WARNING: Time-Devouring Speedlinks

The irony of this post’s title is readily apparent. Speedlinks are supposed to be fast, but there’s plenty of hot stuff to keep even someone with the attention span of a gnat glued to the screen for an hour, so choose your poison below.

[Truth be told, I love piling all these disparate links/items in one post. There’s some stuff here to peruse quickly, but there’s also plenty on which to procrastinate, or to suck up an entire boring day at the office.]

-Strobist: Photos of the Year contest. A 30-second read on David’s blog will catch you up on the great photo contest he’s putting on, but a 30-minute perusal of his Flickr pool won’t even scratch the surface of what’s in contention. There’s some good stuff in there. And, you’ll be excited by the prizes. Panel of judges? How bout a panel of one: ME. All bribes will be considered on their merits.

–Flying Humans. You may have seen this, but if not, your time is now. Some friends of my friends were involved in getting this sport off the ground (pun intended) a while back. Nice to see things coming together. The sport is now even featuring in the mainstream. This shiznit is straight-up insane. Beautiful, but insane.

–I’ve said it publicly plenty of times: the face of copyright is changing, and as as visual artists, we should be well aware of how it could effect us. Blindly sticking a stake in the ground for copyright is like re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Not that the current laws should not be defended, because I believe vehemently that they should, and I’m not afraid to do so. But, it’s time to begin educating one another and visual artists everywhere about options. Only by taking the lead in re-defining the next iteration of copyright law will we have a fair stake; and prior to that we need to educate ourselves on trends and options. I’m a fan of lawyer and Stanford Professor, Larry Lessig, who’s TED video below is a must watch. Things like the Creative Commons, its proponents, ideas, and fundamentals, are not the uncontested answer to professional photography’s needs by any stretch, but they’re a good place to start to understand the mentality of the new era. Only by understanding its movers and shakers and the core of a new and rising ethos can we help shape, manage, collaborate and build upon it. I suggest you seek to understand some of Larry’s ideas:

http://static.videoegg.com/ted/flash/loader.swf

–If you’re in NYC this month, swing thru Chelsea for a must-hit art show at Jonathan Levine Gallery called The Streets of Europe: A Survey of European Street Art, featuring some of my favs, including Blek Le Rat. (Thanks Wooster Collective). And never forget to check GalleryHopper.org

–Speaking of Wooster Collective, their site continues to excite me, along with NOTCOT.org, 365 Portraits, and others.

–BTW, while I’m thinking of it, a few readers in just the past couple days have asked me why I blog. Some one-liners are outdated, but generally things haven’t changed much since I gave this interview a while back.

–Lots of shopping lists are beginning to appear online for the holiday gift-giving season. A friendly list–with a broad range of prices and interest values–has been presented by CreativeTechs . Getting slightly more geeky TUAW did one for gamers (Guitar Hero anyone?); and there are ridiculously expensive ideas for techies over here at CNET, but the all around winner goes to Coolhunter.

–Lastly, speaking of gifts, as a reward for reading to the bottom of this time-devouring speedlinks list, how bout a dorky, baited, friendly challenge: for every person who leaves a comment on intervals of 10 (ie comment #10, 20, 30…) up to #50 on this post and asks to receive “The Special Edition Holiday Mailer” without cheating and putting in a bunch of worthless entries just to get a prize, I’ll send you a one-off of a little winter promo gift that just went out to a small professional mailing list this year. It’s pretty cool.

[ANY Art Directors, Photo Buyers, agents, etc who would like to be added to this short list AND/OR people who nail those intervals please ping us at info at chasejarvis dot com with your physical address.]