When photographer Matthew Brandt started studying for his MFA, he began with the earliest forms of photography, immersing himself in the history of the process. Studying at UCLA also allowed him to return to his hometown and catch up with friends and family members; it was only a matter of time before the photography and friendship collided in a series of portraits.

And then the collision furthered: one day, a friend who Brandt was photographing started to cry. Brandt asked for her tears. “I know it seems a little mean but at the time it seemed to make sense,” he says. He had been studying salted paper prints, a very early form of 19th-century photography that requires just salt solution and silver nitrate to add light sensitivity to a piece of paper. The sight of that naturally occurring salt water triggered an idea. He used the tears to create a portrait of his crying friend. “It was like this ‘eureka’ process in the dark room,” Brandt says. “I was like, ‘oh my God, this actually worked.’”

Brandt, whose work will be featured starting May 24 in an exhibition at Yossi Milo Gallery in New York City, finished his degree in 2008 but has continued to make photographs using the physical matter of the subject in the development process. The upcoming exhibition Lakes, Trees and Honeybees will include work from three series. For Lakes and Reservoirs, Brandt soaked photographs of lakes in water collected from the subjects, creating unpredictable colorscapes. In Trees, photographs of the title vegetation are printed on paper and with ink made from branches fallen from those very trees. The Honeybees photos are pictures of bees printed with a gum-bichromate process that required using a solution of the bees themselves in the developing process.

These photographs, of their subjects in both senses of the word, also share a certain degree of pathos and a somber tone, says Brandt. Each of the three series is imbued with its own particular sense of loss, a feeling that something is changing, maybe for the worse. The moment captured is one of crisis.

Lakes, for example, while also addressing the more obvious meanings of wetness, highlights the obsolescence of wet photography; color negative paper was becoming hard to get. The Trees series was made right around the time that Brandt graduated from UCLA and George W. Bush left office. The trees photographed are in George Bush Park in Houston; Brandt says he didn’t want to make an overtly political statement but rather to capture a sense of ambivalence about what the future could hold, an uncertainty that he felt in himself and observed on a national level. And Honeybees was made when Colony Collapse Disorder was making news, prompting the photographer to think of the bees as a clue that something was going wrong in the world.

But not everything is changing. The old-fashioned photography processes Brandt uses—not to mention the work involved in making his own paper and ink—are extremely labor-intensive, but Brandt has no plans to take it easy. The photographer, who cites classic American landscape photography as an influence, still sometimes goes hiking with a large-format camera, frequently returning to Yosemite with Ansel Adams in mind. “The guys who would travel with their wagons through these crazy hills—if they put that much work into making a picture, I should do the same,” he says.

Matthew Brandt is a California-based photographer. Lakes, Trees and Honeybees will be on view at Yossi Milo Gallery in New York City from May 24 – June 30. More of his work can be seen here.

In Tuesday’s Pictures in the News: SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket streaks into the sky behind a model of NASA’s space shuttle at the Kennedy Space Center, heading for a rendezvous with the International Space Station and opening a new era of privately funded spaceflight; the wreckage of a train is lifted after a collision with a parked freight train in southern India; a heavy dust storm envelopes Baghdad; trumpeters prepare to play a tune in an attempt to break the Guinness world record for the longest line of fanfare trumpeters, at The Guards Museum, Wellington Barracks, London; and torchbearer Natalie Hawkins, 20, from Street, stands with the Olympic flame in front of Glastonbury Tor in Glastonbury, England. And there’s more.

By Desmond Boylan

One recent day I was at the beach on a very hot and sunny day in the province of Matanzas, east of Havana, when a group of tourists arrived in a bus. As I watched, two of them sneaked behind a bush, stripped to their underwear, slipped their clothes to their companions, and had a quick dip in the sea. They were obviously nervous, watching out so that they wouldn’t be spotted by their minders. I realized that they were Americans, and that by taking a swim and committing an act of tourism, they were breaking the laws of the U.S embargo. They were breaking the law in their own country, and they knew it.

United States citizens are now allowed to fly in directly to visit Cuba under a cultural program bound by strict conditions, the main one being that they are not allowed to practice tourism. By following the rules they will not be breaking the 60-year trade embargo imposed on the island under U.S. law. At last U.S. citizens are allowed to visit this forbidden country, listed by the U.S. as a sponsor of terrorism along with Iran, Syria, Sudan, and North Korea, but they have to behave themselves.

