San Diego-based photographer Tim Mantoani has finally put his years-long photographic project, Behind Photographs: Archiving Photographic Legends, into book form.

I asked Mantoani about the project a year ago this week, and it’s great to see that he didn’t run out of the gigantic, expensive Polaroid film he uses.

In my Q&A, I suggested that the project would be great to throw on Kickstarter.com. A year later, he’s used Kickstarter to raise almost $13,000 — with 17 days to go! Ergo, for planting the seed of that idea, I think I’m due a chunk of that change. Almost certainly. Maybe.

I love photos of photographers. I can’t wait till our library gets a copy!

I slept here for six months.

I’m going to miss the wallpaper in my old room. Who knows how long it had been since that yellowed pattern was banished from the rest of the house. Thirty years? Fifty? It covers one wall — the only wall — in an awkward space coming off a short dead-end hallway in the middle of the house I lived in for most of a year. Beaten back to this refuge, the wallpaper disappears behind two massive heating units. In front of it, someone crafted a creaky wooden platform. Foam pads cover it like sedimentary layers. This was my bed.

My roommate pointed out more than once how much “artist-cred” I got by living in a closet. But it didn’t feel small. It had all sorts of hidden space that made it easy — nooks and crannies on the exposed wall beams to store things, room for large boxes underneath the platform. And a short hallway served as my office and doubled the size of my living quarters. I could edit for hours without any true sense of time or weather. It felt a lot like living in the analog darkroom I used as a student. I did relish in giving the brief tour to guests. I would lie down on my bed to prove I could fit.

Almost two months ago, I left San Diego. The morning I moved out, I stopped halfway through pulling my shirts off the rack to photograph my room while it still looked occupied. My green dress shirt hung exposed. It was my go-to shirt for high society assignments. Those gigs amounted to rent — closet money. It wasn’t my nicest shirt, but it was dark enough to not bring attention to myself while I photographed. And I could wear it straight out of the dryer without the wrinkles being unbearable. I don’t own an iron.

Unlike the metaphorical closet, mine was liberating. Living there let me keep doing what I love in one of California’s most expensive neighborhoods. But it is a chapter I don’t plan to revisit. And I think the day I moved in was the day I resolved to bring my craft to a level where my frugality was more of a hobby and less of a necessity. Hence my move to Ohio, land of plenty, where roughly the same rent affords me a room with a window. Granted, I’m swimming less, but I’m taking plenty of photos.

President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama wait backstage before being introduced at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner in Washington, D.C., April 30, 2011. Press Lead Advance Brandon Lepow and Trip Director Marvin Nicholson, right, stand with the President and First Lady. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

Why doesn’t the White House press office release more photos?

Take the assassination of Osama Bin Laden, for example. In the photo immediately preceding that sequence, Obama is a tuxedoed man-about-town. In the next, he is schooling National Security Advisor Tom Donilon. One more photo and Bin Laden is dead. The White House Flickr photostream makes President Obama look like James Bond.

President Barack Obama makes a point during one in a series of meetings in the Situation Room of the White House discussing the mission against Osama bin Laden, May 1, 2011. National Security Advisor Tom Donilon is pictured at right. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

If we saw more images from within the White House that day, would that photo from the situation room still be the defining image of the mission that killed Osama Bin Laden? Would a real journalist take the same photo?

In an excellent piece on NY Times’ Lens Blog recently, Stephen Crowley calls the White House press office “nervous, distrustful and risk-averse” and cautions new organizations to maintain a distinction between photojournalism and carefully controlled visuals.

“The media will not survive without investing in journalism. And democracy cannot function properly if we settle for the scripted performance — or if we grow unable to distinguish the scripted from the real.”

He also mentions the sentiment of his colleague, photographer Ken Jarecke, that the public is entitled to each and every photo frame out of White House photographer Pete Souza’s camera.

That is not likely to happen any time soon, but what if instead of 7 photos a day (that was the number released from May 1, the day Bin Laden was killed), we got 70? Is that too much to ask for? Granted, security is an issue. But is that why more photos aren’t seen?

Editing is a powerful tool for narrative, and naturally the White House doesn’t want to cede that power. The more images it shows, the more the public has the ability to curate their own experience of our government at its highest level.

When Souza accepted the gig as White House photographer in early 2009, he wanted to make clear what his role within the administration would be.

“My discussions with the transition team were mostly about making sure the function of the White House photography office would be to visually document the presidency for the sake of history. That was important to me and to them.”

