Marketing Photos with Mary Virginia Swanson

From Brenda Ann via email today:
The Raw File (www.therawfile.org) is a digital theater inspired by the need for a space to host the serial web publication “BACK ON THE BLOCK”.

The Raw File exists to provide an arena for stories not seen incommercially sponsored media. The Raw File is the language of the heart and the sounds of the streets – the quiet of the fields or the rumbling of trains overhead – the flickering pink lights on a synthetic white tree– the echo of footsteps over an empty factory floor. It is Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg meet Biggie Smalls and Remmy Ma. The Raw File is a place where the intimate testimony of a baby’s first snapshot and a lover’s last breath, bear witness to the political and spiritual condition of our time.

The Raw File will set the tone for submissions from independent storytellers and citizen documentarians with the publication of TATA’s ANGEL, the first in the series BACK ON THE BLOCK, produced by Raw File.

BACK ON THE BLOCK continues to tell the stories of the families in Brenda Ann Kenneally’s book MONEY, POWER, RESPECT: Pictures of My Neighborhood (published by Channel Photographics 2005).

Kenneally contacted independent producer Laura Lo Forti when she realized that the obligation to subjects of long term documentary projects needs to be ongoing. Both women had been employing digital media as a means of storytelling and they agreed that often the finite nature of print journalism serves only as the introduction to a larger story. Though the material for Kenneally’s book had been at the designer for months, she continued to document major events in the lives of her neighbors, more often as family member than a journalist. When it became clear that the publication of a book merely provided the context to understand the events of the years to come, Kenneally Lo Forti created therawfile.org.

Using The Creative Commons License and a viral distribution strategy the raw file aims to set the content free so that through discussion the social and emotional intelligence of users across disciplines may be elevated.

Please subscribe to The Raw File newsletter from our homepage www.therawfile.org to be notified of the latest installments.

thanks,
Brenda Ann Kenneally and Laura Lo Forti”

ABOUT The Raw File, From the website

“The Raw File was created to produce and distribute socially reflective media that will provoke discussion. It is our hope that these conversations will intersect the lines of race and class, private and professional.

Our content is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License so that anyone may download, copy, exhibit, and distribute it for non-profit, educational purposes. We simply ask you to attribute this work to http://www.therawfile.org.

The Raw File has no agenda other than to provide a neutral and approachable environment for the documentation and dissemination of information by and about individuals and their communities, an outlet for stories that would otherwise go unheard into history.

The Raw File is self-funded and in the process of being registered as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit .

The Raw File…

Founded by Brenda Ann Kenneally”

Brenda Ann has since told me “we will be accepting submissions after feburary” and additionally that “we will be working with some social organizations to help produce multi media pieces from some of the folks they work with either in criminal justice of women’s rights.”

Brenda Ann is to be applauded for her efforts in getting the work of others out, promoting dialogue, and contributing to building the market for multimedia. If you are not familiar with her own work, I encourage you to visit her website, and to view one of my favorite pieces from the NYT Multimedia site, “CHILDREN OF THE STORM,” which first appeared as an entire issue of the NYT Magazine on the first anniversary of hurricane Katrina. She has continued to tell the story in multimedia format, “Finding The Way Home: Two Years After Katrina” which is featured on www.mediastorm.org

As always, I encourage all of you to share your work, give voice to your subjects and all effect change, and appreciate the efforts of those who provide platforms for dialogue.

And, I suggest all artists register their images with the copyright office before posting or reproducing ANYWHERE. This is to protect you should your copyright be violated beyond any permissions you granted, or in the unfortunate instince that they were reproduced in any format without prior permissions (and appropriate licensing fees paid).

Visit these industry organization sites for information and registration forms:
www.editorialphoto.com (information and forms)
www.asmp.org (copyright application tutorial)
www.pacaoffice.org (copyright education PowerPoint for free downloading)