The sneaky swimmers spoke in a nervous whisper, twisting their mouths as if someone could read their lips from the distance. As they glanced over their shoulders, it was like a massive crime was being committed with a long prison sentence as punishment for being caught. There were rumors among them that minders were infiltrating their groups and posing as one of them. If it were true, anyone could be a minder reporting back to the U.S. congress on illegal tourist activities engaged by American travelers with the aim of stopping these tours and tightening the embargo once again.

A known fact is that thousands of Americans have been breaking the embargo in increasing numbers by flying into Cuba via transit stops in the Bahamas, Mexico, and Europe. Cuban immigration authorities don’t touch their passports, but give them entry and exit stamps on a separate paper. In their passports they only have exit and entry stamps from the intermediate country, so technically they could have been on the moon, on mars, or floating in the ocean for the undocumented days.

But many U.S. immigration and customs officers checking passports on return know very well where citizens have been. Occasionally they ask questions about popular Cuban products like cigars and rum, and sometimes people are discovered and fined. In spite of that, it is a known fact that it is happening, and if the U.S. really were to enforce the law and build prisons to lodge all Americans visiting Cuba, another problem could be added to the list of ills in the U.S. economy.

The groups are tightly guarded and controlled by minders from both sides, with Cubans taking care of security for the visitors, and the Americans in charge of enforcing the embargo rules. They are not allowed to speak freely to the press nor to ordinary Cubans. It looks to me like the tropical Caribbean version of a North Korea tour, but without the salsa; no salsa dancing allowed, except maybe alone in your hotel room, in the dark.

I have spoken several times to people in these groups as I find the subject fascinating. Recently some complained that they were not allowed to take a dip in the sea after a long, sweaty day of cultural visits to museums and lectures. The words they used to describe their minders from the American side were not nice, and they accused them of reporting directly to the anti-Castro lobby led by U.S. congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. These visitors were literally paranoid when having a short chat with me, even more so after I told them that I work for the international press.

Nearly all the visitors I’ve spoken to were elderly, open-minded and intelligent. I felt sorry for them because they were not getting the ‘real picture’ of Cuba. Others I approached for a chat put their heads down and didn’t utter a word, and a couple gave me a defiant look. I assumed those were minders.

The new cultural exchange trips are a new delicate, interesting and challenging way to visit the communist island, but you will not feel very free and the only dip you can legally take is one in your hotel bathtub.

 

Looking for a bargain compact? This could be the answer There are tons of choices out there when it comes to a cheap compact camera, but none of them have gained a cult status quite like the Konica Big Mini…Read on… The Konica Big Mini was released in 1990 and has set itself a place in modern camera history with its ease of use and fantastic optics. The lens on this camera can really give the bigger boys a run for its money. The Big Mini comes with a fantastic 35mm f3.5 Konica lens, which by rights this camera should not have. The lens on this camera is very sharp and has excellent contrast rendering. It often surprises people how good the lens is in this camera, it certainly did for me the first time I used one. I shot a lot of black and white in these cameras and found that I would have to label my images so that I didn’t mix them up with my Ricoh Gr1 (perhaps that is me though, I am a bit forgetful at times). The controls are simple and easy to use, the camera is basically automatic and there are no manual controls. This might put some people off, but that shouldn’t as the camera is a point and shoot after all. This is a great little camera to take as a back-up camera. I found that this camera is also great for taking to gigs, events or parties. You are not going to be worried about damaging a camera that cost less than the drinks bill for the evening. There were couple of different models available, though there is not a great deal of difference between them, the 301 has the date back and the 302 does not. Apart from the Big Mini F, the F came with faster f2.8 glass and an exposure compensation setting. The price is still higher for these too. The F comes in a fancy brushed silver finish and looks fantastic. Yet, it is still an inexpensive camera that has everything that you could possibly need.

The viewfinder is nice and bright and has an LED to let you know about the flash and if you are too close. But that is not an issue really either, as there is a close up button on the top of the camera so you can get that little bit closer to your subject (though you may deafen then).

The Big Mini has a deceptively good flash on it for such a small camera and is fast too. The only real complaints that I have about the camera are as follows: It is a noisy little beast, they are not what you could call a stealth camera, the advance makes a lot of noise. They are pretty fragile. The Mini has a habit of dying, but at the end of the day they are so cheap that you can just buy another. The main problem seems to be the ribbon that connects the control panel on the back of the camera. Make sure you take good care of this bit. Er, that is it. I love this little camera and have had a lot of good times using one. So, give the Big Mini a try, you are going to see why this camera can stand next to the big boys.

