I Have A Problem With This

Today while procrastinating I saw a link on the Atlanta Journal Constitutions’s Twitter feed about a bleach fight at a Walmart. The story itself is on a news blog, ripped off from another news outlet’s story, but that seems to be the norm these days. Whatever.

Anyway, I got through about a sentence of the story before the minute little part of my brain who still gives a shit about ethics in the media started going nuts almost immediately. Take a look:

That’s a photo of a goat.

Not only is that a photo of a goat, THAT’S A PHOTO OF A GOAT FROM THE “PEOPLE OF WALMART” BLOG from August 2009. It’s even watermarked.

And then there’s the caption:

This farm animal wisely walked past the aisle containing chemicals and furious shoppers.

Um…. no it didn’t.

So, not only does this photo have absolutely nothing to do with the story and add nothing to the story, it’s ripped off another blog and the yet the caption would lead less detail-oriented readers to believe that it was taken at the same time as the bleach fighting incident.

I’m pretty sure over in Athens somewhere ol’ Captain Ethics Conrad Fink’s eyebrows exploded.

This might be acceptable from some crappy news blog on the internet somewhere or in a Fark comments thread, but not from a reputable news publication such as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

For shame, AJC.

Each Day We Work

A good friend of mine left her job at our old soul-sucking black pit of a newspaper yesterday after almost 10 years. Congrats, Heather. Life’s too short for that baloney. Enjoy the time with your son.

And as this a very special occasion, a very appropriate Kids in the Hall…

Why not try a little work? Maybe that will help the blackness.

And if you see any of our old comrades who still slave away at that place… Well, they know Lindy and Heather got out. Godspeed, gentlemen. Don’t let them eat you alive.

Ira Glass on Storytelling

He isn’t talking about photography and photojournalism in particular, but I think the idea here still applies.

Ira Glass on Storytelling from David Shiyang Liu on Vimeo.

Why Hello There

I’m back with the living! Or… the blogging. Something.

After lots of exciting things like everyone getting the stomach flu (kids are gross, btw), at least one of us having diarrhea at Wal-Mart, watching a shit ton of Mickey Mouse while lying near death on the couch, and somehow managing to un-attach my blog to my username and lock myself out and blah blah blah…. anyway. I’m back, and I know that last sentence wasn’t actually a sentence.

I’m only 2 weeks behind on work now, and my house no longer smells like any variety poop, which seems like a dang miracle in itself lately.

I’m telling y’all… it’s the little things in life.

So to celebrate not feeling like balls, we went and played outside. In between eating trash and dog turds and falling down the steps and wandering into the road, I managed to take a few pictures.

You know, since I’m a professional photographer and I haven’t taken any non-cellphone photos of my kid doing anything since right after his birthday. Which was in MAY.

If you’ve never really tried it, taking photos of small children (particularly the independent, adventurous ones) is like taking photos of dogs…

It looks like it’d be easy.

It should be easy.

But I have found that there is nothing easy about it, especially if they are your babies. If that’s the case, they’re going to ignore you when you don’t want them to, cling to you like a barnacle when you want them to ignore you,  and you will at some point have to stop what you’re doing to clean some form of slobber or snot off your lens.

And a good picture of your babies together… well shit, you can forget that.

Unless… I guess I could gaffer tape them together. That would probably work. Briefly. I’m telling you, there’s a million uses for that stuff. Or at least 5.

Old and Busted, Meet New Hotness

Old and Busted, meet New Hotness:

The newly re-designed Lindy Cordell Photography website is now live! Featuring MORE PHOTOS and BIGGER PHOTOS and a much more kickass design! And I hope is finally typo-free, with everything finally functioning properly.

*WHEW*

And now that that’s done, on to the 3220984 things to do on my list. Like add more content to the Lindy Cordell Photography Facebook page (which you should totally “like”, if for not other reason than to boost my ego). Or finally finish cleaning and organizing my office so we can renovate it (believe it or not, it’s almost ready). But first, time to go sneak in some cardio and then clean up the house so it no longer smells like a cross between diapers and dog farts. Nasty. This week is supposed to be my vacation, you know…

Crazy

I’m working on rebuilding and redesigning my website. It shouldn’t have taken this long, but turns out I’m not quite as organized as I thought, and and pulling source files for 100+ photos, reprocessing, resizing and reoptimizing, then getting them online, getting them in the right spot and getting captions and metadata and blah blah blah you don’t care. Anyway. It’s taking every bit of my extra time and sanity and IT’S ALMOST DONE.

And while digging through some stuff today, I found this photo of my dad:

Things I Also Found Photos Of:

• cat barf
• a flat tire on my truck
• a Drive-By Truckers concert
• my one-day-old son shooting me a bird
• your mom

Whatever. The fun personal photos mixed in between that have long been buried in the archives have been the best part of this entire, brain melting experience.

That being said, I’m never redesigning my website ever again. Ever.

I Got Some Sweet New Business Cards

So I got some sweet new business cards a while back, and I’ve been meaning to tell you guys about them, but I’ve been busy doing… uh… stuff. So anyway.

I’d never ordered from Moo.com before, and they are *ouch* a wee bit expensive, but based on what I’d seen from colleagues, what I knew I wanted and my research on other options, I decided to take a risk with the cost. (I think there might have been a sale too. I’ve already forgotten.)

So:

BAM!

It’s like a little walking porfolio! I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect, but after I unboxed my order… Well, if I had a penis, I’d totally have a boner for these business cards.

With Moo’s Printfinity printing, you can print a different photo or design on every single card on the pack. The cards are 16pt matte laminate and they both look and feel outstanding.

So, in my experience, here’s the truth about business cards: