Photography worked hard to become recognized as an art form in the first half of the 20th century. Along with fellow documentary photographic pioneers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson and Walker Evans, Helen Levitt’s style married composition with spontaneity. Known for her ability to capture the lives of children on the streets of New York, Levitt’s work is marked by a juxtaposition of playfulness and poignancy. Like her female photographic contemporaries (like Dorothea Lange) Levitt’s images provided a social commentary on and called attention to the lives of children in the city, particularly her work in some of the poorer neighborhoods like Spanish Harlem and the Lower East Side.

Though not concerned with technical skill, Levitt’s pictures nonetheless contain a studied, almost painterly elegance, which Levitt gleaned and honed with frequent visits to museums and galleries. She worked as a press photographer in the 1930s and 40s, while at the same time producing an impressive collection of her own work with her Leica camera in black and white as well as color. In addition, Levitt worked as a film editor and director, collaborating with good friend and artistic influence James Agee, on the short film “In the Street.”

Helen Levitt’s legacy lies in her ability to seek out and translate visually the subtle beauty of seemingly mundane daily activities of American youth.  She paid tribute to their place in society and gave insight into their worlds in a respectful, almost reverent way.

Listen to an interview with Helen Levitt on NPR’s “All Things Considered” here.

Pick up books of her work through Powerhouse Books.

But I’m going to anyway. The upcoming presidential election will have an effect on us for the next 20 to 30 years. How? When you elect a president, you also need to look at his stance on the forgotten 3rd Branch of government - The Supreme Court. The President nominates potential Justices and once nominated and confirmed to the Supreme Court, Justices keep their positions for life. That means that whomever our next president nominates to the Supreme Court may have that position for many, many years.

I just read this article on NPR discussing the wide ideological differences between Obama and McCain on the abortion issue. Republican presumptive nominee McCain “has said that he would appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark court decision from the 1970s that legalized abortion.” VERY SCARY. Read the full article on how the 2 men differ on their stances here. Make informed decisions. Register to Vote. That’s one to grow on.

Noah Brier, a brand strategist in New York at Naked Communications, developed a new site/experiment called Brand Tags. Basically, when you go to the site you are shown a brand logo and you type the first word that comes to mind. All the results that people have submitted are then rendered into a tag cloud - much like the ones you see on blogs. The results are interesting and often spot-on. Brier noticed that sometimes you could tell which brand a tag cloud belonged to without seeing the logo. When asked why he started the project, Brier stated: “I had this idea that if you asked enough people what a brand is, and then made it into a tag cloud, that you’d probably have a pretty good peek into what the actual perception of this brand was.” It’s true. See for yourself. You can see a video on it here and try it out here.

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There’s nothing more precious than having a little baby girl to call your own - the itty-bitty witty barrettes, the itty bitty tea party sets, and the itty bitty outfits that are so much cuter than her brother’s. Well the Mayor of Whoville doesn’t agree, and his 96 daughters might as well end up in an orphanage for Angelina Jolie to adopt, because his happiness, and the entire fate of the world rested on the shoulders of his only son. What’s even more annoying was that this was a subplot that was added to the script, and not in the original version of the book. Shame on you, Hollywood!

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