livebooks blog

Rebecca Norris Webb, Havana, Cuba, 2007

Alex Webb, Havana, Cuba, 2001

MIKI JOHNSON: What initially drew you both to Cuba? It has been photographed so much already…did you try to approach it in a new way that you hadn’t seen before?

ALEX WEBB: Like many projects, this one began somewhat serendipitously. We certainly did not plan it. I first went in to Cuba 1993 for Life magazine, and Rebecca traveled there around the same time separately. We were both intrigued by the island, but somehow didn’t manage to return until 2000, when we visited together to teach a workshop.

Returning to the country inspired both of us, and we embarked on two separate projects: my exploration of the streets of Cuba and Rebecca’s discovery of unique and sometimes mysterious collections of animals there –– from tiny zoos and pigeon societies to hand-painted natural history displays and quirky personal menageries. It was only eight years later, in 2008, that we hit upon the notion of putting our two very distinct bodies of work together to create a multi-layered portrait of Cuba.

Alex Webb, Cienfuegos, Cuba, 2007

Rebecca Norris Webb, Havana, Cuba, 2008

MJ: How many trips to Cuba did you take while making photos for this book, and what places and parts of the culture were you specifically trying to capture?

AW: We made 11 trips to Cuba. Besides our first trips that we took separately, we made six trips together from 2000 to 2005 and then four long trips in 2007 and 2008, when I was fortunate enough to have a Guggenheim Fellowship to continue photographing the island. I initially called my project Esperando because in Spanish the term means both “waiting” and “hoping,” a title that starts to get at my impression of the streets of Cuba.

REBECCA NORRIS WEBB: I originally called my project Three Rooms after the following quote by a Habanero whom I met, a gentle and soft-spoken man who raises cockatiels, love birds, and parakeets: “I have three rooms in my house –– two are for my birds, and one is for my wife and me.”

For the past decade, I’ve been exploring the complicated relationship between people and the natural world. In the 25 cities I visited for my first book The Glass Between Us, I never witnessed anything quite like what I’ve seen on “the violet isle,” a little known nickname for Cuba inspired by the rich color of its soil. Nearly 700 miles across, Cuba is easily the largest island in the Caribbean and has its own endemic species, including the world’s smallest bat and the world’s smallest bird. Alex and I traveled nearly the entire length of the island in pursuit of our separate obsessions.

MJ: Why did it appeal to you to combine your two bodies of work into one book about Cuba? How are the images grouped in the book? More »

After two years of research by members Richard Anderson and Peter Krogh, ASMP announced the launch of its dpBestflow.org website at FotoWeekDC earlier this week. Shorthand for “Digital Photography Best Practices and Workflow,” the website, part of the three-tier project that includes a book and a traveling seminar series, aims to offer definitive guidelines for digital photography best practices and workflow.

Forbes Media announced yesterday that it has acquired digital magazine FlipGloss and its Digital Glossy Insert photo publishing platform. Launched about 8 months ago, FlipGloss combines search engine capabilities with the experience of flipping through photo content of a magazine, and users can click on objects in the photos to find out where to purchase an item or even be led to an advertiser’s website.

Wes Anderson’s new movie, Fantastic Mr. Fox, which opens in selected theaters today, is a stop-motion picture shot entirely using a Nikon D3 – over 600,000 stills that generate 18.5 terrabytes of data. According to movie review website IMDb, the beautifully art-directed adaptation of the Roald Dahl classic used Nikon D3 because it “offers a significantly higher resolution than even that of full High Definition.” Wired.com has a great “Making of” the movie here.

Google has cut the price for extra storage on its photo sharing site Picasa to about one eighth of what it used to cost. For $5 a year, now you can have 20GB photo storage on the site. “Since most people have less than 10GB of photos, chances are you can now save all your memories online for a year for the cost of a triple mocha,” according to the official Google Photos Blog.

Kodak’s new brand campaign named “It’s Time to Smile,” focuses on strengthening relationships by sharing important life moments, in pictures of course. Behind the happy message, though, is a not-so-cheery outlook. After thousands of layoffs and salary cuts earlier this year, the company reported yesterday its fourth quarterly loss in a row, PDN reported.

Jorge Colberg at Conscientious alerted us to an interesting interview with William Patry, senior copyright counsel at Google and author of a number of books on copyright law, including his recent Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars. The interview covers topics from the AP-Fairey lawsuit to the moral imperative of copyright.

Popular news site The Daily Beast, in partnership with Global Philanthropy Group, has launched a philanthropy and photography site, The Giving Beast. Be sure to check out the galleries, featuring works of Sarah Elliot, Elizabeth Gilbert, Suzy Allman and other note-worthy photographers.

Despite some questions about its longevity, the New York Photo Festival will launch its third year in 2010, as Andrew Hetherington reported this morning on What’s the Jackanory? Lou Reed will be one of the lead curators this year, but Andrew tips his hat to Erik Kessels, whose 2008 NYPH conversation with Martin Parr was a highlight. We’re stoked about photo thought leaders Vince Aletti and Fred Ritchin (check out this excerpt from Ritchin’s recent book, too).

