Economic Downturn

"The economic downturn, which started in the handful of states where the housing market was in the worst shape, is spreading to almost every corner of the country and to a wide variety of industries, according to a Federal Reserve report released yesterday.

The trouble is showing up in such disparate ways as weaker demand for staffing services in New England, lower trucking volume in Ohio and surrounding states, and a resistance to spending money on capital projects by financial institutions on the West Coast.

That assessment is based on the "beige book," a compilation of anecdotes from businesses around the country gathered by the Fed's 12 regional banks. The previous report, in the middle of January, found signs of weakness in certain states and industries but described a U.S. economy that was generally holding up."

Economic Downturn Expands Countrywide
By Neil Irwin
Thursday, March 6, 2008
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/05/AR2008030501053.html

The economic downturn and the media's reporting on it are key to my current work. This is one of the few media articles I could find that did not try to lay blame on any political party or person. It seems to be reporting the facts in numbers and quoting actual economists. I think the media should be focused on these numbers, as they affect us all. However a majority of media outlets seem to focus on assigning blame and making it seem worse than it is. It is a free market, as long as the fed's keep out. A free market must have fluctuations up and down, but downturns are only lengthened by government intervention. Another recent article was released citing the New Deal and how it prolonged the Great Depression for 7 years longer than it should have lasted.


Slideshow available here

Bret Culp

Artist Statement:

"Roots creep over rock searching for refuge and nourishment, neglected bricks and mortar crumble under the elements and return to the earth, a mountain is slowly devoured by the sea forming a precipice ? these are photographs of matter governed by time chosen to illustrate the relentless determination of nature, the beauty in impermanence, and the eternal cycle of creation out of destruction.

The medium and techniques that I work with are chosen to strengthen the sensory aspects of the photograph in order for the viewer to feel more directly connected to the world within it. I believe that the authenticity of the final image should not be based on how loyal it is to reality but how well it conveys its message.

I have a natural inclination toward black and white photography as its inherent qualities of abstraction grant it the power to intensify the emotional impact of a place while leaving space for mystery. It?s in the shadows that you find the true nature of the subject. Grain is one of the creative tools that I like to employ to further my expression, like a painter?s brushstrokes. I particularly like the additional level of atmosphere that grain can bring to a photograph when artfully used.

I primarily use medium format, as there is a nice balance between being able to push abundant grain out of the film and retaining a high level of detail. Prints are made using pigment on cold pressed archival cotton rag producing an extraordinarily rich tonal quality, excellent sharpness and archival permanence."



Bio

Leonardo Gallery

www.bretculp.com

Socialism

"In this post-Communist era when even "liberal" has become a dirty word, the effort to create a more humane society will not be revived without explicit demands long associated with socialism. Social movements for environmental protection, women's rights and racial equality sooner or later run up against the institutional constraints imposed by capitalism. Then they discover that they can't achieve their goals without becoming anticapitalist. What will individuals and groups demanding equality, democracy, respect for the environment and freedom from the market call themselves as they try to coalesce around increasingly global demands and on behalf of increasingly global alternatives? We need not be timid about naming this "socialism." What else is it? What a new progressive movement needs can be simply stated: more socialism. "


The Left Needs More Socialism
April 1, 2006 Ronald Aronson
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060417/aronson

I think this article from 2006 is appropriate in todays world. We have now had the majority of the US vote for socialism. We have had a major political party run on the platform of taking money from the rich and making everyone equal and win. We have voted against personal responsibility and drive to make ones life better, and instead would choose to take the money from the people who have had that drive in the past and been successful at it. It doesn't matter that no one in the middle class will benefit from hurting the people that sign their paychecks. It only matters that the rich feel as miserable as everyone else. The amazing thing to me, is that they ran on this platform. It wasn't some attempt to pull the wool over our eyes and lie about what the left actually believes in. They ran on it, and we voted for it. I just hope we get what we asked for.

David Hume Kennerly

"
David Hume Kennerly
Photo Credit: Karen Ballard

David Hume Kennerly has been photographing history for four decades. Contributing Editor for Newsweek Magazine, Kennerly continues to travel the globe to produce insightful images of important historic events.

His career began in Roseburg, Oregon, where he published his first picture in the high school paper when he was just 15 years old. His first official photographer jobs--as a staff photographer for the Oregon Journal and then the Portland Oregonian--led him in to a position with United Press International (UPI).

Kennerly won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography in 1972 for his remarkable photographs of the Vietnam war. After the war, Kennerly returned to the United States for Time Magazine, and in mid-1973 and threw himself into the domestic battles then raging in Washington. After Richard Nixon resigned, Kennerly was on the South Lawn of the White House as the soon-to-be ex-President departed. His historic photo of Nixon’s wave goodbye, taken when Kennerly was just 27 years old, is one of the dozens of his images that have helped define American photojournalism.

Nixon’s successor, President Gerald Ford, asked Kennerly to serve as his White House Photographer, a role that resulted in some of the most personal political pictures of his career. During Ford’s tenure, Kennerly photographed world leaders including Emperor Hirohito in Japan, Leonid Brezhnev in the USSR, Franco in Spain, Ceausescu in Romania, Marcos in the Philippines, Tito in Yugoslavia, Suharto in Indonesia, Deng Xiao Ping in the People’s Republic of China, and Queen Elizabeth during the bicentennial celebration at the White House.

When the Ford Presidency ended, Time swiftly called the 29-year-old Kennerly back to action, sending him to photograph Fidel Castro in Cuba, President Anwar Sadat in Egypt, and the horrors of Jonestown in Guyana, among many other assignments. He went on to major projects for Newsweek, LIFE, ABC Good Morning America Sunday, and George Magazine. Kennerly has photographed more than 35 covers for Time and Newsweek, covered assignments in more than 130 countries, and counts more than one million images in his photographic archive.