Cheers JCH

If you want one of these cameras and you don’t know where to find one, let me find one for you.

nerdlikejazzy:

Leica 0-Series Camera Sets A New Record Selling For $2.8 Million

One of the great passions of Jean-Louis Dumas, CEO and Artistic Director of Hermès for almost thirty years from 1978 to 2006, was photography. A monographic work published by Steidl in 2008 (1), and an exhibition held at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris that same year (2), revealed his long-standing and abundant practice of photography.  It is also thanks to Jean-Louis Dumas that both Hermès and Leica Camera started working together.

Just a few days before the launch of the Leica M9-P Hermès Edition — a Jean-Louis Dumas limited edition — we met his daughter, Sandrine Dumas-Brekke. She spoke to us with great generosity about her father’s photography, closely commenting on several of his pictures.

Q: In the introductory text to the monographic exhibition held at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie to present your father’s photographic work, you wrote: “[...] he set up a little darkroom [in the cellar]. He would draw the green curtain and beneath the red eye of the light bulb, the photos would slowly materialize in the trays. I can still see his curved back, bent over the contact sheets, precise and concentrated on the selection of shots he would send his friends…”. Could you tell us how Mr Dumas started taking photos, learnt the subtleties of photography, and became passionate about this medium?

A: Before he embarked on his professional career, my father dreamt of being a journalist. He loved jazz; it was vital to him. With a friend, Philippe Koechlin — who later was one of the founders of the magazine Rock and Folk — he set up a jazz band and, together, they dreamt of creating a jazz journal. My father then did a few interviews with great jazzmen, such as the saxophonist Lester Young, which remained famous in the family annals. He was very proud!

It is through jazz that my father discovered photography, I believe.

As far back as I can remember, my father always carried a camera. As I have already written, he had a little darkroom in the cellar of our apartment building where he developed his own prints. When we moved, he kept all his equipment; it was very precious to him. Then he started getting his photos developed by a man called Jules, who used to work at the Atelier Publimod, on Rue du Roi de Sicile in Paris. He was the person who developed Edouard Boubat’s work. He was extremely proud of this, because he greatly admired this photographer, who later became a very dear friend. This Monsieur Jules meant a lot to him. I think that they used to “talk shop” together, but by the time Jules came into my father’s life, he had already stopped developing his own photos.

Q: Mr. Dumas was close to Edouard Boubat. Did he like to discuss photography and his own pictures? Or was his practice of photography revelatory of something more intimate, something that couldn’t have been said other than in images?

A: My father never talked to us about photography in a technical manner. The only thing that he said to me on the matter, and which I always cite, is the idea that 35 mm corresponds to the gaze, to what the eye sees, undoctored. I really like that.

Beyond the technical aspects, I remember going into his darkroom with him. I wasn’t even eight years old, so these are very early childhood memories; more sensations than clear memories. I remember his concentration, I remember this slightly “religious” room with its red light, the trays. I remember that with all the chemical products it smelled a little funny. The images would appear and he would show me that you can modify certain details as you develop. It all seemed a bit like magic to me.

If my father succeeded in conveying something about photography, for me it was more about knowing how to look — about being open to what might happen, to have an eye that “acts fast”, rather than knowing “how to take a photo” of something or someone. I’m not entirely sure whether I observed or was told that.

My father loved to give his photos. He always made small prints that he annotated and wrote little messages on that were always funny. He used them as a little gift — a note to say hello. He communicated extensively through his images.

Photography was his secret garden, but it was a secret garden in which he liked to invite people because everyone knew that he took photos. Everyone knew Jean-Louis’ photos.

When my father met Edouard Boubat, he had been taking photos for twenty years. His great pride and the beginning of their friendship, in fact, dated back to a commission Edouard Boubat did for the Monde d’Hermès in the mid-eighties: a series of photos on artisans and the people working in the different Hermès sites at the time. My father loved this series and used it a lot later for Hermès’ publicity. Their complicity went back to the conception of this series.

My father admired Edouard Boubat’s work. I think he admired him for several reasons. First of all, because there’s a humility in Boubat’s photography, a proximity and a poetry that my father could only subscribe to. Secondly, because Boubat magnificently photographed India, and India was my father’s other major secret garden.

My father must most certainly have exchanged extensively with Boubat about photography.

Q: How did Mr Dumas proceed as a photographer?

