The Joy of Cooking - Irma Rombauer (1931) ... Meet the middle-aged, middle-class woman who traps, butchers and eats squirrels in her Seattle backyard -- Her reason: Squirrel is the ultimate local meat (27th January 2012) ...
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Eating wild squirrel and other game has long been a part of the diet in rural America. But Ms Vorass is taking the age-old practice out of the backwoods and bringing it to the big city.
........***** All images arre copyrighted by their respective authors ........
marsmet49 photostream
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.....item 1).... Mail Online ... Daily Mail ... www.dailymail.co.uk ... Meet the middle-aged, middle-class woman who traps, butchers and eats squirrels in her Seattle backyard
By MICHAEL ZENNIE
Last updated at 9:13 PM on 27th January 2012
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2092809/Melany-Vorass-ur...
Melany Vorass is a 49-year-old college-educated woman living in a middle-class neighborhood of Seattle, Washington.
And in the backyard of her quiet neighborhood home, she traps, drowns and butchers squirrels for her dinner table -- one of her family's principle sources of meat.
Ms Vorass is part of a growing crowd of city-dwellers who are 'foragers' -- living off of greens picked from public parks, fish caught from local streams and mushrooms plucked from nearby forests
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img code photo ... Happy squirrel !!
i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/01/27/article-2092809-117D9C...
Food for though: Grey squirrels (left) are trapped, slaughtered and butchered (right) by Melany Vorass and served for dinner
Associated Press
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img code photo ... butchered squirrel !!
i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/01/27/article-2092809-117D9C...
Food for though: Grey squirrels (left) are trapped, slaughtered and butchered (right) by Melany Vorass and served for dinner
Associated Press
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img code photo .... Melany Vorass
i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/01/27/article-2092809-117D9B...
Urban forager: Melany Vorass middle class woman who has begun finding her own food in the city of Seattle, including by eating squirrel
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Eating wild squirrel and other game has long been a part of the diet in rural America. But Ms Vorass is taking the age-old practice out of the backwoods and bringing it to the big city.
Her reason: Squirrel is the ultimate local meat.
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'I admit I enjoy a juicy cut of prime rib over squirrel, but I find I can no longer eat it without experiencing some feelings of guilt,' she wrote on her blog.
Ms Vorass believes commercial meat is unethical. Cows are raised on inhumane feedlots, butchered in inhumane ways and fed rations of unhealthy and environmentally-damaging antibiotics and feed, she says on her blog Essential Bread.
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img code photo ... Ms Vorass cuts the squirrel into pieces like a chicken
i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/01/27/article-2092809-117D9D...
Ready for the fryer: Ms Vorass cuts the squirrel into pieces like a chicken before cooking it
Associated Press
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'I know how out there it sounds. But the alternative is to close your eyes and eat what comes on a Styrofoam tray,' she told the Seattle Times.
-------SQUIRREL: IT TASTES NOTHING LIKE CHICKEN
Squirrel can be tough and somewhat greasy and gamey so it's best to braise, boil or stew it. Soaking it in a simple salt brine will also help tenderize the meat. But otherwise, it's not difficult to prepare.
Food safety dictates that it's best to cook to 165 degrees to kill a possible bacterial contamination. And steer clear of the brains -- scientists believe they could carry Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease, the human form of mad cow disease.
**** Cooking suggestions:
..... Brunswick stew
..... Mulligan stew
..... Braise meat and remove from bones for 'squirrel-ritos' -- burrito filling
Her urban foraging isn't just limited to squirrels. In her backyard, she plants a garden every year and raises chickens and goats.
She picks also dandelion greens and other 'weeds' for salads and occasionally she and her husband catch trout in a local lake.
Ms Vorass began trapping squirrels as a way to get the pesty critters out of her backyard and away from her garden -- which they were terrorizing.
Her husband set up a metal 'Have-A-Heart' live trap and started releasing them in a nearby park.
But then an irate neighbor complained that the was just dumping their problems somewhere else.
About that time, Ms Vorass discovered a recipe for squirrel and instructions on how to skin the rodents in an old Joy of Cooking cookbook.
The classic American cooking was first published in the height of the Great Depression and for many years contained recipes for all manner of wild animals -- from rabbits to opossums.
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img code photo .... Melany Vorass is a 49-year-old college-educated woman
i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/01/27/article-2092809-117D9D...
Not backwoods cuisine: Melany Vorass often makes squirrel risotto - risotto di rodentia
Associated Press
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As for the actual killing, Ms Vorass says she thought long and hard about quickest the most humane way to off her captured prey.
------ HOW TO COOK SQUIRREL RISOTTO - RISOTTO DI RODENTIA
Making Ms Vorass' risotto di rodentia is little more difficult than adding chicken to a simple risotto. Just cook it a little longer.
1) Cut hind legs and loins off squirrel.
2) Saute onions, then add squirrel pieces and brown on both sides.
3) Then add white wine, arborio rice and salt, pepper and any spices.
4) When alcohol has cooked off, cover and bake in 350-degree oven for two hours or until meat is tender.