I blame my friends who work at three-letter agencies for the United States government. They are the ones who invited me to the Black Hat Technical Security Conference in Las Vegas to drink, have a good time, and learn how completely ignorant I was about online security.

Today, I am a changed person. What I previously deemed to be adequate, if not savvy, security precautions for my quotidian web use, I learned was the same as leaving a full camera bag with the top flipped open on the front seat of my parked car. Sure, the doors are locked, but it would take only the slightest initiative and about six seconds for someone to break the window and walk away with tens of thousands of dollars in gear. I know what you’re thinking. You would never do that. Okay, then take the quiz below. If you answer yes to any of these questions, I’ve got news for you: You’re way more vulnerable than you think.

• Do any of your passwords contain a word that can be found in an English language dictionary or in a dictionary covering pop-culture references from the last 100 years?
• Do you ever close a web window that is signed into an account of some kind without logging out of the account first?
• Ever log in to your bank or credit card account without first checking if the lock symbol is active on your browser window?
• Ever log in to your bank account or 401(k) from a free WiFi access point?
• Ever open an email when you’re unsure where it came from?
• Ever log in to a secure site from a borrowed computer?

Why we are the way we are
In spite of the news stories that circulate daily about online security breaches, we are surprisingly apathetic about the threats they pose to us personally. It’s like backing up your computer — it’s a secondary concern until you’re hit with disaster. Then, suddenly, you’re a convert to the church of redundancy.

Unfortunately recovering from a security breach is nowhere near as easy as recovering from a lost hard drive. With the latter you at least have an idea of what you’ve lost. You can lament it over a glass of wine and move on with your life. A security breach places the control of your social, financial, and photographic life in the hands of someone else. And the ramifications will potentially haunt you long after the initial breach.

Consider the following. A friend of mine had a huge falling out with a close friend, who guessed her email password and sent an inflammatory email to her entire address book. Most of the recipients realized her email address book had been compromised, but those who didn’t know her well were shocked. Ultimately she was able to contact everyone and inform them what happened — but you can imagine how things could have gone worse.

My friend, like many of us, never thought twice about the weak password on her email account. The convenience of an easy-to-type, easy-to-remember password took priority over other considerations. She could not fathom anyone using her email account maliciously.

This is what gets us into trouble. We’re good people and have an inherent problem thinking like criminals. It’s hard for us to see our online assets through criminal eyes and predict how to protect ourselves.

Squatting
A while back I was uploading images to the FTP directory of my web site when I was hit with a disk space error. An examination of my FTP server revealed dozens of unidentified folders, most filled with illicit pornography. My head spun. Given the nature of the material, I contacted my internet service provider, filed an official support ticket, and had them remove the files in case there were any legal protocols involved. A hacker had broken my FTP directory password and was serving up an entire website from my FTP directories for months without my knowledge. Oh man, I was pissed.

Unfortunately there was no way to trace the hacker. Moreover, and frightening to consider, if the authorities had found the illegal site before I did, I could have been arrested. An investigation would have revealed I had been hacked, but who needs that kind of grief?

If you’re utilizing a portfolio service like liveBooks that is monitored by a professional IT staff, you’re safer, but only if your password is strong. Weak passwords are the easiest way for a hacker to access to your account. If you do get hacked, liveBooks keeps a backup of your online portfolio going back a week onsite, and going back a month at a secure offsite facility. Recovery usually takes an hour. But don’t depend on those protocols unless you absolutely have to. Adopting safe practices is a lot easier and less expensive.

Good habits
So here we are at the basic security primer for photographers, or anyone else who spends most of their time online. This is by no means a definitive list, but it will help you think more carefully about your online habits. The information here was gathered from Black Hat, Craig Butterworth at the National White Collar Crime Center, and Carl Slawinski from Agile Web Solutions.

NEW HABIT 1 — Free WiFi: Never, ever, ever log in to your bank account or credit card account when you’re on a free WiFi access point. The reason you have to use a password to access most WiFi networks, especially your own, is because that password encrypts the information floating through the air between your computer and the WiFi hub. If the network is open, so is the information your sending over it.

NEW HABIT 2 — Passwords: The days of passwords drawn from kid’s birthdays, dog names, and Star Wars characters are over. I have seen a brute-force attack crack a weak password in minutes. With today’s powerful computers and free cracking dictionaries and rainbow tables available online, hackers can let computers run for days while they sort out passwords.

One of the most effective ways to keep your passwords strong, like ox, is to invest in a product like the highly regraded 1Password from Agile Web Solutions. I have been using the product for years, but only after my discussion with folks who make 1Password did I take my security to the next level.

1Password generates strong passwords, which it stores for you. When you need the password, the application will enter it for you with an easy key stroke. The generated passwords are so convoluted that you’d never be able to remember them, but that’s the point. 1Password is also on the iPhone so you can take your passwords with you. The file that they use to store your passwords is heavily encrypted and would take a supercomputer 128 years to crack it. More »