A: I know how difficult it is to photograph people in the streets. When you are face-to-face with someone, with a camera ready to shoot, one sometimes feels one shouldn’t be there. I’d define that as a feeling of illegitimacy. Yet I remember seeing my father taking photos in a very relaxed manner. When I look at his pictures, I never get the feeling that he stole anything. He used to talk to people with real interest. I think my father’s curiosity for the “other” was so sincere that it totally legitimated the photographic act. Was it an effort for him? I never asked him, but I never got the impression that it was.

Q: I get the impression that your father’s photography took several paths…

A: Yes, there are melancholic, more graphic photos and others that are more rooted in life and mischievousness.

This photo, for example, is one of those that really make me laugh. Here, he must have been invited, in the capacity of his function at Hermès, to some strange work session where he watched this dance. When you look closely at this photo, you can see terribly serious people in suits and ties here, and then in the middle there’s my father with his camera. Very often, he had that teasing, malicious look in his eye.

This photo was taken at the time of the solar eclipse in 1999. He went to Saint-Louis, where there’s a crystal manufacturer that was bought by Hermès. My father was there in a professional capacity, but he always had his camera in his pocket.

This photo is the first he was terribly proud of and, indeed, I think he was right to be. It’s what you call a real stroke of luck! It dates to 1964. I believe that his earliest photos date back to 1961.

Q: Do you think we can identify one, or several threads throughout your father’s work that might, over the course of his long practice, lend a kind of unity?

   A: What was highly interesting in the time that Fred Rawyler and I spent preparing his monographic work — and thus sorting his photos and studying them very closely — was entering into his gaze — of managing, little by little, to identify connections and elements that regularly emerge in his work, as if there were something he was seeking and that he tried to capture throughout his practice. For example, many of his photos evoke the notion of the double. Certain elements also echo one another and resonate from one photo to the next.

On another register, we can see this notion of the double in this photo too. As a print, it’s a sublime image. It reminds me of Rasputin; it looks like it is from the icon tradition…

Finally, the theme of the double can be seen in this photo of the child and the island. My father loved this picture! He photographed that island his whole life. He sought it out. He loved it.

My father notably photographed Greece  — my mother was Greek — India, and our family.

He loved photographing trees. My father had the ability, which I love and which also explains his passion for trees, to look somewhere and to see something else in it. Like in childhood, when you are in bed at night and see dragons in the shadows made by clothes hanging on a chair. I know that my father used to see a lot of things in things. I share that with him, for that matter. I think that all the colour photos that he took at one stage in his life — close-ups of flowers, stones, still lifes —  fall into this logic.

Q: That brings another question to mind… Did Mr Dumas used to take a lot of shots of a same subject?

A: He used to take several images of a same subject; I’d say five or six shots. He would circle a subject as he photographed it.

Q: Was that also the case with people?

A: Yes. He was brave enough for that! But of course, it depended on the circumstances. For the picture of the three bicycles, for example, he must have taken two or three shots. He wouldn’t have had time to take any more.

   He often got people to pose. In India, for example. Like in this picture: it’s a pose and it’s brilliantly posed! There is something very pure in these photos. I think that my father must have found these men very handsome.

I find that there’s a lot of humour in these pictures; but not always. This photo, for example, is terribly sad. It’s one of my favourites. It surprises me  because I don’t know when he might have gone to this old people’s home, nor why.

In some of my father’s photos, I find a form of nostalgia. I like his “sad” photos because I relate to them. Yet I used to love laughing with him and loved his humour. Sometimes I feel that he almost reaches his limit in wanting to take “malicious” photos, whilst here, something else happens.

Q: What, in your opinion, would first catch your father’s eye?

 A: I imagine that he would mainly seek a contact: something human, quite simply. Having said that, with his camera in hand, his eye must have, at times, been caught by a light — by something that fell into place before him. His “static” photos — those without any people in them — have a sort of secret order. He must have suddenly seen that order, had his camera with him, and captured it as a photo. I think, however, that that wasn’t what he sought out first and foremost. I think he sought people first of all, but that, at time,s his eye was also caught by something geometric.

I personally love his framing. I find it very just. There is a justness in the way in which he positions his gaze. It’s never precious. He sees, and “click!”, he captures the moment. When you work in a studio, you can really work on the composition, but here, it’s almost instinctive. I don’t think he theorized that.

I love this photo. Here too, there is a geometric aspect that I find very interesting. At the same time, these three characters are completely isolated from one another. It’s as if they came from another era. They could be from Tintin, or a film by Antonioni, with a kind of latent ennui: the woman looking at the telescope, the man waiting…

To my mind, a beautiful photo is a confrontation with something which, suddenly, could be the start of a story. When that is captured, I consider it a successful photo.