After a squirrel is caught in a live trap baited with peanut butter and crackers, she drowns it and then cuts its throat so it bleeds out to ensure its dead before she butchers it.
She says it's a quicker, cleaner death than befalls many squirrels when they are run over by cars or torn apart by predators.
Drowning is the fastest way Ms Vorass has found to off the squirrels yet, since firing a gun in Seattle is strictly forbidden.
However, she's experimenting with a 'Rat Zapper' that electrocutes the squirrel almost instantly.
With the squirrel dead - now comes the hard part -- skinning it.
Squirrel hides are tough. The best way to skin a squirrel is to cut part of it free and step on the tail to tear it from the body. If the tail breaks, Ms Vorass as a simple solution: Pliers.
On her blog, she offers detailed, graphic instructions on how to do this properly.
Once the squirrel is skinned and gutted, she gives it a truly middle class treatment: braised in white wine with mushrooms and risotto.
Squirrel is tougher and darker than rabbit and somewhat greasy.
It does not taste like chicken.
Squirrel is actually richer than beef in some ways -- higher in fat and cholesterol. However, it's dramatically lower in saturated fats and higher in polyunsaturated, so-called 'good' fats.
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.....item 2).... JOY OF COOKING ... A listing of the American editions
www.cookbkjj.com/college/joy.htm
1931
[November 30]
First Edition
Author: Irma Rombauer
Supporting Cast: Mazie Whyte, Marion Rombauer
Illustrator: Marion Rombauer
Pages: 396
Copies published: 3,000
Copies sold: Eventually all 3,000 copies were sold.
Overview: Irma Rombauer first published THE JOY OF COOKING in 1936, for an initial investment of ,000; with A.C. Clayton (a company which had never published a book before but printed labels for fancy St. Louis shoe companies and for Listerine).
She included casual culinary chat with recipes (narrated paragraphs including ingredients and instructions intermingled) in a book designed and illustrated by her daughter, Marion Rombauer. The mix of these elements stirred the beginnings of a loyal readership and represented a split from the domestic science/home economist cooking tradition. Irma Rombauer's emphasis was on fun and flavor for the average cook.
Note: A Facsimile reprint of this edition, with a new foreword by Edgar Rombauer was done in 1998. Click here for specific information.
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.....item 3)... The online home of the Joy of Cooking ... JOY HISTORY ... 1931 EDITION
www.thejoykitchen.com/history.lasso?tag=1931
The self published book that started it all.
THE JOY OF COOKING
A COMPILATION OF RELIABLE RECIPES WITH A CASUAL CULINARY CHAT
Author: Irma Rombauer
Illustrated by: Marion Rombauer
Published by: Irma Rombauer
Printed by: A.C. Clayton (St. Louis, MO)
Irma Rombauer first published 3,000 copies of The Joy of Cooking in 1931, for an initial investment of ,000. Her casual and familiar prose put the reader at ease, earning the love and loyalty from Depression-era women who were having to take the place of professional cooks they could no longer afford. The tone and approach to cooking was joyful and quite a departure from the home keeping and cookery books of the day, most of which were written by home economists.
Marion Rombauer, Irma's daughter, designed and illustrated the book in addition to testing recipes. Her recollection of printing the first edition, the "Little Joy" as they called it in later years, are as follows:
"How naïve and straightforward was our approach to publishing! We simply called in a printer. I remember the Saturday morning she arrived, laden with washable cover fabrics, type and paper samples. In a few hours all decisions were made, and shortly afterwards we signed a contract for 3,000 copies complete with mailing cartons and individualized stickers. Then came the new experience of galleys, proofreading and preparing an index." Modern woman is faced with tasks almost as diversified as St. Martha's, and cooking is not the least of the problems she must meet with intelligence and understanding.
In this book every effort has been made to add variety and interest to everyday fare, as well as to provide dishes for special occasions. The hundreds of tested recipes given are both old and new. The old ones have withstood the test of timethe new ones have been added through careful selection. Experienced cooks in search of novel recipes and ideas will find many to interest them. Inexperienced cooks cannot fail to make successful soufflés, pies, cakes, soups, gravies, etc., if they follow the clear instructions given on these subjects. The Zeitgeist is reflected in the Chapter on Leftovers and in many other practical suggestions.
The cover of the book may be cleaned with a moist cloth. .00
Luckily for JOY collectors, a facsimile of the 1931 edition was printed in 1997.
