I made new Fotos in the last couple of weeks – please tell me when you like them:
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Claudia Schiffer has been attacked for offending black people after posing on a magazine cover made up as a black woman. The 39-year-old German supermodel wore black foundation and an afro-style wig in the photograph taken by fashion designer and photographer Karl Lagerfeld.
Lagerfeld had Schiffer made up as a black women in one of six photographs he took while putting together an advertising campaign for the vintage champagne Dom Perignon. The photos were published by German fashion magazine Stern Fotografie when it celebrated its 60th anniversary.
Accusations against Schiffer and Lagerfeld followed from Shevelle Rhule, the fashion editor of a London black lifestyle magazine, Pride. Ms Rhule said:
“It shows poor taste and it's offensive. There are not enough women of colour featured in mainstream magazines. This just suggests you can counteract the problem by using white models. I don't believe they deliberately set out to offend. They obviously see it as being arty and feel that they are pushing boundaries. But clearly no thought has been given to the history behind what they have done and the comparisons it draws with minstrel shows.”
To which I would reply: 'Shevelle, lighten up'. Her comment is the kind that perpetuates raw nerves about race and creates a path of spikey eggshells for people, black and white, to walk on. Society doesn't need race relations zealots, quangocrats or Pride fashion editors lecturing designers (or filmmakers or writers or rap singers…) on what they can or can't do. It's small-minded. Already an online magazine has responded to the photos with conformist knee-jerk political correctness by saying one of the other photos, of Schiffer as an Asian, is “just wrong”, scolding that Lagerfeld should have used more than one model in the interests of racial diversity.
Fashion, like fiction and film and other creative industries, should be free to play with any images it chooses. Did Ms Rhule also take offence at white French actor Gerard Depardieu recently playing mixed-race Alexander Dumas (using black make-up)? Or Eddie Murphy impersonating a white (jewish) person? Or black British actor Adrian Lester who played the white Danish prince, Hamlet? Or the black actor, David Oyelowo, who played white English king Henry VI?
Would she criticise images of Bob Dylan or the Rolling Stones dressed up as women? How about pantomime dames, women actors dressed as men, Eddie Izzard in frock and lipstick, comedians pretending to be children…?
As soon as you get into determining whether blacks can play whites and women can play men but not the other way round, you're proscribing the creative process and engaging in censorship. Clamping down on the arts in that way (even commercial arts like advertising) is as restricting as squashing free speech.
As for Rhule's comment that Lagerfeld and Schiffer were suggesting the photograph of a 'black' Schiffer would substitute for using black models in mainstream magazines – that's just plain foolish. Rhule then seems to have chucked minstrels into the discussion just for shock value.
In fact the photo was one of a series of six in which Lagerfeld was playing with Schiffer's image. Another showed her as a secretary, a third as an Asian woman. In a fourth she was dressed and made up as eighteenth century French queen, Marie Antoinette and in a fifth she was androgynous. The fashion shoot theme was fantasy and imagination. Lagerfeld wanted to play with Schiffer's face and Shiffer's image. He didn't want to use other models. He wasn't trying to portraying racial diversity – he was portraying imaginary Claudia Schiffers. And has every right to.
A spokesman for Lagerfeld responded to Rhule's criticism, saying she was taking them out of context: “The images were designed to reflect different men's fantasies. The pictures were not intended to offend, they were done very creatively and are some of Karl Lagerfeld's favourite images of Claudia. People should not jump to conclusions.”
Yet there are many people with vested interests in Britain and other liberal democracies who make a good living from jumping to conclusions and playing the race card in cases which can only trivialise genuine instances of racism. Political correctness about race and ethnicity has battened onto society like a barnacle on a boat. It would be a democratic step forward if those who have a professional interest in taking offence at 'racism' and other -isms would pick their battles more wisely.
It would also be good if the race relations industry ditched the term “people of colour”. What is it supposed to indicate?! What colour? Black? Dark brown? Sienna? All those and more? Does it imply that white people – with their variously pink, peachy, creamy, olive-toned, ugly red, bluey-white, brown or orangey skin – have no colour? Why aren't whites called “people of non-colour” then? Or “people of no-colour”?
Black and white are just words. They're quick and easy terms to use for those who want or need to indicate skin colour and they're neutral. People (like Ms Rhule perhaps) who want to take offence at one (and not the other) always will. But they're misguided. Countering racism is always worth doing. But cranking up and maintaining raw nerves unnecessarily does no-one any good. It just increases division between black and white and injects a zealous, scolding tone into debate which would benefit from more freedom, less 'sensitivity' and – in a case like the Schiffer/Lagerfeld photos – a bit of playfulness.
Pandigital Personal Photo Scanner/Converter Digitizes Images up to 8 ½ x 11-inches, Making Them Easy to Share and Enjoy
New scanner features one-touch scanning and fast transfer for immediate enjoyment
Dublin, Calif., July 12, 2010 – Pandigital announced today that it has expanded its line of innovative photo scanners with a new model – the Pandigital Personal Photo Scanner/Converter – that can scan print photos up to 8 ½ x 11-inches large.
Incredibly simple to use, the Pandigital Personal Photo Scanner/Converter requires no PC to convert print photos into digital images. Consumers can simply plug it in, insert their photo through the slim device, and, with a single touch of a button, scan photos onto the included SD card. Consumers can then insert the SD card loaded with full-color JPEG images into their computer to upload the photos or insert the card into their Pandigital digital photo frame to immediately view the images.
While the Pandigital Personal Photo Scanner/Converter (PANSCN06) can accommodate photos up to 8 ½ x 11-inches large, it can also scan in photos as small as wallet-sized or any size in-between.