I was just explaining what this photo evokes for me, but, looking at it, I can also see something else: the woman looking through the telescope is my mother. In another photo, I see a painter I knew as a child, in the studio I always used to play in;  and in another, a woman in a village we used to visit often. So, it’s impossible for me to be objective looking at these pictures. That is where the interest and the limit of my point of view lies. For the exhibition planned in Berlin, for example, it amuses me to think that other people will be able to look at these photos, discover them, and like them or not like them, depending on what they evoke for them. It may well provoke visual encounters that I have never imagined because of the influence of my own story.

I consider it an incredible chance for someone who was an amateur photographer to have the opportunity to show his work just like that of a professional photographer. I find it inspiring to know that someone who just loved to look can be taken seriously. And my father truly worked on his eye.

Q: Do you, who knows your father’s pictures so well and have delved into his archives to prepare the exhibition and his publication, see a progression in his gaze?

A: I think that the Eighties and Nineties were his photographic years. 1960 was the beginning, then his photography increasingly grew to become a truly active, effervescent gaze. That corresponds, for that matter, with what were probably his richest professional years. But also, simply, with his own maturity as a man. And like always with my father, things were never dissociated That is to say that the love and the energy that he invested in his work were the same that he invested in his private life and his photographs. He constantly sought to create connections.

I think, therefore, that it is coherent to assert that his photographic years also correspond to his best professional years. It must have been a moment when he was “in sync”: in sync with his gaze, in sync with his brain, in sync with something that can be described as an openness to the world. My father was incredibly curious about others, but not in a self-interested way. The possibility of “using” came through his curiosity. He wouldn’t say, “How am I going to make the most of this?” Instead, he would ask, “How might we create something from this?” I believe that that emanated from a pure, disinterested movement in the absolute.

Q: Earlier, you talked about what you consider an interesting photograph. What was Mr. Dumas’ opinion of a good photo? What characteristics did it need to have to be taken into consideration, selected? I imagine that you had to ask yourself this question when you were selecting the images for the book.

A: I know which photographs he was very proud of. The one of the little boy and the island, for example. In my opinion, he created other images that have more life and force than that one. I think he considered it one of his most beautiful photographs, so it was inconceivable not to include it in his monography. That is why it’s on the cover of one of the works in the set published by Steidl.

The other cover image is a self-portrait. It looks like a photo from the Thirties, achieved through seeking a specific effect. Yet, in his images, my father is always very frontal; he wasn’t a fussy photographer, yet this photograph is quite complicated. Its other “particularity” is that it can be looked at both vertically and horizontally without losing its interest. Having said that, my father did intend it to be vertical, so that is how it appears in the book.

Q: Let’s talk a moment about his Leica. What did Mr. Dumas particularly appreciate in his camera? Was it the extreme precision associated with this mythical camera and which resonated with his artistanal side that is equally related to the universe of Hermès?

A: He mainly worked with a Leica M6. He had four cameras for that matter. I would say that he started working with this camera in the early Eighties.

I have quite clear memories of my father showing me the photos taken with this camera and pointing out the precision of its rendition, the details one could clearly make out. He truly appreciated the quality of the grain, the quality of the depth and the manner in which he could catch the light with this camera. He also loved the camera’s incredible stability which enabled him to take photos in settings with very little light and thus, without a flash. He was in complete awe of what the Leica could achieve.

Later, without a doubt, the reason why these two companies came closer together at a moment of their history and why Hermès entered into Leica’s capital, is their common values: excellence, craftsmanship, etc. As for his own practice, if he chose to work with a Leica, I think that that it was mainly to do with the photographers who worked with it and with the quality he could achieve thanks to this camera.

Thank you, Sandrine!

-Leica Internet Team

If you would like to read the original French interview, click here.

(1) Jean-Louis Dumas photographe, published by Fred Rawyler, Sandrine Dumas-Brekke. Texts by François Cheng, Sandrine Dumas-Brekke, Steidl, 2008. (2) Jean-Louis Dumas. Photographies, Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris, 24 September- 26 October 2008.

I hadn't realized that Abdel-Moneim Abolfotoh, one of the leading candidates for the Egyptian presidency, was a Truther until I read this Ben Birnbaum piece:

Mr. Abolfotoh expressed his views on the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in an interview last year with Egypt scholar Eric Trager. Mr. Trager, now with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, quoted Mr. Abolfotoh as saying: "It was too big an operation .... They [the United States] didn't bring this crime before the U.S. justice system until now. Why? Because it's part of a conspiracy."