In practice, however, the public receives a carefully controlled selection of images on a daily basis. Inevitably, the photos released are chosen for their immediate impact (usually countered by sharp analysis on BagNewsNotes.com) in the news cycle, and not their historical value. In this way, White House photography is going beyond preserving history by steering the collective memory toward the icons of its choosing.

Maybe years from now, or hopefully sooner, the White House will release a wealth of photos for a larger picture of the presidency. This is the only way  we can examine deeper and richer narratives outside of the single, immediate and self-serving one cultivated by the White House press office.

Gerda Taro

vs Geran Tomasevic

but its really the hats that brought it home for me. I can’t believe this fashion has stood the test of time.

Also, America interceded on the behalf of the Loyalist troops. The Abraham Lincoln Brigade made up of volunteers stayed to the bitter end.

Here is our contribution this time.

Before Lynsey Addario and Tyler Hicks had to leave (ie kidnapped and then saved by Turkey and their NYT credentials), they were doing very classic looking war photography.

Addario

Hicks.

Again, the hats. Needless to say, hopefully these rebels do better than the Loyalists.

ICP has an exhibit I still need to go see about recently discovered photos from the Spanish Civil War by Robert Capa, Gerda Taro and Chim Seymour. There is a photo slide show at Slate and interesting read at The Nation on what went down to track down the shots.

My favorite photos to come out of Libya so far has been NPR’s selection of portraits. Onward!

I’ve been working on this article for the last three months, on and off. Off for grad school apps and off because no remix video was going viral that would make this “newsy” enough. Then, the auto-tune lovin’ Gregory Brothers released a “songified” version of the State of the Union and voila! I had about 12 hours from interviewing Evan Gregory from the group to having to send the piece into my editor. A bit nerve-wracking since I haven’t written anything since July but it went exceptional well. Want a primer on remix culture on the web? Go read my article at the Daily Beast the, why don’t you?

Maria Ayala and her daughters squeezed a second shoot in with San Diego photographer John Salgado during Help-Portrait, Dec. 4, 2010.

Recent months have seen a ramping up of my writing activities, something I’m happy to see joining my photos in various outlets, or even standing on its own. I’ve been both a regular blogger for the San Diego Union-Tribune’s Sketchbook arts blog and written about Help-Portrait for VoiceofSanDiego.org’s Behind the Scene arts blog. I also recently wrote and photographed a news article for the La Jolla Light about that community’s latest mural.

What’s cool about my series for the Union-Tribune is that each week I ask a local photographer a few questions about their work, and in every instance they’ve provided thoughtful answers that have increased my knowledge of the medium.

It’s a great exercise, so I suggest you give it a try. All you need is a blog — and it doesn’t even have to be your own. Worried your favorite photographer won’t think it’s worthwhile? Make a deal with them. Ask them to post their answers for you on their own blog if you don’t have one.

I ask questions that speak to my own curiosity — ones that I would like answered even if I wasn’t sharing these photographers’ words with anyone else. It seems to have worked out so far. Here’s one of my favorite pieces, with San Diego photographer Noah Doely, who works with glass plate photography.

Here is a photo of the photo being used.

Now, lets talk about what is absolutely apparent just looking at this photo: It is not a good candidate for this particular bus-side advertisement. The swimmer is lost in the striated areas of the windows, pretty much negating the whole aesthetic. Paying a photographer to shoot a photo with these limitations in mind would have almost certainly produced something better.

What is less apparent is the money behind this transaction. I have heard from a knowledgeable source that Getty sold it for 40,000 dollars. The same source estimated the photographer made 15% of that. So while this flickr user is PUMPED that he just made 6,000 dollars and has a big ass ad with his photo on it, he is getting shortchanged. Sure, landing something like that might usually take a photo agency championing you and your work. But photo reps typically take about half of a commission, so even with that he is still short 14,000 dollars.

This is the world photographers live in now, where talented, but hobbyist, photographers are poaching work that five years ago would have been unheard of. Get used to it, kiddies. Diversifying and producing OUTSTANDING multimedia content is the only way you’re gonna swim – no pun intended.

A residential sewage leak has gone unrepaired in the Bronx neighborhood of Riverdale for nearly two years. I spent time with Ryan Degnan (pictured), who has lived above the leak since January. I was on a trial assignment for a job interview with the Riverdale Press.

Resume advice from an unemployed Journalist:

In between cashier shifts at the Whole Foods Market in TriBeCa—alongside artists trying to get by in a city full of art—I am trying to be a journalist in a city known for news.