------TESTIMONIALS AND CRITICAL ACCLAIM:
.....Mrs. Rombauer successfully imparts the feeling that cooking never is nor should be a dull task. A thoroughly practical cookbook, well indexed and including old and honored recipes as well as the newest fads and fancies. ---Marguerite Martyn, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
.....Inexperienced cooks find it a splendid teacher. ---Mrs. W. H. Dempsey, Alton, Illinois
.....I have yet to find any as practical from every standpoint as The Joy of Cooking. It is reliable, contains unusual and original dishes and menus, and best of all, its outstanding virtue is economy. ---Rita Ross,
Household Club Program, KSD Broadcasting Station
.....I take the book to bed with me because it is such fun to plan for the next day and be entertained at the same time. ---Jean Wagoner, Indianapolis, Indiana
.....Women in business with little time to give to the all-important kitchen will find this complete cookbook most satisfactory. ---Laura Stith Corbitt, St. Louis, Missouri
.....The fact that it was written with one eye on the pocket-book and one on the bathroom scales will appeal to all young and old housekeepers. ---Louis K. Adam, Chicago, Illinois
COLLECTOR'S VALUES: 0-,000
Please read about cookbook collecting in the Kitchen Table Forums to learn more.
A FACSIMILE OF THE FIRST EDITION
THE JOY OF COOKING
1998
With a Foreword by Edgar R. Rombauer
Printed by: Simon and Schuster/Scribner
Luckily for JOY fans and collectors, a facsimile of the 1931 edition was printed in 1998. This is a perfect copy of the first edition and reveals why the Joy of Cooking has become a legacy of learning and pleasure for generations of users.
The Foreword by Irma s son, Edgar Rombauer, is full of information about the writing of the little book (as it was often referred to by the family), and Irma's quest to find a publisher.
COLLECTOR'S VALUES: Available new. Not a collector's item.
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bit.ly/soNgmr“Your major is Liberal Arts? What is that anyway? And what kind of a job are you going to get when you graduate?” If you have a major in liberal arts, you've probably heard questions like those. First of all, “Liberal arts” can mean different things to different people. While some use a broad definition that often includes mathematics, basic sciences, and economics, others refer more specifically to the humanities and social sciences. Majors that are usually classified as "Liberal Arts" under both definitions are history, English literature, women’s studies, anthropology, foreign languages, philosophy, and international relations. But even once you've explained what a liberal arts major is, it can be challenging to understand how a liberal arts degree will lead to a fulfilling and lucrative career. Fortunately, students who study liberal arts can pursue a range of job options. Employers today are look for good communications skills coupled with a strong work ethic, teamwork, initiative, interpersonal skills, critical thinking and problem-solving and analytical abilities. These are exactly the abilities liberal arts majors learn through their coursework in the humanities and social sciences. That doesn’t mean that getting a job when you graduate with a liberal arts degree won’t take effort and persistence. But there are some techniques you can use to increase your chances of getting hired once you have your liberal arts degree. First of all, remember that you have many options beyond the obvious ones. An English major might decide to become a journalist, but other possibilities that use the same editing and writing skills include media, public relations, and publishing occupations, and even sales or graphic design in some cases. Similarly, a history graduate might consider jobs as a research assistant, paralegal, reporter or technical writer. And geography majors are well suited to positions in location-based urban planning and even public policy and administration. Another option that can help liberal arts students entering the workforce is to pursue a minor or other training in a technical or business subject. Some colleges and universities specifically offer programs that train liberal arts students in real-world skills. Through these practical programs an art history major could earn a certificate in art appraisal, or a Spanish major could complete the courses for a certificate in translation. Finally, many employers consider internships to be one of the most effective methods for finding new staff. Internships give liberal arts majors a hands-on opportunity to learn more about their chosen career. Summer jobs, part-time jobs, and volunteer work can also be useful possibilities for those students who want to gain valuable practical experience and a better understanding of the challenges and rewards of their chosen profession. Working as an intern or a volunteer not only provides liberal arts degree students with exposure to the world of business or community service; it also gives the students an opportunity to demonstrate maturity, reliability, timeliness, courteousness, and other traits important to employers. And building a solid reputation as a good worker or volunteer is helpful for jobseekers in need of references and an edge that will make their resume stand out when they are applying for job openings.
Listen ... Rape is a polictically volatile topic (5:08 PM, Aug. 26, 2012) ...item 2.. GAWKER -- Unmasking Reddit’s Violentacrez, The Biggest Troll on the Web - Reddit had already exploded in outrage. (OCT 12, 2012 5:00 PM) ...
Image by marsmet451
I had just told him, on Gchat, that I had uncovered his identity as the notorious internet troll Violentacrez (pronounced Violent-Acres).
Judging from his internet footprint, Brutsch, 49, has a lot to sweat over. If you are capable of being offended, Brutsch has almost certainly done something that would offend you, then did his best to rub your face in it.
His speciality is distributing images of scantily-clad underage girls, but as Violentacrez he also issued an unending fountain of racism, porn, gore, misogyny, incest, and exotic abominations yet unnamed, all on the sprawling online community Reddit.
At the time I called Brutsch, his latest project was moderating a new section of Reddit where users posted covert photos they had taken of women in public, usually close-ups of their asses or breasts, for a voyeuristic sexual thrill. It was called "Creepshots." Now Brutsch was the one feeling exposed and it didn't suit him very well.
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... message header for FSU News
Lately, several male politicians have been saying some really stupid things regarding issues on abortion, birth control and rape—things that they will never truly understand simply because they have different sexual reproductive organs.
