Hasta La Ideas

Gone are the spokesmodels, pitchmen, and muses. Now they’re all “creative directors” with a piece of the financial action. And so it was that the recently reborn Polaroid brand returned to the Consumer Electronics Show with pop star Lady Gaga, its creative director, in tow. Friday saw the launch of Polaroid Grey Label, a new line of products that the company describes as reflecting “Polaroid’s long-standing tradition of innovation tracing back to founder Dr. Edwin Land and Lady Gaga’s mission to deliver products that enable creativity for all, celebrate artistry, and make sharing instantaneous across the physical and digital.”

Inaugurating the line are an instant digital camera and mobile printer that use Zink Imaging’s zero ink technology as well as sunglasses fitted with a built-in camera and lenses that double as LCD screens on which the wearer can display favorite images. “I consider myself to be a visionary, not just a songwriter and a singer. I am an artist,” said Gaga, in a statement issued by the company. “I brought my vision and love of fashion, technology, and obsession with the future into all of my work with Polaroid.” The industrial design brains behind the products is San Francisco-based Ammunition, led by Apple veteran Robert Brunner. “[Gaga] and her team are very respectful of what we do, there’s a lot of mutual respect,” he told PC Magazine. “There’s always a risk in pairing with celebrities because we don’t want to be that guy in the background making stuff at somebody’s whim. But working with Gaga has turned out to be exciting and fun.”

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Paul Strand’s “Blind Woman” (negative 1916, print c. 1920s), “Mlle. Pogany, New York (Brancusi)” (1922), and “Man Carving Chair II, Mr. Bolster, Vermont” (1943) are among the more than 3,000 works acquired by the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

It’s turning out to be a very good week for the photography holdings of major museums. Right on the heels of the Art Institute of Chicago’s announcement that it will receive more than 15,000 items from the collection of Richard Nickel comes word that the Philadelphia Museum of Art has acquired the core collection of photographs by Paul Strand (1890–1976). The museum announced today that it has received—as partial and promised gifts—1,422 images from the Paul Strand Archive at the Aperture Foundation, as well as 566 master prints from Strand’s negatives by the artist Richard Benson. The museum has also agreed to purchase an additional 1,276 photographs from the Aperture Foundation. By our calculations, that makes 3,264 works by Strand, who studied with Lewis Hine and palled around with Alfred Stieglitz in New York before hitting the road to document regional life (and the occasional fern) in communities from Quebec to Ghana. “The Paul Strand Collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art will rank among the finest and most significant groups of works by key figures in the history of photography held by any museum in this country” said Timothy Rub, the museum’s George D. Widener director and CEO, in a statement announcing the acquisition. Planning is underway for a major Strand retrospective at the museum in 2014.

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Photos taken by Eadweard Muybridge in 1879

Is your collection of lushly illustrated photography books rivaled only by your cache of exercise DVDs? Do you enjoy feeling the burn as much as you savor getting the shot? Have Eadweard Muybridge‘s sporty studies always been your favorites? If you’re an image-savvy work-out fiend looking for work, look no further: Fitness is seeking a junior image guru to join its New York City HQ. Among the position’s key responsibilities is conceptualizing art concepts for the magazine as well as arranging, producing, and executing photo shoots. The chosen candidate will be handling most of the still life shoots plus most workout shoots, so bring your excellent photographic eye and your sculptural Philippe Starck dumbbells.

Learn more about and apply for this associate photo editor, Fitness job or view all of the current mediabistro.com design, art, and photo jobs.

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After a year of some fairly high profile stories across the world of photographers’ rights being violated by overzealous or ill-informed government employees, the New York Civil Liberties Union scored a major win this week in federal court when a federal judge in New York declared that there are no laws or regulations in place to prevent anyone from taking photos outside of not just federal courthouses (which derives from a case that launched the NYCLU’s fight to protect people’s rights), but all federal buildings. Furthermore, the judge ordered that instructions be issued to officers stationed at federal buildings that photography or filming of their buildings is not to be persecuted. For further reading on the statement and the case that launched it, the NY Times‘ photography blog, Lens, has a great recap. Here’s a bit from the NYCLU on their win:

“This settlement secures the public’s First Amendment right to use cameras in public spaces without being harassed,” NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman said. “While we understand the need for heightened security near federal buildings, any rule that results in the arrest of people for exercising their First Amendment rights is clearly unconstitutional. We’re pleased the federal government finally recognizes this fact.”

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It’s good in the way that Them Thangs is good.

Although, perhaps a bit less dark/evil. Here