Do they include any from this excellent list of 10 songs with photographic themes courtesy of Photo Shelter’s most excellent Shoot the Blog?

Besides Outkast’s Hey Ya! and their iconic “shake it like a Polaroid picture” chorus, what else, pun intended, develops? (Be sure to also check out the above post’s comment section for even more photo songs and photo punniness.)

A mix of such tunes might just be the perfect soundtrack for the next PRC PhotoSLAM!  What do you think?

While you contemplate, you can listen to Jack Jackson’s F-Stop Blues!

[The following is an excerpt from the current issue of the PRC's newsletter, in the loupe]

Do you photo blog?

Like many of you that are on the shady side of thirty years old, I tend to embrace any and all new technologies reluctantly and with a lugubrious attitude. A good example: my refrigerator still houses a substantial amount of 35mm film even though I have been shooting digitally for several years. But, in the case of the photo blog phenomenon, I have to say that I embraced the blogosphere - as a reader, not a publisher - early and with great enthusiasm. Why? Simply because a large number of the better blogs present an amazingly good selection of emerging talent. Over the last several years, I’ve become familiar with the work of photographers that I would not get to know by any other means. If you haven’t visited a good blog lately, here are a few killer photo blogs that reside on the Fitts favorite list:

• LensCultureWeblog
• Aphotoeditor
• Magnum Blog
• Conscientious
• Avisualsociety
• iheartphotograph

If you’ve answered yes to at least two of the above, then I’m happy to say that the PRC is offering a workshop you might be interested in! I am also happy to say that this workshop is the first (and certainly not the last) collaboration between the PRC and Grub Street. (A non-profit writing center where Boston Gets Writing)

The workshop is called Staring and Wonder and will meet at the PRC on Saturday, May 3, 2008, from 9am – 4pm. It was inspired by the PRC’s upcoming New England Survey exhibition, which, in turn, was inspired by Amherst poet Robert Francis’s poem, “New England Mind.” We’ll begin by discussing some suggestive and provocative statements by a host of writers who care about staring—W.G. Sebald, Flannery O’Connor, John Gardner, Cesare Pavese, Wallace Stevens, George Szirtes, Mark Strand, and Elizabeth Bishop, among others—and then spend the rest of the first part of our day engaged in acts of staring ourselves. The objects of our attention will be the astonishing landscape–based photographs in New England Survey . (Such as the above image by Barbara Bosworth) We’ll dedicate the second part of our day to what happens after that something becomes interesting. We’ll allow these images of the New England landscape to enlarge of our sense of place and our capacities to pay attention, to wonder, and wander in our writing. We’ll follow our eyes-and our imaginations-in words. This workshop is open to all writerly appetites: narrative, poetic, memoiristic, essayistic, imagistic, and beyond.

For more information on the program, including how to register, please visit the PRC’s website.

The following is inspired by a recent post on the most excellent “State of the Art” blog courtesy of American Photo magazine.  (If you don’t know about “State of the Art” considering subscribing or visiting often, as it is a true font of photo news.)  Honoring the Academy Awards this coming weekend, AP aptly points out that a movie camera-adapted Lensbaby was used in the Oscar-nominated film, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.  Photo author and AP Editor Russell Hart has a great discussion of the mechanics of this fun photo little tool here and its new use in movies and video. If you are not familiar with the Lensbaby, it is a selective focus lens.  Think of it as your own mini bellows with a “tilt-shift” lens, but for your 35m analog or digital camera!  Read more at their web site.  I’ll be rooting for the film, director/painter Julian Schnabel, and his cinematographer this coming Sunday.  Will you? - Leslie