Not to say this makes men any less important, but it’s a little bit harder to justify their opinions on matters they can’t relate to.
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.....item 1).... FSU News ... www.fsunews.com ... Rape is a polictically volatile topic
5:08 PM, Aug. 26, 2012
Written by
SAMANTHA HUSTED
Staff Writer
FILED UNDER
FSU News
FSU News Views
www.fsunews.com/article/20120827/FSVIEW03/120826013/Rape-...|newswell|text|frontpage|p
Recently there’s been a really big women’s rights movement that has been continually growing and picking up tons of female and male supporters. It makes me feel good knowing that men and women alike can recognize there’s something wrong with the way our society treats women.
Though this movement is necessary and a step in the right direction for human rights in general, it has been spurred and has grown from a lot of negativity. Especially regarding women’s health and the right for a woman to choose what she does with her body.
Lately, several male politicians have been saying some really stupid things regarding issues on abortion, birth control and rape—things that they will never truly understand simply because they have different sexual reproductive organs. Not to say this makes men any less important, but it’s a little bit harder to justify their opinions on matters they can’t relate to.
Which is why I get frustrated when politicians, men who are in power and make important decisions, say ignorant things about issues they obviously don’t understand fully.
Take Congressman Todd Akin, what a swell guy. He states, “It seems to me, from what I understand from doctors….[pregnancies from rape are] really rare.” He continued, “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
Okay, wait, what? So does that mean anyone who’s been raped and has become pregnant as a result wasn’t really raped?
It wasn’t legitimate because her body didn’t ward off the offender?
What a ridiculous assertion. I think we should take a moment and recognize that rape is rape. There’s no way to legitimize it or make one rape more rape-like than the next.
It’s a horrible thing that happens to women and men everyday. And guess what? It can sometimes result in pregnancy.
Women aren’t just baby-making vessels who can control when they’d like to get pregnant. There’s no way of telling your uterus that maybe you’re not ready for a baby yet. Todd Akins has since apologized, but only after all the negative responses his statement recieved.
This whole situation regarding women’s health and a right for her to choose is immensely frustrating for me, especially when comments like Todd Akin’s are made. Ignorance such as his is unacceptable and is holding women back. Making cases of rape seem illegitimate and less important is wrong. There’s no way to justify a rape and the fact that his statement was said shows me that he doesn’t care about women’s health. Just as long as they don’t get abortions he’ll be happy. It’s scary to think that Todd Akin has the power to make decisions that could potentially affect my body.
I feel like our society is constantly, to be super cliché, taking two steps backwards for every step forward. Our government can’t be fueled by ignorance and fear. If they don’t completely understand something they should try to and not spew word vomit like Akin was guilty of.
We need to build tolerance and understanding in our country. If things like rape make you uncomfortable, that’s okay, but that doesn’t mean you should shove your misguided “facts,” into a government forum.
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.....item 2).... GAWKER ... gawker.com ...
VIOLENTACREZ THE INTERNET REDDIT MICHAEL BRUTSCH CREEPSHOTS LONGREADS
Unmasking Reddit’s Violentacrez, The Biggest Troll on the Web
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img code photo ... THE MAN BEHIND THE TROLL ... Michael Brutsch, 49
img.gawkerassets.com/img/181ycj8ex213ujpg/original.jpg
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Adrian Chen
OCT 12, 2012 5:00 PM
gawker.com/5950981/unmasking-reddits-violentacrez-the-big...
Last Wednesday afternoon I called Michael Brutsch. He was at the office of the Texas financial services company where he works as a programmer and he was having a bad day. I had just told him, on Gchat, that I had uncovered his identity as the notorious internet troll Violentacrez (pronounced Violent-Acres).
"It's amazing how much you can sweat in a 60 degree office," he said with a nervous laugh.
Judging from his internet footprint, Brutsch, 49, has a lot to sweat over. If you are capable of being offended, Brutsch has almost certainly done something that would offend you, then did his best to rub your face in it. His speciality is distributing images of scantily-clad underage girls, but as Violentacrez he also issued an unending fountain of racism, porn, gore, misogyny, incest, and exotic abominations yet unnamed, all on the sprawling online community Reddit. At the time I called Brutsch, his latest project was moderating a new section of Reddit where users posted covert photos they had taken of women in public, usually close-ups of their asses or breasts, for a voyeuristic sexual thrill. It was called "Creepshots." Now Brutsch was the one feeling exposed and it didn't suit him very well.
But Michael Brutsch is more than a monster. Online, Violentacrez has been one of Reddit's most reviled characters but also one of its most beloved users. The self-described "creepy uncle of Reddit" has played a little-known but crucial role in Reddit's development into the online juggernaut it is today. In real life, Brutsch is a military father and cat-lover. He lives with his wife in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas. There are many sides to Violentacrez, and now that I had Michael Brutsch on the phone I hoped to find out where the troll ended and the real person began.