Not a good sign. It's hard to imagine a fantasist getting a grip on Egypt's disintegrating economy, and it's hard to imagine a fantasist preserving the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel.

I didn't sleep that well last night and woke up feeling rather. Guess that's mean's it's time for to change my opinion on The Greatest Hip-Hop Song In History. Yesterday we went with barbarian angst and proto-feminism. Today we'll go with the distinctive irony of American imperialism and  sucker MCs.

You up against -- Jesus Freaks, formin corporations  with Young Republicans 

Indelible NATO force hidden agenda, puppet governments 

I'm lovin it. Keep the people guessin who I'm runnin with 

Control the population and hide behind sacred covenants

You just stepped into the spectrum of paranoid word rainbows 

Thinkin you sick with a sihlouette, burn transit cop out his plain clothes 

I'm America. This is where the pain grows like poppies 

In a Field of Dreams I paid for, I'll burn it down if operated sloppily. Copy?

Let's take a trip back in time -- back a whole two weeks ago, when the Cranbrook Haircut was the dominant making-of-the-president issue, emerging as it did immediately after Barack Obama's comments about his "personal views" on same-sex marriage. Then came the rumored anti-Obama attack ad based on footage of Rev. Jeremiah "God damn America!" Wright and funded by the founder of TD Ameritrade. In those dimly remembered pre-Cory Booker, pre-Facebook IPO days, I asked Samuel Popkin, author of The Candidate, what his student-of-history perspective told us about how the campaigns were presenting these issues and how they were likely to matter in the campaign. He, like me, has been otherwise engaged for a while, but he now sends this report. Question "Dear Sam:     "In a way that almost no one would have predicted three weeks ago [ie mid April], the political news of the past weeks has been dominated by two sequences: one initiated by Barack Obama's comments on same-sex marriage, and the other initiated by a proposed Super-PAC ad about Reverend Wright.   "What has struck you about each sequence?     "And -- bonus questions -- how much do you think this was a planned move by the President, as opposed to getting out of the corner in which VP Biden's comments had painted him? And, what about that Cranbrook haircut story?" Answer    "Dear Jim:    "Both sequences remind us how fast the political grounds have shifted on social issues, money and media.   I was particularly struck by Republicans' attempts to say as little as possible about the issue of marriage equality after President Obama's speech.  Rather than attacking the premise of Obama's statement, Romney supporters called it a smokescreen to divert attention from the economy.  An important tipping point has been reached on gay rights.  Once Democrats were divided over crime and welfare; now Republicans are divided over gay rights.       "Of course the economy is a bigger issue this year than gay marriage, but if there were votes to be won on this issue with a strong national stand, you can be sure the Romney campaign would go after them.  Romney, though he adhered to his conviction that marriage is between a man and a woman, did not oppose a same-sex couple's right to adopt, or any other rights, and he was careful to avoid any outright attacks on gays in the military during the primaries.   "After Obama's declaration, Republican pollster Jan van Lohuizen rushed out a memo to warn Republican officials that the pace of change for support of gay rights was accelerating.  Voters of every age and party are getting more supportive, and every year, new voters (who are most likely to support gay rights) are entering the electorate, while older voters (who are least likely) are leaving it.     "The success of North Carolina's Amendment One aside, the activist energy and commitment are clearly on the pro-marriage equality side.   If they care intensely about this issue, independent and young voters are likely to be closer to Obama than Romney.     "The Romney camp will have some very intense negotiations with Rick Santorum before their convention.  I am starting to think that the more orthodox elements of the religious right are in the same position within the Republican party that the unions were in with Democrats in the 70s and 80s.   Santorum's base is a dwindling portion of the country, but it is still big enough to carry a lot of caucuses and primaries and give him a shot in 2016 if he fights to keep his issue leadership alive.  How do you attack gay rights in Red states without losing votes from gay rights supporters in battleground states?   "Now, as for the Bonus Question:   "Whether or not Vice President Biden spoke too soon, it was clear the president had to do something before the Democratic Convention or risk being the target of embarrassing protests.  Secretary of Education Arne Duncan  had already chimed in to support gay marriage, an important reminder that incumbents simply cannot run as coherent and disciplined a campaign as challengers.   "I cannot believe that Biden's comment was planned, or that Obama's interview would have included the subject otherwise.  This White House has not been proactive on this issue in general, and I'm sure they expected a lot more push-back than they've received." Now you know. Previously in the Ask Dr. Popkin saga, see installments one, two, and three; and his book The Candidate; and my discussion of it in Obama Explained. Our next round will cover Cory Booker, Bain, et al.

