motorcycle goggles and a Michigan hat sits cockeyed atop his head. He’s a bit goofy but certainly endearing. On the front of the motorbike is a sign with examples of his photography and the words, “Chup Hinh Lay Lien”, which basically means you can get your photographs right now. A Canon Selphy printer is bungeed to the back of the seat and is powered by the bike’s battery. Couples stand by the river filled with lotus flowers to get their photographs taken. One picture costs 15,000 Dong or about $0.80 USD.

The three of us decide to get one taken. I smile and think about the cheesy Vietnamese photography style. Heavily airbrushed and ridiculous backdrops. Son positions us in to a semi circle. He takes one photograph and looks at the LCD screen on the back of the camera. He grunts and shakes his head. Maybe I blinked. He takes one more and smiles. He takes out his CF card and inserts it into the printer. A few moments later our photo comes out. We all laugh at it but also smile a few moments longer than usual. The ‘79 Club. We buy three copies.

***

Kevin German is a photographer who lives and works in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. His column, “The Motorbike Diaries” appears every other Wednesday. He is a founding member of Luceo.

Portraits: Wanderers

Daryl Peveto — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 09:20:47 +0000

I went for a walk on the Salton Sea this weekend. I met some new friends and made a few portraits…