***
I first became aware of Violentacrez last year, when controversy erupted over a section, called "Jailbait," that Violentacrez had created on Reddit dedicated to sexualized images of underaged girls. (Brutsch adapted the name from "Violent Acres," a popular anonymous blogger he was fond of in the mid-2000s.) Reddit, for the uninitiated, is essentially a social news site; with a free username, anyone can submit and vote on content and can do so anonymously. And anyone can start a forum on Reddit dedicated to their interests, known as a subreddit. Today, there are about 10,000 active subreddits out of nearly 100,000 total, spanning a dizzying array of topics from funny pictures, to Power Rangers, to pooping. If a post gets enough "upvotes," as they're called, it can be propelled to the front page of Reddit and a massive audience.
The breadth of topics and dedication of users has made Reddit, which calls itself the "front page of the internet," the single dominant force in internet culture today, boasting over 3.4 billion pageviews this August. It reached a new level of legitimacy last month, when President Obama held a Q & A on Reddit. These days, Reddit is mentioned in the same breath as Twitter and Facebook by pundits expounding on the power of social media.
But Reddit's laissez-faire attitude towards offensive speech has led to a vast underbelly that rivals anything on the notorious cesspool 4chan. And with Jailbait, Violentacrez decided to create a safe space for people sexually attracted to underage girls to share their photo stashes. I would call these people pedophiles; the Jailbait subreddit called them "ephebophiles." Jailbait was the online equivalent of systematized street harassment. Users posted snapshots of tween and teenage girls, often in bikinis and skirts. Many of these were lifted from their Facebook accounts and thrown in front of Jailbait's 20,000 horny subscribers.
Violentacrez and his fellow moderators worked hard to make sure every girl on jailbait was underage, diligently deleting any photos whose subjects seemed older than 16 or 17. Violentacrez himself posted hundreds of photos. Jailbait became one of Reddit's most popular subreddits, generating millions of pageviews a month. "Jailbait" was for a time the second biggest search term bringing traffic to Reddit, after "Reddit." Eventually, Jailbait landed on CNN, where Anderson Cooper called out Reddit for hosting it, and Violentacrez for creating it. The ensuing outcry led Reddit administrators to reluctantly ban Jailbait, and all sexually suggestive content featuring minors.
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img code photo ... Michael Brutsch, 49
img.gawkerassets.com/img/181yqzkufieghjpg/original.jpg
Michael Brutsch at a Reddit meet-up.
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On the phone, Michael Brutsch insisted he is not a pedophile but was unapologetic about Jailbait. He compared the photos of underage girls he posted to Britney Spears' sultry "Hit Me Baby One More Time" video. She was 16 at the time, he said—how was that different than what he was doing? Brutsch said he only reposted photos that he'd found elsewhere, mostly on 4chan, and that he promptly removed any outright child porn that was posted.
"I've always been upfront about the sorts of things that I find attractive," he said. Brutsch didn't create the creepshots subreddit which was launched earlier this year. But when it started to get heat after a teacher in Georgia was fired at the end of September for allegedly posting covert pictures of his underage students, it only made sense that the section's moderators would bring Violentacrez on to help deal with the newfound attention. He was a moderator until Creepshots was banned this week amid increasing controversy. (The circumstances surrounding Creepshots' ban is unclear, as Reddit's General Manager had told Buzzfeed they would not ban the subreddit because it wasn't breaking Reddit's rules.)
Having his screenname mangled by Anderson Cooper on CNN for Jailbait was Violentacrez's biggest moment as a troll, but it wasn't his first time in the spotlight. Since Brutsch stumbled on Reddit from a link on the internet culture blog Boing Boing in 2007, he has pushed the boundaries of Reddit's free-speech culture. He has done this mostly through creating offensive subreddits to troll sensitive users. Some of the sections Violentacrez created or moderated were called:
Chokeabitch
Niggerjailbait
Rapebait
Hitler
Jewmerica
Misogyny
Incest
You can look those up on Reddit and visit them if you'd like to ruin your day, but the content is self-explanatory.
Unlike Jailbait, which apparently sprung from a sincere interest, many of Violentacrez's most offensive subreddits were created just to enrage other Reddit users. At this they were very effective. What happened was, some do-gooder would stumble upon one of his offensive subreddits and expose it to the rest of Reddit in an outraged post. Then thousands more would vote the thing to the front page of Reddit. Cries to censor it would sound out, to be almost inevitably beaten back by cries of "free speech!" The idea of free speech is sacred to many Reddit users, a product of the free-wheeling online message board culture from which Reddit springs. If you criticize someone else for posting something you don't like, you are a whiny fascist.
Violentacrez explained his trolling philosophy to the internet culture website the Daily Dot in August of 2011. He had sparked yet another controversy by posting a graphic image of a partially clothed woman being brutally beaten by a large man, in "beatingwomen," a subreddit dedicated to glorifying violence against women. A Redditor had called out the picture in a post, and it was voted to the front page.
"People take things way too seriously around here," Violentacrez said. " I was not surprised by the outrage of the person who made the post, because I see it all the time. What was surprising was the community support for it. Most posts that complain about these things never do very well, and are quickly buried or deleted. I think it's interesting how many people defend my right to act the way I do, while decrying my posts themselves."
