At this pool, we prefer calm and restrained play:
And, ladies, wear your swim caps. I love the coloring on that sign, which probably was installed and hasn’t been reconsidered in years. I love the way the light falls across it and the tile behind it. The building was built in 1961, so the sign went in sometime since then.
Meanwhile, elsewhere on campus, Samford completes purchase of Southern Progress property:
Looks like the 70s. MT @adeelnyt: First time @nytimes has used readers' Instagram photos on front page. Wonderful. pic.twitter.com/t5nLPzJ7aA
— kenny smith (@kennysmith) January 28, 2015
There are going to be some thorny ethical issues here. I refer you to item five under the “Rights” section of Instagram’s terms of service, “You will not remove, alter or conceal any copyright, trademark, service mark or other proprietary rights notices incorporated in or accompanying the Instagram Content and you will not reproduce, modify, adapt, prepare derivative works based on, perform, display, publish, distribute, transmit, broadcast, sell, license or otherwise exploit the Instagram Content.” There’s also a “We will not rent or sell your information to third parties outside Instagram” passage elsewhere in their terms.
Here, then, is a recent eyetracking study that says “Study participants were able to tell whether a photograph was made by a professional or an amateur 90 percent of the time.” The findings there also suggest professional photographs were twice as likely as user-generated photographs to be shared, that more time was spent with professionally generated photographs than with user-generated images and respondents rated shots for their memorability, the top 20 were done by pros.
So go on with Instagram, newsrooms.
I’m a fan of user generated content. I have a presentation on just this topic in a few weeks at the Alabama Press Association. UGC now has a valuable and, at times, vital role in the work of a news outlet. There are caveats and concerns: quality, accessibility, accuracy and, as above, issues of legality. Once you get beyond all of that — and that will take some doing — you get down to today’s example. Used in bulk like the Times did above it comes across as either a novelty (“We’re hip”) or a concession (“We couldn’t get our light painters outside to shoot the snow”).
Plus the joy of filters.
This story, which defies excerpting, just keeps on giving: Alabama police officer handcuffed, Maced fellow officer in front of confused mayor.
If you were waiting for the rest of the equation on relations with Cuba, that’s starting: Raul Castro: US must return Guantánamo for normal relations.
On Hitler’s Very Stationery is something we should all read. It’ll take you just a moment, and it is too good to excerpt. Read it.
