the coolest ever...

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the president and first lady, in 3-d glasses while watching superbowl 43. photographed by pete souza.

originally uploaded by the official white house photostream

i was feeling bluesy, until i saw this...

brilliant!

here's a link to the announcement of pete souza as the official white house photographer, and his site. i'll be spending the day admiring his work.

enjoy.

damon winter and "s.o.n.!"

shadrick johnson, 6, photographed by damon winter for the ny times, outside the columbia convention center in south carolina, as he waited to hear then-senator obama speak. via pulitzerprize.org and nytimes.com

i came home late from a job today, and felt completely out of touch with the world (i hadn't been online all day) and the first piece of news i read thrilled me: damon winter was awarded the 2009 pulitzer prize for feature photography. hooray!!

i posted a link to some of his slideshows a while back, and think about his work often. (i invested in a new camera a couple of days ago and my mind is aflood--even more than usual--with the work of photographers who i admire. i actually fell asleep last night thinking of damon winter's obama images...)

here are links to the "a vision of history" slideshow which can be viewed on the ny times site and the pulitzer site. also on the pulitzer site is mr. winter's bio, and of course, a full list of winners and finalists.

***

i love the look and smell of the newspaper. and the sound of it being lightly smacked and folded at its center. i love carrying it under my arm or stuffing into my bag on my way out the door--after all these years, it still feels cool, somehow (especially if you've got more than one on you). and i really like the crossword puzzle, in pencil or pen. but i am currently taking a break from receiving the new york times at home, a small change that is meant to benefit my wallet (working!), but is doing greater harm to my mind (and maybe my soul).

on the one hand, all that content--the slideshows, especially--is a feast for the curious, the infohounds. i've got a good bit of that in me. but one article can so easily lead me astray-- those slideshows (again!) and related links are so tempting, sometimes i don't finish an article, let alone think about it long enough before moving on to the next thing. i'm all over the place! with the actual newspaper, i can settle in... note-taking during or after required a bit more effort and time. even if only for the few minutes it took to find a piece of paper and pen, that time actually felt a bit thoughtful. and then there came a time when you were "done." whether you finished one article, or your favorite section, or the whole darn thing (you intrepid reader you), there was a satisfying end. i miss all that now, and don't want to imagine not having the option to have all that again.

and every time i hear about newspapers laying off staff, shrinking sections, going online only, or shutting operations for good, which is practically daily, i want to call and "un-suspend" my deliveries, as if my dollars will make an impact.

i found this video the other day: can design save the newspaper? jacek utko, a polish newspaper designer, whose redesigns of newspapers in eastern europe has increased their circulation 100%, presents an interesting case. is it too dreamy for our newspaper industry's deep-dish problems? perhaps. but it's a good dream.

save our newspapers!

here's 6 minutes of inspiration, anyway (i love the cirque du soleil bit).

the potus, and winter

the POTUS, before he officially was. photographed by damon winter for the ny times.

chester, pa. november 2008.

i'm getting ready to listen to our potus' address tonight. primetime with the president. i'm sort of thrilled (that's a first).

seems like a good opportunity to re-visit the extraordinary work of damon winter. his work will appeal to admirers of obama, and anyone with aspirations as a photographer or editor. winter shot of 90,000 images of then-candidate obama--can you imagine selecting fewer than 20? but the result is thrilling. i've seen this many times, and it still makes me well up. great commentary too. president obama has to be one of the most photogenic public figures, but winter notes that it can be challenging to photograph him because he can be so good at controlling his temperament--he's not as expressive as other candidates.

photographer's journal: following obama

the second presentation--a diptych slideshow--is brilliant. who doesn't love a good diptych, right? finding themes, colors, patterns in random images, and aligning them to make a statement...here is one and while it's not my favorite, it seems fitting tonight.

see the rest of winter's "photographers journal: political landscapes," originally published in october 2008, here. i love the feet, the food, and the clinton one. you'll hear which one is winter's favorite, and it's hard to argue against it...

i would love to know yours...

here's a link to a great, albeit brief interview with damon winter, courtesy of photo district news.

i saw "the big picture"...

on boston.com, and i was so riveted by these photos of our president-elect, i burned my dinner.

it was hard to pick a favorite, so i chose two...

i love yellow. ("yellow is the color of sunshine. it's associated with joy, happiness, intellect, and energy.")

taken during a campaign event at colorado state university, october 26, 2008 in fort collins, colorado.

photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

and i think this is just a fantastic moment...

taken at ebenezer baptist church, after the announcement that obama would be the next president of the united states.

(ap photo/pouya dianat, atlanta journal & constitution)

game on

Photo: Bill Frakes/SI

big week for the politicos--and voters--with primaries coming up in SC (dems only) on the 26th, and FL on jan 29...

super tuesday's just round the bend, on feb 5, with 24 states (including my own) holding primaries or caucuses.

in that spirit, here's a brief, interesting piece from si, in which s.l. price recounts his one-on-one pick-up game with sen. barack obama in iowa last dec:

Here's the beauty of pickup basketball: You may be a U.S. senator, a living symbol of racial healing and perhaps even the next President of the United States, but if you're gliding in for an easy layup and each point is precious, I've got no choice then, do I? You're getting hacked. So, yes, I'm hammering that arm and crashing headlong into your whippet-thin frame; and, yes, it's a foul so flagrant, so absurdly desperate, that all you can do, body buckling, is laugh. Hey, it's pickup. Everyone, even you, uses whatever he's got to win.

"Believe me," Barack Obama says, walking to the top of the key, "you can get shot for doing that."

He's not serious. I think. But he wants me off his back, and invoking jumpy Secret Service men is a wise ploy. With the race for the Democratic presidential nomination whisker-close, Obama can't afford to show up for some Dubuque meet-and-greet with a mysterious fat lip. His wife, Michelle, warned me, "Don't break his nose, give him a black eye or knock his teeth out. Or I'll have to come find you."

Actually, Michelle understands. She hails from a Chicago family that believes the game -- when you pass, when you call fouls, how you check the ball -- reveals character. Once her romance with Barack got serious, she pressed her brother, Craig Robinson, to conduct the acid test: Go play. Robinson tried to duck it; he had starred at Princeton, and Barack had been a benchwarmer for his Hawaiian high school team. "All I could think was, This guy's going to be terrible, and I have to report that back," says Robinson, who's now the coach at Brown. "And you can't fudge it, because if he turns out to be a jerk and you knew but didn't say it, you're in trouble."

Obama was confident but not cocky, unselfish but unafraid to shoot. On court he showed the same balance that has fueled his political rise; he could talk trash without seeming mean, compete feverishly without seeming angry. Yet few knew how central the sport -- "my first love," he calls it -- was to his self-image as a mixed-race child: How the greatest gift from his absent dad was a basketball, how playing gave him his closest white friends and a place where black skin wasn't a disadvantage. When a coach, a close friend, casually threw out the word n-----, Obama says, "It reminded me that race is complicated, that people are complicated, that you could have ugly strains even among people who were otherwise decent.... It does not necessarily mean they're bad people..."

read the rest of it here...

more pics from the "game" at si.com photo gallery...

more of "the point after"--the back page column that replaces rick reilly's "life of reilly"-- here.