A troll exploits social dynamics like computer hackers exploit security loopholes, and Violentacrez calmly exploited the Reddit hive mind's powerful outrage machine and free speech values at the same time.
It was this pattern, repeated to various degrees dozens of times, that made Violentacrez an unlikely hero to many of the white male geeks who make up Reddit's hard core. They saw Violentacrez as a champion in the fight against the oppressive schoolmarms: "He upheld a certain amount of freedom for the worst of us to ensure freedom for all of us," wrote one user in a post mourning his departure. Fans followed him wherever he went on the site.
As his fame grew, Brutsch began selling T-shirts with an illustration of a zombified version of Reddit's alien logo, designed by a professional illustrator, that he had adopted as Violentacrez's logo. He created a subreddit called Violentacrez, dedicated to news and posts about himself. Last year, the Daily Dot named him the most important Redditor of the year. Violentacrez was the most influential user of one of the most influential websites on the internet.
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Violentacrez was a troll, but he was a well-connected troll.
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All the while, Violentacrez's critics cried out the same refrain: "How does he get away with this?" One reason Violentacrez continued to occupy such a high-profile position on Reddit was of course his free speech rhetoric. But Violentacrez has historically had a close relationship with Reddit's staff, a fact far less well-known than his controversial behavior. Violentacrez was a troll, but he was a well-connected troll. He told me he was close with a number of early Reddit employees—many of whom have now moved on—chatting with them on IRC or sometimes even on the phone. A few years ago, while Jailbait was still going strong, Reddit's administrators gave him a special one-of-a-kind "pimp hat" badge to honor his contributions to the site, which he proudly displayed on his profile. Brutsch said he was even in the final running for a job as a customer support representative at Reddit last year.
During the Jailbait controversy, Erik Martin, the site's General Manager, reached out to Violentacrez beforehand to warn him that they were going to have to shut down his prized possession, according to a chat conversation Violentacrez leaked at the time.
"Want to give you a heads up," Martin wrote. "We're making a policy change regarding jailbait type content. Don't really have a choice."
(Martin did not respond to requests for comment.)
Violentacrez's privileged position came from the fact that for years he had helped administrators deal with the massive seedy side of Reddit, acting almost as an unpaid staff member. Reddit administrators essentially handed off the oversight of the site's NSFW side to Violentacrez, according to former Reddit lead programer Chris Slowe (a.k.a. Keysersosa), who worked at Reddit from 2005 to the end of 2010. When Violentacrez first joined the site and started filling it with filth, administrators were wary and they often clashed. But eventually administrators and Violentacrez came to an uneasy truce, according to Slowe. For all his unpleasantness, they realized that Violentacrez was an excellent community moderator and could be counted on to keep the administrators abreast of any illegal content he came across.
"Once we came to terms he was actually pretty helpful. He would come to us with things that we hadn't noticed," said Slowe. "At the time there was only four of us working so that was a great resource for us to have."
Administrators realized it was easier to outsource the policing of questionable content to Violentacrez than to dirty their hands themselves, or ostracize him and risk even worse things happening without their knowledge. The devil you know. So even as Jailbait flourished and became an ever-more-integral part of Reddit's traffic and culture—in 2008 it won the most votes in a "subreddit of the year" poll—administrators looked the other way. "We just stayed out of there and let him do his thing and we knew at least he was getting rid of a lot of stuff that wasn't particularly legal," Slowe said. "I know I didn't want it to be my job."
Violentacrez's close relationship to administrators made him an elite member of Reddit's army of moderators, known as "mods" on the site. Though much is made of the millions of users who submit content to Reddit, it's Reddit's over 20,000 volunteer mods who are the real secret behind its success. They act as janitors and editors, keeping their subreddits clean and well-stocked with content. Reddit's main innovation has been to move these users up the food chain, from simple content-generators to management positions. This allows Reddit's mind-boggling breadth of content and users to be overseen by just a few paid employees. The downside is that it requires Reddit's official management to enter into uneasy symbiotic relationships with sketchy but effective moderators like Violentacrez.
And sometimes those relationships become more trouble than they're worth. After the Jailbait controversy, Violentacrez claimed repeatedly on Reddit, he was cut off from administrators who had been burned by the controversy. In fact, when I spoke to him, Brutsch said Reddit admins had been keeping their distance for a while. He suggested that the site wasn't what it used to be. In recent days, he has been posting less, stirring up less drama.
When it comes to mods, the political model of Reddit is not so much a vast digital democracy, as it's often framed by fans and users, as online feudalism. Moderators like Violentacrez are given absolute control over their turf in exchange for keeping the kingdom of Reddit strong. Moderators become more or less powerful in direct relation to the number and popularity of the subreddits they moderate, so they try to take over other subreddits to boost their profile in the community. Inevitably, Reddit's administrators develop relationships with the most influential moderators. Like feuding medieval lords vying for the king's favor, moderators form alliances or wage epic flame wars over power struggles.