Kennerly serves as National Program Chair for Washington Mutual’s forward-thinking “Home of the Free™ Student Photojournalism Project”. Home of the Free gives 7th- and 8th -grade students the opportunity to learn how photography is used in news reporting about government, while creating photos of public servants in their own communities.

In the year 2000, Kennerly traveled more than 250,000 miles to 38 states and seven countries for his fourth book, Photo du Jour: A Picture-A-Day Journey through the First Year of the New Millennium, published in October 2002 by the University of Texas Press. A companion exhibition of fine art prints from Photo du Jour appeared at the Smithsonian Institution’s Arts and Industries Building from October 1, 2002-December 29, 2002, and at the Houston Center for Photography April 30 – June 12, 2004."



Review of David Kennerly

No current galleries, however past galleries include:
USC
Modernbook Gallery

www.kennerly.com

Liberal Media

"Those who still doubt the press needs fresh, preferably conservative, blood, should consider these numbers: In 1999, 12 percent of journalists said fairness and balance were a big problem for the media. Now, in the Pew survey, only 5 percent say so--this, after further proof of liberal dominance and noisy debates about liberal bias. And in 1999, 11 percent said ethics and standards were a major concern. But after high-visibility scandals involving fabricated stories and controversies about plagiarism, only 5 percent agree today. The case for ideological realignment of the media is closed."

Liberal Media Evidence, 5/28/2004
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/143lkblo.asp?pg=1

I've been debating how I am going to get any helpful critique advice atleast on the concept of my work in this class. When I first began exploring this topic, all I saw was a divide between what I continued to see in the Media and what I passed every day when driving around. The media continues to try to convince us that the world is crumbling and we will all be living on the streets tomorrow, however there is a new BB&T branch that just opened on Staples Mill, investors are stepping in and buying up troubled property in huge numbers with new construction going up in Short Pump, and the price of gas is back to $2 a gallon with SUV's still on the lots of the expensive real estate along Broad street.

However during my critique, all I could here on the content was more of the media's side. I didn't think of it as a political topic until they started bringing up what they think as the reason's for the current economic slowdown. The class refered to "the last 8 years" and "yadda yadda failed politics". Without getting into it too much, the current slowdown is obviously caused by banks being forced to hand out high risk loans to unqualified candidates. The government began forcing the banks to do this during the Carter administration with the "Community Reinvestment Act", which was dramatically stepped up during the Clinton administration. The loans that are failing today are failing because the Arm payments are beginning to increase. Meaning they were written 5-10 years ago. Either during the Clinton years or in the first few years of the Bush Administration. Bottom line this is not some new problem that came about from some failed policy in the last 8 years. Either way it is interesting how political I see my prints after the critique.

Michael Kenna

Biography

British, b. 1953

Michael Kenna was born in Widnes, England in 1953. As one of 5 children born to a working class Irish-Catholic family, he initially aspired to enter the priesthood but his passion for the arts led him to The Banbury School of Art where he studied painting and then photography. Later he attended The London College of Printing and began working as a photographer and artist. He moved to San Francisco in 1977 where he was astounded by the number of galleries the city housed which allowed artists to showcase and sell their work. San Francisco has remained his home ever since.

Michael Kenna's work has often been described as enigmatic, graceful and hauntingly beautiful much like the Japanese landscape. Kenna first visited Japan in 1987 for a one-person exhibition and was utterly seduced by the country's terrain. Over the years he has traveled throughout almost the entire country constantly taking photographs. From these many treks the book Japan, featuring 95 of these photographs, was conceived.

The simplicity and clarity of Kenna's Japan alludes to rather than describes his subject allowing the viewer to have a completely unique and tailored interpretation. He has described this body of work as, "more like a haiku rather than a prose"; his work being like photographs written in short poem form. Kenna's photographs are often made at dawn or in the dark hours of night with exposures up to 10 hours. Kenna has said "you can't always see what's otherwise noticeable during the day… with long exposures you can photograph what the human eye is incapable to seeing".

Michael Kenna's prints have been shown in numerous exhibitions throughout the world with permanent collections in the Bibliotheque, Paris; The Museum of Decorative Arts, Prague; The National Gallery of Art, Washington DC; and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Kenna has also done a great deal of commercial work for such clients as Volvo, Rolls Royce, Audi, Sprint, Dom Perignon and The Spanish Tourist Board. Japan is one of 18 books of Kenna's photography to have been published to date.

Interview

Gallery



Website

Bailout Bill

"In times past, national debt typically was run up by borrowing money from private lenders and spent on goods and services. The tendency was to absorb loanable funds and bid up interest rates on the one hand, while spending led to inflationary price increases for goods and services. But the present giveaway is different. Instead of money being borrowed or spent, interest-yielding bonds are simply being printed and turned over to the banks and other financial institutions. The hope is that they will lend out more credit (which will become more debt on the part of their customers), lowering interest rates while the money is used to bid up asset prices ­ real estate, stocks and bonds. Little commodity price inflation is expected from this behavior."

Parsing Mr. Paulson’s Bailout Speech: The Unprecedented Giveaway of Financial Wealth
www.globalresearch.ca October 18, 2008

This printing of money in an attempt to fix a problem that was created by a socialistic government forcing the banks to make high risk loans has been very interesting to watch. Now that the government is actually buying voting shares worth of stock in the largest banks and we are moving toward a centralized government controlled socialist banking model, it will create even less diversity and competition in the market which should have an equally interesting affect on the market that I trade. The media's perception in thinking this will fix the problem and trying to persuade the public that these measures will stop the downturn has been overwhelming. I hope to capture some of that.