Photos of the Week: The Visual Verdict on Casey Anthony and DSK

My weekly review of media photography in La Lettre de la Photographie is on hiatus now, and will return in September. Meanwhile, I'll be doing some of that here on Fridays. This week, we focus on two high-profile criminal prosecutions.

1. Not Guilty, Part 1

The week before Casey Anthony was found not guilty of killing her daughter, People magazine prepared trial watchers with a what can be seen as a prediction or a judgement. The photo of Anthony--the irksome yet ambigious--was a piece of masterful photo editing.

2. Not Guilty, Part 2
 Photo by Red Huber/AP

When the verdict actually was delivered, Red Huber captured the most of relief. Were we hoping to see proof that Casey Anthony was human after all? It's there in the touching of hands.

3. Not Guilty, Part 3

Photo from Press Pool

On Thursday, Anthony was back in court, where she was sentenced to four years jail time for lying to police. (Because of time served, she will be set free a week from Sunday.) The press was not done delivering its own sentence, however: The New York Post put a press pool photo on its Friday front page, noting Anthony's apres-verdict makeup and her hair style, which it termed the "jailhouse version of the Snooki poof."

4. Not Guilty, Part 4

Photo by Mario Tama, Getty Images

The Manhattan's DA's office saw its high-profile case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn crumble when its own investigators turned up inconsistencies and lies in the story of it chief witness--the hotel maid who had accused DSK of rape. The rush to indict Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund, was followed by a rush to drop the charges against him, according to lawyers for the maid. In this photo--a kind of inverted perp walk--Strauss-Kahn and his wife are seen leaving a hearing in which he was released on own recognizance.

From Photo to TV to Film: An Interview with the formidable Indrani

Indrani and Klinko

Earlier this week I got to catch up with the formidable Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri, better known as Indrani of the photographic duo MarkusKlinko & Indrani, the stars of the Bravo reality show Double Exposure. I’ve known Markus and Indrani for a number of years—I frankly was endeared to them when for some reason they ran afoul of a magazine publisher I once worked with; the steamed publisher vowed to me (literally, I kid you not) that the pair “would never work in this town again.” I immediately set up an appointment to meet them to see how I might feature them in my magazine.

Suffice it to say the publisher did not end their photo careers. Their dazzling images—Beyonce, Mariah Carey, Lady Gaga, Kate Winslet, work for Lancome, Shiseido, Nike, etc.—led to the TV show, which featured the pair in their natural state, which is to say often battling each other over creative choices. (Go here to see a scene featuring Lady Gaga and Klinko telling Indrani that she is driving him crazy.) The big news from Indrani is that she is now branching out on her own at a filmmaker, though she assured me that she and Klinko are still a photographic team. “Marcus is the producer on my shoots, and a lot of the time we’re actually shooting stills and video at the same time,” she said. 

From the Keep A Child Alive campaign

The pair teamed in that way to create the controversial Keepa Child Alive ad campaign featuring celebrities (Serena Williams, Alicia Keys, Kim Kardashian) lying in coffins. Last month the campaign won a couple of big awards for the TBWA agency at the Cannes International Festival of Creativity. Indrani also shot a video project with singer/actress Mandy Moore in the Central African Republic for PSI, an organization the combats malaria.


"It was life changing in many ways. It was really challenging, shooting this wonderful star, Mandy Moore, in this intense situation where lives are at risk, and to see the tangible benefits of distributing nets. And then to create to both videos and still was rewarding."

Here is a clip from that project:


Crisis in Central Africa with Mandy Moore from Indrani on Vimeo.

Another project featured fashion icon Daphne Guinness. “For that we shot stills for Barney’s New York and at the same time shot video, so the two have gone hand in hand in a unique way that really I don’t think we could do if we didn’t have that strong partnership that Marcus and I have built over the years,” Indrani said.

Here is a clip from that project:

Daphne Guinness from Indrani on Vimeo.

The new extended collaboration has in fact made the duo’s working relationship less contentious. “People who saw our show on Bravo will know that in the past we’ve had quite a few arguments and disputes, and the film work has actually helped provide a  resolution to that,” said Indrani. “We’ve become so occupied that we don’t have time to fuss over ourselves and rethink the strategy all the time. In the past we’d both have good ideas, and it was which one are we going to do. Now there is so much more room for me to play creatively.”

Indrani, who was born in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), India, began a modeling career at age 14, and that work helped her put herself through Princeton, where she took a few film courses while majoring in anthropology. “I suppose that makes a certain amount of sense with what I do now,” she said. “Anthropology is about human behavior and cultural choices, and that’s what fashion is all about--how we display who we are in some kind of artistic culturally coded way.”

