Capturing Libya: Through a Hipstamatic Lens
To photojournalism purists, it was pure blasphemy: a prestigious prize, third place for photo of the year, granted to a New York Times photographer who’d used not a 35mm to document U.S. soldiers in Iraq, but simply, his iPhone — and an app called Hipstamatic. Immediately, traditionalists went berserk: “What we knew as photojournalism at its purest form is over,” one photojournalist lamented. Using Hipstamatic in a news report, another commentator proclaimed, was “cheating us all.”
And yet, to Ben Lowy, a conflict photographer who has made a career out of a certain brand of iPhonography — and will debut the first ever photojournalism-inspired Hipstamatic lens with his namesake later this year — the award was a well-needed wake-up call for photojournalism fundamentalists. Last February, Lowy set out to capture the uprising in Libya from his iPhone (alongside millions of protesters who’d document the Arab Spring on their mobile devices) in photos that would fuel reporting from the region in outlets around the globe. In October, Lowy’s Hipstamatic images of everyday life in wartime Kabul were published in the New York Times Magazine, prompting the magazine’s photo editor, Kathy Ryan, to defend their use on the paper’s 6th Floor blog. And since then, Lowy has published an iPhone photo a day — from dramatic images of war to mundane life in Brooklyn — on his Tumblr, captured under the title, iSee.
That he’s found a home on Tumblr suggests that Tumblr is a place for new approaches.
» By ballot or by bullet: Threats of militia violence are the only thing expected to lower the Libyan voter turnout in their first major democratic move since Muammar Gadhafi was overthrown. In the U.S., meanwhile, voting restriction laws have been passed in over a dozen states, which might make 5 million eligible voters’ trips to the ballot box much harder this November.
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Egypt reacts to elections: Supporters of Mohammed Morsi celebrated in Tahrir Square as election results were read over loudspeakers. “We’re finally going to be respected, we’ve been oppressed for too long,” said, Adham Lotfy, a 28-year-old owner of a parking garage. However, not everyone is as ecstatic as members of the Muslim Brotherhood. ”I’m very sceptical, and I fear what is still to be done,” said an anonymous woman to Al Jazeera reporter, Evan Hill. source
I wish all elections had this turnout. This should be the norm, not the exception.Madison, Wi. resident Tom Bartelt • Offering a bipartisan message that everyone can probably agree with. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel notes that the city’s 53rd ward had significantly high numbers of newly registered voters on Tuesday — 500 in total, out of 1,500 total voters. (click for more)
The Washington Post’s Jon Cohen notes that exit polls show the split between conservatives and liberals is roughly the same in Wisconsin between the 2010 election and tonight. (click for more)
aestas-eos submitted: “I voted a few months ago, but hey, I voted.”
Awesome idea by STFUConservatives to take submissions from folks who voted today. Great work, STFU.
» While many polling places are reporting smooth sailing, Egypt’s election day has not been without incident, and many are shocked by voter turnout compared to November’s parliamentary elections. Some towns have seen as few as ten percent of the voting population cast a vote, though some analysts predict there will be an evening surge as adults get off work, and outdoor temperatures begin to drop. There have also been sporadic reports of bribery on the parts of various campaigns. Both the Muslim Brotherhood, and the campaign of candidate Kafr al-Sheikh, have allegedly distributed food and money in exchange for votes, though both groups have denied the allegations.
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So here’s how things are looking for the Greek election. They’re at 82% reporting, but most of the remaining votes are around Athens, Piraeus, and Thessalonika - all strong SYRIZA territory. So we can probably expect a slight shift towards SYRIZA, but no more than a seat or two.
I was going to do a big long post on the possibilities for coalitions and so on, but with this seat distribution there are basically just two possibilities:
- ND and PASOK continue on as a pro-austerity pro-bailout pro-eurozone coalition with the bare minimum number of seats until someone defects and the coalition collapses.
- A fresh round of elections gets called for next month.
There really aren’t any other feasible governing prospects here. Honestly I’m expecting #2, because a “grand coalition” style government that received just under a third of the total vote (and around a quarter of the total vote in the capital) would be perceived as having very little legitimacy and almost certainly would not last.
Jakke knows more about international politics than you do. In this case, Greece.
Contrary to what many believe, the central effect of such negative advertising isn’t to move voters from supporting another candidate to backing yours, as Mitt Romney and his allies have discovered during this primary season. The main effect is not even to move undecided voters into your column. No, the real effect of negative advertising is to energize and solidify support among your ideological base while turning everyone else off to the other candidate, the campaign and the entire electoral process. Negative advertising isn’t about changing minds; it’s about altering the composition of the voter pool on Election Day by turning moderate voters into non-voters.The Washington Post’s Stephen Pearlstein • Offering a counterpoint to Ezra Klein’s point from the other night; Pearlstein suggests politicians want people to turn off from the political process, because it helps them stabilize the electoral pool come election time. Which is how we get stuff like Obama eating dog food on an Etch A Sketch with Mitt Romney’s face drawn on it, or something like that.
» Is this a sign of voter fraud? Not really, Pew says. The bigger problem, they claim, is that outdated methods are being used to sign voters up. They recommend a more centralized voting system that utilizes online registration — similar to the one eight states (Colorado, Delaware, Maryland, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Virginia and Washington) are already working on. They suggest such a system will save money by preventing duplication and cutting down on form usage.
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