first efforts

Blackberry picking

I like this image a whole lot. It was made by Callie Shell and appears in the TIME.com slideshow of Obama's First 100 Days with the following caption:

All who enter the Oval Office, Roosevelt Room and Cabinet Room are asked to leave their mobile devices in baskets like these, stationed around the West Wing.

It's tempting to read the photo as one of those "So it has come to this?" commentaries on the dominance of technology in our lives. Indeed, technology has changed everything. Or has it? The little system the White House has devised here is so civilized one might almost describe it as mannerly. They provide not a box, not a locked cabinet, but a basket. And that basket comes with a polite note requesting your compliance, complete with a calligraphic Thank You. The sticky notes are a lovely vernacular addition to the system; they all look alike, these devices do, and you wouldn't want someone to go Blackberry picking in that basket and wander off with the wrong fruit. Best to leave your Post-It calling card.

Obama Gothic and other eye candy

This cellphone-fuzzy Grant Wood appropriation comes courtesy of an anonymous artist at this past weekend's Artists Against AIDS show. It was only a matter of time, wasn't it? (No, I didn't buy it - we settled for a lovely vase instead). But Obama Gothic makes a good enough epigraph for today's post, I suppose, in which I would like to offer an official mea culpa for being less-than-devoted to first efforts lately (blogos offers a nice model apology for me to crib from). Excuses abound. It's April. I'm blowing all my good visual politics stuff on my students. I'm still figuring out the Facebook/first efforts division of labor. Oh, and there's the little fact of my job. And did I mention it's April?

In any case, here are a few things I'm ruminating about lately. All more or less blogworthy, I hope...

• I'm pleased with how well the BAGnewsSALONs have been going (transcript of the most recent Salon available here). What a pleasure to gather live, online, to discuss visual politics with accomplished photojournalists and scholars. Plug: next Sunday night, May 3, 7 pm CST I'll be moderating a Salon devoted to Obama's first hundred days and loaded with very special guests. Stay tuned!

• These days I'm keeping an eye out for images showing the interior of the Obama White House; I'm hatching a little project on the visual politics of White House art.

• Along with some of my visual politics colleagues, I've been thinking a lot lately about the resurgence of the slideshow as a visual form. Not your parents' trip-to-the-Grand-Canyon snoozefest, but the sculptured, scripted, arranged, linear unfolding of pictures favored not only by news sites but also the Obama White House. I have been invited to do a visual politics gig at Texas A&M's Obama conference next spring; when I'm there I'll likely spend some time thinking out loud about the slideshow form.

Spring drama

River to River ruins

No, it wasn't my time that was in ruins, it was the remote rural environment in which we run the relay. I took photos of these relics at various points along the course this past weekend.

The reason I've been running all those parking garages

Off today to southern Illinois for the River to River Relay: 8 runners, 80 miles, and 1 very smelly passenger van at the end of it all. Unlike the flat-as-a-pancake half marathon course last weekend, this run features hills. Real, live, actual hills. On Sunday I will return happy, but with screaming achilles and, if past idiocy is any guide, a really bad sunburn on the backs of my knees.

Photographic peep-propriations

Jenny Updike of Minneapolis won this year's St. Paul Pioneer Press Peeps Diorama contest with her creation, "The Great Peepression." With apologies to Margaret Bourke-White, of course.

I would like to note with civic pride (?) that the PP's contest is the ORIGINAL Peeps Diorama contest. Accept no substitutes!

Why this Lincoln?

I've been meaning to write about this Alexander Gardner portrait for awhile now, but today's mail brought another reason. My beloved got another (!) new Civil War book. When he opened to the pictures in the middle, this was the photograph of Lincoln that appeared. I'm not surprised. I haven't done an empirical study, but lots of anecdotal evidence suggests this image is the preferred Abe of the bicentennial. Look no further than our very own Lincoln's Rhetorical Worlds speaker series: our graphic designer chose this Abe to be consistent with the campus's Abe. Which happens to be the same as Springfield's Abe. And Galesburg's. And the state of Utah's. Etc. Not to mention that this Abe is also the basis for Ron English's weirdly iconic 2008 campaign image, "Abraham Obama."

There could be any number of reasons why this is such a popular representation. It was made by Alexander Gardner, who photographed Lincoln multiple times during his presidency and made some of the best portraits of him. It could be the historical timing; this photograph is known as the "Gettysburg Portrait" because it was made in 1863 just days before Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address. And English's mash-up isn't unique. The photograph also has a history of appropriation; it was used as the model for Daniel Chester French's giant sculpture in the Lincoln Memorial.

When all is said and done, though, I think it's the frontality. While I don't have "every known pose" next to me as I write, this photograph is, as far as I recall, the only portrait of Lincoln taken squarely straight-on. There's something so modern about a full-frontal Lincoln who directly addresses us. And so enigmatic, too, with those weary eyes and Mona Lisa half-smile. Garry Wills has argued that the Gettysburg Address was a revolution in style; maybe this Gardner portrait is its visual analog.

Prairie Easter

Mahomet, Illinois

5 things that make running a hometown race cool

On Saturday I'm running my first half marathon in two years (my last performance wasn't all that hot). My race is part of the Illinois Marathon, which will be a huge local event. All events (full marathon, half, 5K, and marathon relay) have closed and we are looking at a much bigger turnout than anybody expected. That's great for our town, for our economy, and for local running.

Although Champaign-Urbana has an active and lively running community, we've never had our very own marathon until now. That got me reflecting on all the cool things about running a big race that's local...

5. If I have to drop out I won't get lost;
4. Friends on the race committee have been giving me all the inside dirt on race planning for months;
3. Lotsa friends running and helping on the course means they'll shout and cheer for me;
2. Chance to see some of my students who are also running, and hopefully to kick their asses;
1. If I have to pee and the porta-potty lines are too long, I can always knock on friends' doors.

File name: super-obvious.jpg

In my visual politics class this week we're studying presidential image-making. The students will examine slide shows on the White House web site to get a sense of how the president is presenting himself in this most carefully sculpted of contexts. While downloading a few images for class discussion, I came across some interesting file names.

The file name for this image of Obama boarding Air Force One?

P020509PS-0455_BoardingAF1--hero 

I really hoped this image of Obama would have the word "halo" in its file name, but alas, they chose to emphasize his affect rather than his heavenly headgear:

P020509PS-0722_Stern--reducedf

images (and maybe file names?) by Pete Souza, White House photographer