When discussing what “makes” a great portrait with Exposure Compensation’s Miguel Garcia-Guzman, we quickly realized that we couldn’t really agree on much. So we figured we might as well ask some other people, and we sent out an email to a large number of photographers, fine art and commercial, bloggers, curators, editors, and gallerists: “What makes a good portrait? Could you provide us an example of a portrait that you really like - either from your or someone else’s work - and say why the portrait works so well for you?” to publish what we would get back on our blogs, as a collaborative effort to get a little bit closer to understanding the topic. Below is what we got back from those who managed to find the time to write something. Our thanks to everybody who contributed! (read more @ Jörg Colberg’s weblog)

After a quick Google search, I found out that this story is fiction. The way in which it was originally presented led me to believe that it was authentic. Click here to download the original PDF version of the story, written in 1987 by Thomas Lera. I will research the stories I post here more thoroughly in the future—this one was just so damn compelling!

Due to the overwhelming number of requests I have received to tell about my discoveries and bizarre experiences in a cave not far from my home, I have written the following story. All of these events happened to me during the past few months, beginning with my journey into a familiar cave in December 2000 and ending… well, it hasn’t actually ended yet.

I have included photographs that were taken during my many trips into the cave. I have also created a few illustrations to help the reader get a better idea of what things looked like in the cave. All of the photos were taken by me, or one of the few people I went into the cave with.

If you think these events sound far-fetched, I agree. I would come to the same conclusion had I not experienced them myself.

I will divide the text into two colors for the sake of clarity. The black text is taken directly from my caving journal - and the italicized green text is my comment as I reflect on the experience. I will do my best to convey the thoughts and feelings I had during the entire event. The actual names of the other individuals involved aren’t used. (more…)

Credit: Written by a member in IGN; Drawn by ONESOUND

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My second-grade teacher never liked me much, and one assignment I turned in annoyed her so extravagantly that the red pencil with which she scrawled “See me!” broke through the lined paper. Our class had been asked to write about a recent field trip, and, as was so often the case in those days, I had noticed the wrong things:

Well, we went to Boston, Massachusetts through the town of Warrenville, Connecticut on Route 44A. It was very pretty and there was a church that reminded me of pictures of Russia from our book that is published by Time-Life. We arrived in Boston at 9:17. At 11 we went on a big tour of Boston on Gray Line 43, made by the Superior Bus Company like School Bus Six, which goes down Hunting Lodge Road where Maria lives and then on to Separatist Road and then to South Eagleville before it comes to our school. We saw lots of good things like the Boston Massacre site. The tour ended at 1:05. Before I knew it we were going home. We went through Warrenville again but it was too dark to see much. A few days later it was Easter. We got a cuckoo clock. (read more @ The New Yorker)

One morning twenty years ago this month, I opened the front section of the Washington Post and read that my friend Stephen Peter Morin had been executed by the state of Texas for capital murder.

There are two reasons that that sentence, while accurate, felt awkward to write.

First reason: it has been a long time since I thought of Morin as a friend. He was a twisted, manipulative and malevolent person, and if I hate anyone in the world or out of it I hate him.

Second reason: I knew him as Ray Constantine.

But Morin was his real name, and for a number of months in 1981 I spent just about every day with him, generally enjoying his company.

“Ray Constantine” rode up to the front porch of my mother’s house on his bicycle one day to ask whether she knew of apartments he could rent. Her current partner is one of my favorite people in the world, but my mother had phenomenally, staggeringly bad judgment in men in those days: by that evening or the next, it seemed, he had moved in with her. (read more @ Creek Running North)