Vic Armstrong picks his favorite, daring scenes, from Indiana Jones to Ong Bak. World-class stuntman Vic Armstrong has lived as Indiana Jones, James Bond, Superman, and other epic cinema heroes throughout his career. He's worked closely with the action icons many of us grew up with on the big screen and has risked his life countless times to perfect the unforgettable scenes that have replayed in our collective movie memory for decades.

Armstrong's new book—The True Adventures of the World's Greatest Stuntman, a wild ride through the death-defying maestro's career—hits shelves on May 29. It's a reminder that some of the greatest talents in Hollywood are those behind the scenes and not mugging for the camera.

We wanted Armstrong's expert input on some of cinema's most exciting action stunts, and he was kind enough to share his thoughts about 10 different scenes. Drop your favorites below.

Please use a JavaScript-enabled device to view this slideshow This post also appears on Flavorpill, an Atlantic partner site.

Recently, I was hipped to a Swedish pop duo from a surprising source: London's Charli XCX. Back on May 8th she tweeted the following: "Check out the song i wrote for @iconapop... I LOVE IT," with a YouTube link. Being a fan of Charli's singles "Stay Away" and "Nuclear Seasons," I had to check it out. What I found was a different creature entirely. Whereas Charli XCX often sounds like a synthpop Siouxsie Sioux at age 19, this duo from Stockholm is tinsel-shiny and full of fire. While the song's shouty chorus has a certain playground-taunt quality, beware the insidious instrumental hook that owes an equal debt to Justice and the Deadmau5 School of Club Music... at least to these ears. Yes, it's a spiteful tune, but it's joyful in equal measure.

Mohamed Morsi, the group's official but less-than-ideal candidate for the Egyptian presidency, poses them with an existential challenge.

CAIRO, Egypt -- When the Muslim Brotherhood announced that Mohamed Morsi would be its candidate for president, the Egyptian press had a field day. Morsi was an accident of history, the "substitute" candidate after a state election agency disqualified the Brotherhood's first choice, lanky millionaire financier Khairat al-Shater. Morsi was, correctly, charged with lacking the same charisma or crossover appeal. Many analysts wrote the Brotherhood off. They couldn't imagine someone like Morsi getting to the second round of elections, much less winning.

But the Brotherhood seems to think victory is within reach. Though burdened with a weak candidate, the group's members have fanned across the country, promoting Morsi's so-called "renaissance" project. On Sunday night, the Brotherhood, in its latest show of strength, held 24 concurrent mass rallies across the country.

I asked a young Brotherhood activist if he was enthusiastic about Morsi. He smiled, then laughed. A significant but small minority of Brotherhood youth are supporting "liberal Islamist" Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh. But he wasn't, at least not yet. For him, this was not about any Obama-esque belief in post-partisanship or finding the "best" candidate. "This is about the preservation of the Brotherhood," he told me matter of factly. The Brotherhood's loyalists are treating this as an existential moment, in part because it is.

The group's internal discipline is being called into serious question. A Morsi defeat -- particularly at the hands of presidential competitor Aboul Fotouh, himself a Brotherhood defector -- could spur a major internal split. The most difficult question is what the group would do if Aboul Fotouh faced, say, former foreign minister Amr Moussa in the second round. Brotherhood leaders, although they won't say so publicly, strongly prefer a Moussa presidency. They can find a way to work with the non-ideological Moussa. Aboul Fotouh, however, is more dangerous for them. Charismatic and with his own distinct sources of legitimacy, the 60-year-old doctor fell out with the Brotherhood's conservative leadership for a variety of reasons, among them his desire to the keep the group out of party politics. As president, he would undermine the group's once firm grip over Egyptian Islamism. And if Aboul Fotouh created a movement or party behind his presidency, it would force the Brotherhood into a perpetual state of defense. It doesn't help that Aboul Fotouh has threatened to treat the still-secretive Brotherhood like any other non-governmental organization, requiring it to disclose its sources of funding.

For the Brotherhood, then, this is not about the candidate. The fact that it is Morsi, rather than someone else, is almost beside the point. This is about the future of an organization that has become accustomed to finding enemies and fearing the worst. In times of repression, this may have made sense; less so during a democratic opening. To be sure, Brotherhood leaders have always prided themselves on being a group that favors institutions over individuals. It just so happens that, today, the institution they favor most is their own.

