— FEATURED —
— FOLLOW US —
Boing Boing is on Twitter and Facebook. Subscribe to our RSS feed or daily email.
— POLICIES —
Except where indicated, Boing Boing is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution
— FONTS —
David Pescovitz at 9:49 am • 
• 
House of Mirth asked dedicated vernacular photo collectors to share their favorite vintage snapshots with an insect theme. Above is Robert Jackson's pick. Right is a snap from Pat Street's archives. "Bugs - They fly, bite and pester & sometimes people take photos of them"
Xeni Jardin at 5:44 pm • •
Photo: Clayton Cubitt.
A beautiful and thoughtful essay by Clayton Cubitt on the changing nature of the art of photography. Snip:
Henri Cartier-Bresson believed that the photographer is like a hunter, going forth into the wild, armed with quick reflexes and a finely-honed eye, in search of that one moment that most distills the time before him. In this instant the photographer reacts, snatching truth from the timestream in the snare of his shutter. The Decisive Moment is Gestalt psychology married to reflexive performance art in the blink of a mechanical eye. It is the creation of art through the curation of time.
David Pescovitz at 12:44 pm • •
From the American Museum of Natural History's excellent photo archive. Seen above, a millipede installing a model of a man in "The Forest Floor" diorama, 1958. (Thanks, Stacey Ransom!)
David Pescovitz at 12:04 pm • •
The Wire posted a small photo gallery of electronic and avant-garde musicians and their studios, including Atom, Pierre Henry, and Terry Riley. Above, JG "Foetus" Thirlwell's Brooklyn studio photographed by Daniëlle van Ark. At right, Madlib at home in Los Angeles, shot byJeremy & Claire Weiss. "Studio Envy"
Xeni Jardin at 1:15 pm • •
Photo: Xeni Jardin
[Guatemala City] -- Above: Elena Caba Ijom of Nebaj, El Quiché, Guatemala, reads news about the trial as all of us in the courtroom here await a verdict in the genocide trial of Rios Montt and Mauricio Rodriguez Sanchez.
The judges are expected to announce their decision at 4pm local time, despite new calls for annulment from a lower court.
Ms. Caba Ijom told this reporter she was 8 years old when her entire family was killed by the Army in 1982. Soldiers then tied her hands and feet and threw her into a river, breaking her legs.
"I survived," she said.
David Pescovitz at 10:30 am • •
When Mike Brodie was 17, he hopped his first train and instantly fell in love with the freedom of riding the rails, sans ticket. Shortly thereafter, in 2004, he came upon an old instant camera and quickly earned his nickname of The Polaroid Kidd. Eventually, he "upgraded" to a 1980s camera and 35 millimeter film but continued to ride the rails and document what he saw. The result is a raw, gritty, beautiful, and often inspiring collection of snapshots now compiled into a book, A Period of Juvenile Prosperity.
You can also see a selection of these photographs at Mike Brodie Photography. (via So Bad So Good, thanks Dave Gill!)
David Pescovitz at 11:17 am • •
Javier Manzano won the 2013 Pulitzer Price for Feature Photography for this photo of two rebel soldiers in Syria, taken on October 18, 2012. Yes, those are bullet holes. All of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize Winners were announced on Monday.
David Pescovitz at 9:54 am • •
Over at House of Mirth, esteemed vernacular photo collector Robert E. Jackson posts about the allure of collecting cyanotypes with some wonderful examples. The ghostly image above is from the collection of Erin Waters. Jackson posted this fascinating bit from the cyanotype Wikipedia entry:
The English scientist and astronomer Sir John Herschel discovered this procedure in 1842. Though the process was developed by Herschel, he considered it as mainly a means of reproducing notes and diagrams, as in blueprints. It was Anna Atkins who brought this to photography. She created a limited series of cyanotype books that documented ferns and other plant life from her extensive seaweed collection. Atkins placed specimens directly onto coated paper, allowing the action of light to create a silhouette effect. By using this photogram process, Anna Atkins is regarded as the first female photographer."Collecting Cyanotypes"
David Pescovitz at 9:49 am • •
Artist Martin John Callanan and the Advanced Engineered Materials Group at the UK's National Physical Laboratory used an infinite 3D optical microscope to capture 400 million pixel images of the lowest denomination coin from many currencies. "The Fundamental Units"
David Pescovitz at 4:52 pm • •
For the 1963 spring collection fashion editorial in Harper's Bazaar, Melvin Sokolsky photographed model Simone d'Aillencourt in a bubble, dreamily floating around Paris. All of the stunning images have been collected in a limited-edition art book packaged in a die-cut lucite slipcase.
Xeni Jardin at 6:42 am • •
Fredy Peccerelli of the Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation (FAFG) testifying Wednesday, April 10; Rios Montt at the defense table in the background.
I'm in Guatemala with Miles O'Brien, working on a report for the PBS NewsHour on the genocide trial of Jose Efrain Rios Montt, who ruled Guatemala from 1982-1983, and Jose Mauricio Rodriguez Sanchez, his chief of military intelligence. They are being tried here in Guatemala City for genocide and crimes against humanity.
Above and below, some stills from the video we've been shooting inside the courtroom. Follow me on Twitter and Instagram for snapshots throughout the day. And if you're interested in monitoring the trial, listen here, watch here, or follow this Twitter list I threw together.
All photos: screengrabs from video shot by Miles O'Brien.
CC license: Non-commercial sharing with credit is okay. For commercial use, ask.
David Pescovitz at 9:53 am • •
Photographer Göran Strand created this stunning time-lapse video made from photographs of the aurora borealis as seen from Östersund, Sweden on March 17, 2013. The video consists of 2,464 images taken over four hours. The extreme intensity of the aurora borealis display resulted from a huge solar storm spurred by two solar flares that erupted on March 6.
Mark Frauenfelder at 8:34 am • •
Twisted Sifter has a great gallery of snowflake and ice crystal electron microscope photos. At this level of magnification, the ice looks like metal that has been machined by space aliens.
David Pescovitz at 10:10 am • •
In 1971, the US government's Environmental Protection Agency sponsored a photography project called DOCUMERICA to capture on film the impact of pollution, waste, and environmental dangers on American life. The result is a stunning portrait of 1970s American culture. A selection of those images -- more than 20,000 in total -- is now on view at the National Archives in Washington DC. They've also released an exhibition catalog with text by the EPA's first director, Bill Ruckelshaus, who was in charge during the DOCUMERICA project.
Above: "Children play in yard of Ruston home, while Tacoma smelter stack showers area with arsenic and lead residue” (Gene Daniels, Ruston, Washington, August 1972). Right: “Young woman watches as her car goes through testing at an auto emission inspection station in Downtown Cincinnati, Ohio" (Lyntha Scott Eiler, Cincinnati, OH, September 1975).
"16 Photographs That Capture the Best and Worst of 1970s America" (Smithsonian)
Searching for the Seventies: The DOCUMERICA Photography Project (National Archives)
"Searching for the Seventies: The DOCUMERICA Photography Project" (Amazon)