Indrani remains active in an organization she founded with her father called Shakti Empowerment Education. They converted a 300-year-old family home a few hours outside of Kolkata into a school and support center for about 300 students—many of them from Bangladeshi refugee families. “These are people who have not been a part of the big changes in India,” she said. “We’ve piggybacked vocational training onto the literacy sections to provide students with practical skills or to enable them to sell handicraft. We’ve also used microfinancing to jump-start women’s village collectives so they can impliment their skills. So they’re able to create small projects and perhaps give employment to their neighbors.”

It’s what I meant when I said formidable.

Tuesday Dispatch: How to Make Film Developer Out of Coffee and Vitamin C

After an Independence Day weekend infused with both ribs and burgers, I was filled with can-do American spirit and spent a few hours on the website of Make magazine. There I learned that a dedicated group of photographers who still shoot film actually make their own developer out of coffee, vitamin C, and some other household items. It sounds geeky, and it is--but it's also cool. Here's a video explaining it all:



Making home-brew developer isn't for everyone, obviously. But why not? What else are you going to do with that box of Arm & Hammer soda ash (washing soda) you have lying around? Once upon a time a large part of the thrill of photography--for many dedicated amateurs and professionals--was the hands-on nature of the process, the quiet, creative time spent in darkrooms, inhaling the heady chemical aromas of developers and fixers. There may be a crying human need to recreate that quality experience--if you look through the Make magazine site you'll see that there is almost no digital gizmo that can't be amended into something satisfyingly analog in nature. (Example: "Learn to construct a basic long necktie with stripes to represent your favorite value of resistor – fashion inspired by the electronics bench!")

At the very least, this Steampump version of photography shows how arcane the idea of film photography has actually become.

Photos of the Week: Beyonce kills (maybe)...Serena Returns (definately)...and more

My weekly review of media imagery is back in its usual Friday slot at La Lettre de la Photographie. Here is the excerpt:

1. Other Voices, Other Rooms

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images 

President Obama’s decision to begin withdrawing American troops from the war in Afghanistan absorbed the attention of the 24-hour news cycle and then, for the most part, disappeared from view, eclipsed by the stalled budget negotiations, the debate over same-sex marriage, and other issues closer to home. In Chip Somodevilla’s shot, the president is seen live on monitors in a deserted White House press briefing room on May 22, announcing his plan to bring home 10.000 troops this year and 20,000 by the end of next summer.

 

2. American Express

Photo from EPA 

Migrants from Central America are seen traveling north atop a train near Veracruz, Mexico. The transit is perilous—and not just because of the seating arrangements. Last week at least 80 migrants were allegedly pulled from the train near Veracruz and kidnapped by masked gunmen.

3. Serena's Return

Photo by Carl de Souza/AFP/Getty Images

Carl de Souza caught the distinctive handiwork of Serena Williams as she prepared to serve during a match against Simona Halep of Romania at this week’s Wimbledon tennis tournament. The tournament marked Williams’s return to the sport after a long absence caused by health issues. She beat Halep but was eliminated in the fourth round by Marion Bartoli.

4. Devotion

Photo by Romeo Ranoco/Reuters

In the remote village of Bibiclat, north of Manila, hundreds of people covered in mud and dried leaves took part in a Mass to celebrate the Feast of John the Baptist. In Romeo Ranoco’s beautiful photograph, the hands of one celebrant become a sculptural tribute to devotion.

5. Showstopper

Photo by Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images

From all reports, Beyonce’s show at the Glastonbury music festival on June 26 was killer. “Following this performance,” read one review, “she'll be in the dreams of thousands of British music fans for a long time to come.” Perhaps it was just a coincidence, but authorities did find a British man—identified as a close friend of British Prime Minister David Cameron—dead in one of the festival’s portable toilets on the day that Beyonce performed. In this shot, photographer Adrian Dennis shows us what all the commotion was about.

Wednesday Dispatch: Katy Perry and Lady Gaga, Rolling Stone's Summer Doubles

It's apparently becoming a trend--or enough of one for me to mention, anyway. Every time Rolling Stone does a Summer Double Issue, the cover girl's breasts are turned into a sight gag. Last year, Lady Gaga sported machine gun jumblies, and this year Katy Perry's famous chest become candy kisses. Whom do we have to thank for that transition? The photographer was Terry Richardson, but Perry gives credit where credit is due inside the magazine, with this shot:

I could see Michelle Bachmann in that top. You?