It was beginning to feel like the watershed of New York City bound resumes and cover letters I was sending out were evaporating somewhere in cyberspace before reaching their destination, until one particular cover letter—sent to the Bronx-based Riverdale Press regarding an associate editor and political reporter position—got me a callback. The cover letter was gold. When I had finished writing I looked up at my similarly job-hungry roommate and said, “This is the one. Best cover letter ever.”

While the cover letter was perfect, my fudged resume eventually had consequences.

The interview (less than a week after my application) couldn’t have gone better—we spent an hour chatting and it consisted mostly of praise for my unique fit to the job—my online work, political reporting and time as feature editor of the UC San Diego Guardian. The whole time I was thinking, “How do they not realize how under-qualified I am?”

Let me qualify that: I am fit for the job, but on paper I lack “practical experience.”

I went from an award-winning student newspaper (though it will always be just a student paper to employers) to a local freelance job at San Diego Uptown News. I wrote often (Uptown News had no in-house writers) and was consistently alongside the editors’ bylines on the front page—usually with few edits (though I should thank my ex for her editorial input).

At Uptown News I was a general assignment reporter with a salary equal to a 15-year-old’s weekly allowance. But the distinction between freelance reporter and general assignment reporter drastically changes a resume.

It’s a bit like changing the UC San Diego Guardian into the San Diego Guardian.

Sounds a lot better now that it’s not a student paper doesn’t it? But that wouldn’t work on a resume.

Well, turns out my lack of distinction between a busy, underpaid freelancer and a semi-busy, way underpaid general assignment reporter was exactly what got me the interview at Riverdale Press. And the failure to clarify at the interview led to me traipsing through sewage during a “dry-run” reporting stint in Riverdale.

The day my article ran, the Riverdale Press editor called. It was already 3 p.m. and she didn’t want to keep me waiting, but if my references had good things to say—she was waiting for call backs—we would move forward. I decided a congratulations nap was in order.

My references had only good things to say.

Four hours later I woke up to a phone call. I lacked “practical experience” and somehow in the matter of four hours I had gone from perfect for the job to saddled with “a learning-curve” that would keep me from “diving right in to the job” without considerable training.

Too drowsy and shocked, I gave the phone equivalent of a nod, “yeah,” “yeah,” “ok,” and hung up.

The next day, with the words, “we haven’t found anyone yet, I wish it would have worked out” resounding in my head, I called the editor back. She wanted to talk in private, if I could call her cell phone.

To the chase. A freelancer is not a general assignment reporter.

She said I should change my resume, that while it wasn’t an intentional lie, it’s inaccurate and that I would not have been interviewed with my “lack of newsroom experience.” The Guardian is just a college paper.

Despite it all, I am freelancing for the Riverdale Press. My second article in as many issues (it’s a weekly) just went to print. And the photo editor hired me as well. I guess I’m a photographer—a hack of sorts—in the Bronx.

So here’s the lesson that took me so long to get to: If you want to get an interview, fudge your resume—no one is going to call you otherwise.

Also, apply for jobs that you have no business applying for.

My first article, and my first photo assignment.

For some actually helpful advice, see this handy job blog, “A Cover Letter is Not Expendable,” from the New York Times.

Honey Pie from California is a place. on Vimeo.

I know my fair share about Real Dolls, having once written an article about sex dolls. I put it on my website, thinking it would make a fine portfolio piece. That I could send a link to editors, who might like it and lavish me with assignments.

I am not sure editors are the ones seeing it.

Now 6 of the top ten search terms that bring people to my site are related to sex dolls. It appears these searchers are doing some comparative researching before making the plunge into a 6k+ investment. I hope they find my article informative in their decision making. I also hope some of them might be editors who can appreciate some good writing when they see it.

Judy Schaim, co-chair of San Diego Pride, shared her perspective on the Proposition 8 debacle with writer David Harvey. File photo by Will Parson

On Wednesday, August 4, I got a call from Todd Gloria, San Diego District 3 Councilmember, around 1:30 in the afternoon. Judge Vaughn Walker had just overturned Proposition 8—California’s ban on same-sex marriage—and I had missed it.

“Do you want me to call you back in a few minutes? Maybe you need some time to digest this,” he said, laughing.

I muttered something about expecting the results and asked him if he was surprised by the verdict. I asked him what he expected next and about the rulings significance and then I realized I was writing the same story as a thousand other reporters.