“Consumers everywhere have photos that they want to preserve for future generations,” said Dean Finnegan, CEO and founder, Pandigital. “The new Pandigital Personal Photo Scanner/Converter lets families easily archive precious moments and milestones such as weddings, yearly school photos, and sporting events are often captured as large 8 x 10-inch prints.”
Pandigital's award-winning line of scanners have been acclaimed for their ease-of-use and excellent performance. The scanner does not require any expensive or confusing software and employs a new twin-roller feeding system to ensure that the photos are scanned evenly each time. Further optimizing the quality, images are scanned at up to 600 optical dpi for resulting scans that have a crisp and clear 3800×7200 24-bit color depth resolution. In addition to being able to scan images onto the included SD memory card, the scanner accepts other popular memory cards (SD, MS, MS Pro, MMS, XD) and can also be connected directly to either a Mac or PC computer via its mini-USB port.
Weighing in at less than a pound at only 13.79 ounces and measuring only 10.59(L) x 1.73(H) x 2.32(D) inches, the Pandigital Personal Photo Scanner/Converter is incredibly portable and can be taken nearly anywhere to quickly and simply preserve images.
The new Pandigital Personal Photo Scanner/Converter extends Pandigital's line of photo scanners which also includes the Pandigital PhotoLink One-Touch 5×7 Scanner and the Pandigital Photo & Negative Scanner that can scan print images up to 4×6-inches large as well as negatives.
Product Availability and Pricing
The Pandigital Personal Photo Scanner/Converter is available now for a Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price of $149.99.
About Pandigital
Privately held, Pandigital® develops and markets digital entertainment products. The company recognizes the growing digital lifestyle market as well as the convergence of digital media such as photos, video, published content, and audio, and is delivering high quality products to utilize and share that content by combining innovative technology with contemporary style and simplified user interfaces. Pandigital sells its award-winning line of Pandigital® and PanTouch® digital photo frames and PhotoLink® scanners through more than 33,000 well-known national retail storefronts in the United States, Canada, Europe, South America and Central America. The company has received numerous accolades and industry awards for its outstanding products that are renowned for their easy-to-use features and high-quality, elegant design, and providing exceptional value to consumers. Pandigital is headquartered in Dublin, Calif. For more information, please visit http://www.pandigital.net.
All offers subject to change without notice or obligation and may not be available through all retail partners. Prices listed are manufacturer's suggested retail prices and may vary by retail location. Applicable taxes extra. Trademarks used herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of Pandigital. Other product or service names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.
There are already tons of sites that let you share photos, with Facebook, arguably, the default way for friends, colleagues and family to share those captured moments. Yet Yogile, a bootstrapped startup and one-man shop founded by Netherlands-based Maurice Sikkink, thinks it has spotted a gap in the market: dead simple photo sharing with an emphasis on multi-authored albums without the need for everybody who contributes to sign-up first.
The latter functionality nicely skirts around network effects as it doesn’t require the user to get their social graph to commit to using the same photo sharing service if they just want others to contribute ad hoc, uploading and sharing photos around a certain event, for example. In fact, the service is pitched perfectly for this purpose.
The way it works is that each account/photo album that you create is given a secret URL/email address and, optionally, a password if you want to make photos private. You can then hand out these details to multiple contributors and, bingo, they can begin uploading their pics via email, MMS or a web browser. Think conferences, weddings and other social gatherings where it can be a bit of a kludge to collate photos taken in an orderly manner or, more specifically, in a single dedicated album for said event.
Yogile is built on Ruby-On-Rails, utilises Amazon’s S3 and is almost entirely the work of Sikkink with a little bit of additional help from a few freelance developers. Sikkink’s day job is at a small independent software development company called Nyana, according to the site.
Obviously, Yogile is operating in a very crowded space – Facebook photo sharing, Flickr or services like Dropbox spring to mind – although, as noted, its emphasis is on the simple creation of collaborative photo albums, and like Flickr in the early days, has a bare bones elegance about it that aesthetically is quite pleasing. It’s well worth a look.
The service is free for 100mb of upload space, after which an ad-free premium offering is available at $24.95 per year that gives unlimited photo uploads, albums and storage.
Thirty-two teams descended on South Africa with dreams of hoisting the World Cup trophy and, after a month of heart-stopping competition, Spain rose to the top as the victors. Boston.com’s brilliant photo essay feature, The Big Picture, captures the thrill of victory, the anguish of defeat, and the pain of getting ninja kicked in the ribs.
Full gallery at Boston.com.
In a move that further intensified the competition in the free online photo storage arena, Google revealed on Tuesday that its photo storage site Picasa will henceforth boast integration with Picnik – the online photo-editing tool which was acquired by Google this March.
As a result of Picasa’s integration with Picnik – the move which apparently is one of the gradual rollouts by Google -, a small edit button will become available for the users of Picasa, in the top left corner of the photos.
The clicking of this edit button will pop up a version of the image on a new window that will unveil several photo-editing options – simple as well as advanced. The simple photo-editing option will allow users to rotate, crop or resize an image, to alter its shape.
In addition, the Picasa site will also offer tools for altering the color and the exposure of an image.
Meanwhile, a number of advanced edit options – which are fairly akin to the desktop photo-editing application, including Abode Photoshop – can be accessed via a “Create” tab.
Though the Picasa-Picnik integration will likely bring Google on par with other image-based storage Web sites, especially in terms of online editing, Picasa still happens to be a lesser used app as compared to Yahoo’s Flickr photo storage site, which features among the top 50 trafficked Web sites online.
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