Greetings Comrades from Moscow,

I’ve taken thousands of photos thus far on our journey, but I can only edit a handful every several days, so here’s just a few to get the ball rolling.

We finally escaped Latvian purgatory by making minor repairs to the Team Great Job! car and getting it reinspected, thus obtaining a crucial holographic sticker that some guard looked at for about two seconds at the Russian border.  The delay since our first failed border-crossing attempt had been two weeks.

After taking all night to cross the border and then driving all day without a good night’s sleep, we arrived in Moscow with our little yellow Nissan Micra.  Think of the most hectic freeway junctions in Los Angeles, stick them in the middle of one of the world’s largest city centers and then subtract eight hours of sleep before trying to imagine me at the wheel on Sunday afternoon, trying to find our hostel.  Russians don’t feel obligated to obey lane markers, which is too bad because in the heart of Moscow t

Will hasn’t had time to e-mail any photos or write a post, but he did manage to get quite a few shots up on the good ol’ flickr. Even though they are from earlier in the trek and not the Eastern European photos I eagerly await, they will do for now. Check them out here.

Sorry Will, I know one of the tenets of this blog is refusing to post something that is being done everywhere but this is infuriating.

A few weeks ago, photo manipulation in a Times magazine article called “The Second Gilded Age” was discovered by programmer Adam Gurno and proven in this little gif. Edgar Martins, the photographer, had apparently mirrored one side of the image, making the whole photo a bit more ascetically pleasing. Obviously outside the allowed color correction and levels, but the story was not impacted by the photographer’s generous photoshopping. The photos were redacted and NYT apologized. In the grand scheme of things, not a huge deal.

However, instead of stepping up and admitting fault, Martins unloaded this crock of shit on us. Citations in what should be a short apology? Really? I haven’t read the whole thing as it runs at 2600 words, more than triple the length of the article the photos accompanied.

A choice selection:
Symmetry helps to map the parameters of human existence

Perhaps I am a bit biased, living in New York and having been obsessed with the New York Times for the better part of my adult life but I am thrilled about the new photojournalism blog NYT started called Lens. I am hoping Lens provides a daily source of inspiration and another (paid?) outlet for photogs to display their work. The premiere post states:
The New York Times introduces Lens, a photojournalism blog that intends to present some of the most interesting visual and multimedia reporting: in photographs, videos, audio slide shows and any other medium that fits — our format.
Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?