Alfred Lerner Hall
the Alfred Lerner Hall is part of New York, NY (Manhattan) , New York City , Columbia University .Top photos chosen by u all:
Symposium: Discussion
Made by Ryan Brenizer
There's a weird conflation in our society, particularly in photography, where professional tends to mean good. We expect professional photographers to be better than amateurs, and professional work to be better than amateur work, as if this is easily quantifiable. We get this conflation because photography is both an art and a craft. But the only difference between professional and amateur work is that someone else is paying the professional to do their work, whereas the amateur is doing it for themselves. Seen from that perspective, if you have an amateur and a professional with equal skill and equipment, or someone who does both amateur and pro work, you should expect the *amateur* work to be better, since it is driven by passion and without external limitation. But I find that professional work can help people develop as photographers, not because it's intrinsically better, but because you *are* bound by external limitations, and thus have something to struggle against. It's human nature to improve ourselves through struggle and challenges. If I wanted to produce the most stunning images possible, I would strike out on my own and start with beautiful scenes. I would travel to exotic locations, find the most gorgeous people, seek out rare flowers, the smiles of children, the thrill of conflict. But the most common way that my job challenges me photographically is to take a scene that is very, very boring and make the best of it. In , I photographed a very important event -- a massive symposium to further the cause of educational equity -- for a magazine. The event was really important in its context, but visually all it meant was people standing at a podium under awful, harsh lighting and talking for two days. Getting good pictures from that? It was a struggle. But I'm glad I got the opportunity to give it a try.
Bruner: Live at Lerner Hall!
Made by Ryan Brenizer
Jerome Bruner, one of the best-known and most influential psychologists of the 20th century, gave the annual Marx Lecture at Columbia University on Tuesday, Oct. 18th. His book, The Process of Education, helped launch the educational reform movement during the 1960s and continues to profoundly influence understanding of perception, learning, memory, and other aspects of cognition in very young children. He was also a principal architect of Head Start, the pre-kindergarten program that has helped to level the educational playing field for millions of children, and wrote briefs for Brown v. Board of Education, a landmark Supreme Court case that desegregated United States public schools. It was a great lecture, but sadly I had to miss the NYC Flickr meetup for it. ----- Fun fact of the day: For those who consider the 70-200 not sharp enough, generally considered to be people in that advanced form of lens snobbery known as primes only, even in (decent) indoor light the VR lets you stop down a few notches for, as I call it, WTF?!? sharpness.
Karate: Block the attack
Made by Ryan Brenizer
John Teramoto, one of the most highest-ranking martial artists of my style in the nation, was visiting New York this week, and taught two classes in my dojo. During the first, of course, I was too busy getting slammed around to take photos, but he also taught a class for high-level black belts, so I finally got a chance to take photos of my class in action. Of course, the lighting in the space available was extraordinarily bad, but we have the tools to overcome. We have the technology.
Studying
Made by Daniella Zalcman
Lerner Hall, Columbia University.
Kofi Annan
Made by EntropyDM
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