This is how Violentacrez, Reddit's creepiest user, also became its most powerful. Sure, he was responsible for the absolute worst stuff on Reddit, and by extension, some of the worst stuff on the internet. But Violentacrez was also seen to be, as Chris Slowe put it to me, "a trustworthy and a positive member of the community." He moderated more than 400 subreddits and had many high-profile friends, amassed over many years. His stable at times included hundreds of popular mainstream subreddits, like Funny and WTF, that reach audiences of millions. Violentacrez further solidified his reach by becoming a mentor to other moderators. He created the first FAQ for Reddit's rather unintuitive moderator interface. He also helmed a number of subreddits dedicated to providing guidance and camaraderie for other moderators, including the essential modhelp.
So it was no surprise that when news got out earlier this week that I was working on a story that would expose Violentacrez's real identity, other moderators on Reddit rallied to defend him. The popular politics subreddit led the charge, by banning all Gawker links.
"As moderators, we feel that this type of behavior is completely intolerable," they wrote. "We volunteer our time on Reddit to make it a better place for the users, and should not be harassed and threatened for that. We should all be afraid of the threat of having our personal information investigated and spread around the internet if someone disagrees with you."
Some have taken this as an expression of Reddit's users' fondness of Violentacrez's pornographic generosity. In fact the ban was probably more an expression of friendship by the Politics subreddit moderators. Violentacrez probably trained some of them. They were mad that their buddy was going to be outed for simply, in their mind, exercising his free speech—his unalienable right to anonymously post stalker shots of women.
***
When I called Brutsch that Wednesday afternoon and told him I knew who he was, I was a little taken aback by how calm he remained during our intense but civil hour-long conversation. I had figured that a man whose hobby was saying horrible shit just to screw with people online would rise to some new horrible level when conditions on the ground actually called for it. Instead he pleaded with me in an affectless monotone not to reveal his name.
"My wife is disabled. I got a home and a mortgage, and if this hits the fan, I believe this will affect negatively on my employment," he said. "I do my job, go home watch TV, and go on the internet. I just like riling people up in my spare time."
I asked if he regretted anything he had posted, now that he'd be found out. No, he said. "I would stand by exactly what I've done." The problem was, he explained, that if his identity got out, his many enemies would start attaching lies to his name because they simply don't like his views. They would say he was a child pornographer, when all he had done was spearhead the distribution of thousands of legal photos of underage girls. They would say the fact that he created a subreddit dedicated to Hitler meant he was anti-Semitic, when really it was just trolling. (Brutsch says he's got Jewish blood himself: "If you see a picture of me, I'm about as Jewish looking as they get.") They would Google-bomb his name and the word "pedophile" along with his publicly-traded company's name.
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I asked if he regretted anything he had posted, now that he'd be found out. No, he said. "I would stand by exactly what I've done."
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He needed to keep his anonymity to protect his ability to express things many people think but hardly anyone says. With Violentacrez, "I got the freedom to talk about my personal life, my personal feelings... I'm sure there's more than one person in this building who's a pervert," he said, referring his office building.
He asked a number of times if there was anything he could do to keep me from outing him. He offered to act as a mole for me, to be my "sockpuppet" on Reddit. "I'm like the spy who's found out," he said. "I'll do anything. If you want me to stop posting, delete whatever I posted, whatever. I am at your mercy because I really can't think of anything worse that could possibly happen. It's not like I do anything illegal."
I told him it wasn't my place to tell him what to do, that I was just reporting on what he'd already done, but this did shake me a bit. It didn't help that our phone call had been unplanned and I hadn't properly steeled myself for a tough conversation. In the beginning it was just supposed to be a friendly gchat conversation with Violentacrez, not a confrontation with Brutsch himself.
I had initially told Violentacrez I was interested in profiling him in light of the new controversy surrounding creepshots. I arranged the Gchat interview without hinting that a former online friend had tipped me off to his real identity during the Jailbait scandal, after the friend had become disgusted with his obsession with underage girls. Since then, Violentacrez had recorded the geek podcast The Drill Down with other high-profile Reddit moderators, outing his voice. All I had to do was call up Michael Brutsch and match his voice to Violentacrez's. My plan that Wednesday was to have the chat with Violentacrez before calling Brutsch. I didn't want to risk calling Brutsch first, only to have him shut down completely once he realized he was outed.
Unfortunately, I've never been good at keeping secrets. My poker face is so bad it can be read even through a computer screen, apparently. In our Gchat, I pressed Violentacrez about his anonymity enough that he grew suspicious. We were chatting about why he feels comfortable attending IRL meet-ups of Redditors if his anonymity was so important to him when he caught on.
me: it seems like you're not super careful about keeping your identity under wraps, if you meet people in real life. A lot of trolls I've talked to would never do that or give out as many details about themselves as they do.
violentacrez: have you been given my real name?
me: yeah
violentacrez: that's not good
me: it seems like you've told a lot of people. Are you surprised it would get out?
violentacrez: yes, I thought I could trust those who know. Are you going to out me?