Tuesday Dispatch: Three Views of the Asteroid that Barely Missed Us

Every story I saw about the bus-sized asteroid that missed hitting the Earth yesterday by only 7,500 miles put the reassuring stuff in sentence two, after sentence one had already caused me Lower GI trouble: The 30-foot-long asteroid would not hit, said reports leading up to the fly-by, and even if it did, no worries, because scientists don't consider asteroids to be hazardous unless they're bigger than 490 in width. In any event, I wanted to see pictures of this thing, which came close enough to be viewed with a small telescope. (See Point 1, below.) Not much was available, so news orgs got creative with visual concepts used to describe what was happening:

1. First Sighting

It's not much to look at, if you're expecting to see a hellish rock like the one in Armageddon. This image, one of the first taken of Asteroid 2011 MD, was taken by Peter Lake, an amateur astronomer from Australia. The shot was taken with a 20-inch telescope in New Mexico, which Lake could control with his iPhone through the Rent-A-Scope program.

2. The Composite

This image is actually made up of three separate sightings of the asteroid as seen in different wavelengths of light--red, blue, and green--by Australia's Faulkes Telescope South. Not much, but red, blue, and green are better than nothing.

3.The Bigger Picture

Photographic imagery having largely failed to tell the story in satisfyingly terrible detail, the nerds at Wired.com went with a screen shot from the Asteroids video arcade game, which they, I me, have probably spent too much time playing. This would a an example of whistling past the graveyard.

Last Week: The Pictures We Wanted to Talk About

Because of a welcome vacation, my regular weekly review of photography in print at Le Lettre de la Photographie has not appeared for the past couple of weeks. It was supposed to have reappear last Friday, but due to some technical glitches it appears there today. Herewith, the highlights, focusing on sports.

                                                                                                                                          

The Kiss

Photo by Rich Lam/Getty Images

Rich Lam’s shot of lovers embracing in the midst of angry Canadian hockey fans became an instant classic the moment it went viral. After the Vancouver Canucks lost the decisive Game 7 of a thrilling and brutal Stanley Cup championship series, the team’s fans went from avid to rabid, taking to Vancouver’s streets to loot local stores and set cars on fire. The anonymous couple inadvertently captured by freelancer Lam didn’t remain anonymous for long: After the picture was published, the lovers were identified by relatives, and within days Scott Jones and Alex Thomas were being interviewed on a morning television news show, joining a pantheon of famously photographed kissers. Final note: Are there any scarier words in the English language than “angry Canadian hockey fans?”

 

Hazard Ahead

Photo by Doug Mills

The big story of this year’s U.S. Open golf tournament was the dominating win by 22-year-old Irishman Rory McIlroy, who finished on Sunday at an astonishing 16-under par, erasing memories of his final-round collapse in the Masters tournament in April. Photographically, a better story was crowd-pleaser Phil Mickelson, who struggled on the tough Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Maryland. In this shot, we see Mickelson’s reaction as he watches a shot go into water during the second round of play. That kid on the left, with the gray pants, blue striped shirt, and bushy hair sticking out from under a white hat? That’s McIlroy. That look on Michelson’s face? It’s why I gave up golf a long time ago.

A Hero Rises

Photo by Greg Nelson

The essential narrative behind all sports events is the rise and fall of heroes. Last summer, National Basketball League superstar LeBron James joined a Miami Heat “dream team” to assure himself the championship he had never won. But a funny thing happened on the way to athletic immortality: James played poorly in this month’s finals, and his team lost to the Dallas Mavericks, led by 13-year veteran Dirk Nowitzki. Sports Illustrated told the tale with Greg Nelson’s cover shot.

 

Class War

Photo by Nikolas Giakoumidis/AP

 

A sign of the times? New austerity measures imposed by the Greek government led to a strike by the country’s largest labor union. This banner reads, “Yes to the Society, No to the Power.” If you think Greek politics have become polarized, take a look at what’s happening in Wisconsin.

 

The Fire

Photo by Dean Knuth/AP/Arizona Daily Star

This photograph sums up the heartache of loss caused by the wildfires that continue to burn in Arizona. On Sunday, the so-called Monument Fire raced down a mountain and into the town of Sierra Vista, forcing 3,000 people to flee. Sierra Vista resident Pete Tunstall stood amid the remains of his home.

The Princess

Photo by Patrick Demarchelier

On July 1 the world gets another royal wedding. Prince Albert of Monaco will marry Charlene Wittstock, a former competitive swimmer who represented South Africa in the 2000 Olympics. The couple met a decade ago, at an event in Monaco. “After seeing me swim, Albert asked my management for permission to take me out,” Wittstock says in Vogue’s July issue. Patrick Demarchelier’s photograph explains the prince’s thought process.