I recalled a recent blog from Columbia Journalism Review on localizing a story, and I wished I had been prepared.

In the end, I found a stock question, “What should San Diegans do while awaiting an appeal?” and I ran with it. I asked 14 or 15 community leaders that question, and I used it to shape my story.

But it also forced me to leave out some really great details that didn’t fit my theme.

So while I was doing my best to localize a story, to make it relevant to my readers and to come up with a message, I also found that I was losing some of the best parts.

Too often I find that no matter how I try to shape a story, or what I want to include, it forms organically and something good gets lost in the mix.

Judi Schaim, co-chair of San Diego Pride told me that she didn’t get married the first time around, because she didn’t want her marriage to be taken away over politics.

She also told me this: “I’m 66 years old and in my lifetime I never thought I would see that same sex couples could marry so for me to see a flashback of history and to realize this is actually happening, it’s unbelievable, it’s awesome, it’s a dream come true. And it means that maybe I’ll be able to marry.”

She didn’t make the final cut.

And neither did Rev. Canon Albert Ogle of St. Paul’s Cathedral and Equality California—whom I didn’t ask my topical question. He spoke at the Day of Decision Rally in the LGBT Center in Hillcrest, and my very brief interview with him afterward was interesting enough—and not for his charmingly subtle Irish accent and clerical collar—that I wrote this post on Meridian so I could share it:

*****

David Harvey: You discussed winning over the religious community, families and others that supported proposition 8 with this decision and by moving forward, can you speak a little more to that?

Albert Ogle: “I think the coming out process is a conversion process, we’re first of all converted, but we’re gay and we have to deal with that, then our families are converted, they often don’t get there in a weekend but it takes time.”

In many ways I look at my experience as being, you bring about societal transformation and institutional transformation by doing those kind of one on ones, then all the sudden there’s a tipping point.”

I think we [the gay community] actually have much more in common with the religious right for making marriages work and showing that we are not actually a threat to marriage.”

I’ve had a couple of debates with the yes on 8 people and in some ways we use the same marriage preparation work and they were kind of surprised that we were doing 40 hours of premarital counseling with couples. We’re not a threat to marriage and if we start engaging in those sort of conversations we move forward.”

DH: When Prop 8 was being debated, in some cases it drew people away from the religious community. Do you think the overturning of Prop 8 can help rebridge that divide?

AO: “I think the judges decision is going to be helpful to some people who may be in the middle, because what he’s done is really looked at the facts. And we’re now separating what people hold as their beliefs. There are some people that believe the earth was created in 5 days and it’s 6,000 years old and most of us when we look at science we don’t believe that and they’re entitled to their beliefs, but are we enforcing that onto all our school to teach that, no. The same thing applies, people are entitled to their religious beliefs, but they have no right to impose them or make them the law of the land.”

The decision was also a victory for democracy over theocracy and this country has teetered on that—especially during the Bush years—where the separation of church and state is not clear. Here in California you have religious people who were forcing their views on everybody and Judge Vaughn Walker’s position was clear that as a democracy we can’t do that.”

Globally, we’re dealing with fundamentalism, we’re dealing with it in Christianity, were dealing with it in Islam, and in Judaism and one manifestation of that was the work we had to do to fight Prop 8.”

I’m going to Uganda later this year, and talk about a number the Christian right has done on a country, where they’re going to send gays to jail for life and possibly put them to death. The same people who are creating prop 8 are creating the laws in Uganda. I see this not only as a local concern, but this is happening all over the world and we have to fight it.”

DH: What do you think is the best weapon in that fight?

AO: Education.

People need to learn that there are different ways of interpreting. Some of us have a very different view of what we call the difficult texts. There are texts in the bible that condone violence and slavery, the oppression of women as well as the oppression of gays. As religious leaders we have to talk about those and explain these things. In Africa, for example, the seminaries do not teach human sexuality so they’ve never heard of Alfred Kinsey, they’ve never heard of Stonewall. They have no idea what we’re talking about when we talk about gay stuff. So if the religious right is going in with lies and misinformation, there is nothing to counter it with.”

There’s a lot of work to do still.”

******

You can read the Canon’s Day of Decision speech online, for more great wisdom on the balance of faith and equality, as well as his figures that help to dispel the myth that the courts are acting out of tune with public opinion.

Read the Judge’s decision, along with his decision not to stay the original repeal of Prop 8 past Aug 18th, here.

And of course, my article is available in an updated print version online.