October 17, 2009

EU-GENE! The 2009 W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography was given out on Wednesday to Chinese photographer Lu Guang. The multi-media feature on the increasingly captivating “Lens” section on the website of The New York Times certainly merits a long browse.

IR-VING! The giants continue to fall. Longtime picture editor and aesthete Greg Pond, on the Society of Publication Design’s website, has written a charming homage to the recently departed Irving Penn. “Mister Penn,” he observers. “You never heard anyone ever say 'Irving.' Names such as: Dick, Annie, Herb, Mario, Steven, Mary-Ellen, Bruce, and Helmut bounce off the walls at Condé Nast. But everyone called him Mister Penn.”

…And in other news, just when you thought it couldn’t get any stranger, the artist/fair-use-advocate/pilferer Shepard Fairey admits that he lied about which photograph he plagiarized when creating his Obama HOPE poster.

Fairey tales can come true...
It could happen to you...