At the Sunday night rally in Abdeen, there were three jumbo screens, fireworks, and a sea of thousands of supporters. Football stars, actors, and hardline Salafi sheikhs took turns speaking on stage. They supported Morsi not for who he was but for what he represented. They had little of note to say about Morsi as a person. It resembled a rock concert but without the rock star. That, of course, was the point. 

Aboul Fotouh's campaign couldn't be more different. When Aboul Fotouh supporters talk about why their candidate will win, they talk about the unifying appeal of Aboul Fotouh. They believe in him. When Brotherhood members talk about why their candidate will win, they use hard math and break down the numbers. They talk about their unparalleled electoral machine. They talk about how, in their projected "worst-case scenario," Morsi will reach 9 million votes. And that will be enough to get to the second round. And, if they get there, they'll at least live to fight another day. Just like they always have.

Photographer Mike Hutchings took this long exposure shot of South Africa's KAT-7 radio telescope array in the Northern Cape, a large, remote province in the country's northwest. The KAT-7 site and another in Australia are under consideration to host the Square Kilometer Array, which will be the world's largest radio telescope when built. A decision on location will be made this year and construction is projected to begin in 2016.

Below, recent Pictures of the Day:

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Image: Reuters.

Today is the one year anniversary of the powerful tornado that devastated a large swath of Joplin, MO. I was in Joplin for a job last week. I stopped and took a few photographs on my way back to the airport. I was surprised by how much some areas still, after a year, looked in shambles, while some buildings that were completely destroyed, like big box stores, looked as if they were, well, brand new.

While driving around, at first I thought to focus on things that had been destroyed, but it took maybe 5 minutes to occur to me that that picture had been made many times in the last year. Instead I began looking for evidence of renewal. It also happened to be an absolutely gorgeous day. I met Marti Goebel taking her two daughters to the school bus stop. Marti, who had been renting before the tornando, told me that if it hadn’t been for the tornado she wouldn’t have been able to buy a home.  Habitat for Humanity helped her build her home in the devastated area. Her home and the one across the street, sit surrounded by empty foundations as far as the eye can see. Spending just two days there, meeting the few people that I met, I understood that life was harder. I knew so many people had lost their homes and for some, much more.  But as the anniversary of the tornado approached, they weren’t letting on. I thought these people are determined to rebuild.

Thank you to TIME for running the top image in this week’s magazine as well as a gallery on Lightbox.

 

Our best photos from the past 24 hours.

I'll have more on this later, but I had a very interesting conversation yesterday with John Pistole, the administrator of the Transportation Security Administration, and I wanted to bring you some of it, via my Bloomberg View column. Bruce Schneier, Goldblog's security guru (and the guy I used to break into airports with), has argued that the recently discovered underwear bomb 2.0, a more sophisticated device than the Christmas 2009 device that failed to ignite, doesn't mean that we should necessarily increase airport security, in part because if the bomb plot matures to the point where it's two hours away from completion, and the TSA is the last line of defense, then it is probably too late. I'm sympathetic to the Schneier argument. Pistole, not really sympathetic at all. Anyway, here's some of what Pistole had to say about the scanners and their ability to detect complicated, well-disguised bombs:

...Would the TSA have been able to identify this most dangerous anomaly in the crotch area, had al-Qaeda managed to build one in the U.S.? (Pistole) mentioned the TSA's new scanning devices, now in use at about 180 airports. "The advanced imaging technology gives us the best chance to detect the underwear-type device," he said. The best chance? "This is not 100 percent guaranteed," he said. "If it comes down to a terrorist who has a well- concealed device, and we have no intelligence about him, and he comes to an advanced-imaging technology machine, it is still our best technology. But it's really an open question about whether the machine, or the AIT operator, would detect the device."

You can read more here.

I am very excited (and exhausted) to bring you the relaunch of my website. Please take a look around and tell your friends. It has been a long haul but I am very proud of it. I am also very happy to feel updated in this world for even a few minutes.

In addition to the revamped About and Press pages, I am very excited to have added a Workshops page where people can go to see my upcoming workshops and talks.

Please use it as a resource and be sure to drop me a line at the studio and let me know what you think. I look forward to hearing from you!

I would like to especially thank Michael Braley at BraleyDesign for designing my letterhead. (I’ll explain why my name is upside down in another post.)  Also Thomas James Hole for building the site. If you need to update your website, and you know who you are, I highly recommend Tom.