Panicking a bit, I quickly picked up the phone and dialed the number I had found on Brutsch's online resume so I could hear Brutsch's voice to see if it matched Violentacrez. It did.
"So, are you going to out me?" he said.
***
One thing that Brutsch wasn't worried about when I talked to him on the phone was his immediate family finding out about his online habits.
"He won't really care," said Brutsch of his teenage son, the one about to join the Marines. "He thinks I'm creepy as it is."
The Violentacrez clan seems to have walked out of a Todd Solondz movie, and a significant part of Violentacrez's mythos on Reddit comes from the details he's shared about his family. In 2010, Violentacrez hosted a legendary "Ask Me Anything" thread"—the same Q & A feature Barack Obama took part in last month. He was asked what was the creepiest thing he'd done "IRL" and delighted readers with a tale ripped out of Penthouse letters. "That'd be a tough call," Violentacrez wrote, "Perhaps oral sex with my 19-year-old stepdaughter." It was completely consensual, he claimed in the post, and went on to brag about how awesome it had been in graphic detail.
This happened over ten years ago, Violentacrez claimed. When his then-wife, the girl's mother, found out, she "got mad, then got over it," Violentacrez wrote. He says they were married for ten more years.
His current wife is similarly accepting of Brutsch's unsavory side, according to Brutsch. She is not only aware of his online habits, she's also a prolific Redditor under the handle not_so_violentacrez. She is a founder of the Fibromyalgia subreddit. She has diabetes and plays the online game Kingdom of Camelot. Violentacrez said that at home, the two would lie in bed together with their laptops, both on Reddit, him posting his porn, she posting cute animal videos and pictures of dolphins.
About a year ago, Violentacrez's teenage son did his own Ask Me Anything thread. His son uses the handle Spawn_of_VA and he is dad's biggest fan. Interspersed among talk of family game night, Spawn_of_VA regaled readers with more weird tidbits about his father, including the fact that he has a "suitcase full of dildos in his closet" and a "roller type thing with spikes on it, he uses that to roll on his balls."
When I first read Violentacrez's and his son's AMAs I, like many other readers, figured this was just some next-level trolling. Violentacrez's wife and his son were probably just sockpuppets, right? But on the phone, I asked Brutsch if Spawn_of_VA was really his son. He is, Brutsch said. I asked if everything he and his son had said in their AMAs were real. As far as he could remember, he said, it was.
***
The extent to which trolls separate, or fail to separate, their online and IRL lives is as varied as people themselves. There's an idea of the troll as an information age Jekyll & Hyde, with the anonymity provided by the internet playing the role of Hyde's serum that transforms the mild-mannered geek into a monster. Observers often cite the psychological theory called deindividuation, which argues people literally lose themselves when granted anonymity.
But Violentacrez/Michael Brutsch upset this idea by blurring his online and offline lives. Brutsch adopted a new name for trolling, but he built his horrible character on many details from his real life. In real life, Brutsch is an unabashedly creepy old man with seven cats and two dogs and a disabled wife and a teenage son about to join the Marines. He was all of that online, too—only he was famous for it.
Both offline and online he could be either a creepy uncle, or a loyal friend and helpful guide. Violentacrez had a surprising number of friends on Reddit, for someone who once created an entire subreddit dedicated to pictures of dead teenage girls (Picsofdeadjailbait). He helped organize IRL meet-ups, where he showed up in a t-shirt with his zombie logo on it, and told everyone there to call him "VA." Attendees agreed to blur his face in any resulting pictures before posting them to Reddit. Brutsch is an internet minister, and he said he once married a pair of Redditors in real life, though they only knew him by his "clean" handle: mbrutsch.
One longtime Redditor I spoke to talked about Violentacrez with the warmth of an old college friend.
"He's a really a good guy," she said. This user was in the Arlington area for business once, and she stopped by Brutsch's house for lunch. "He has the manners of a Southern gentleman," she said. "A bunch of neighborhood kids were over playing at his house."
The only thing missing was joining the name Violentacrez to the name Michael Brutsch, and even that information he had given to many of his online friends. Reddit administrators have long known his real identity, Brutsch said, which he gave them in order to prove that he had nothing to hide. But Brutsch was still anonymous to the people he wanted to be, mainly his employers, and by unmasking him I am sure to get criticism for supposedly violating his privacy.
Even before I published this article, Reddit had already exploded in outrage. (Gawker sites are now banned from over 60 subreddits, and some pissed off user has signed me up for approximately two dozen mailing lists.) The irony of being upset that a noted custodian of "creepshots" is getting some unwanted attention himself is obvious. Jailbait defenders would often argue that if 14-year-olds didn't want their bikini pictures to be posted to Reddit, they should not have taken them and uploaded them to their Facebook accounts in the first place. If Brutsch did not want his employers to know that he had become a minor internet celebrity through spending hours every day posting photos of 14-year-olds in bikinis to thousands of people on the internet, he should have stuck to posting cat videos.
But for Reddit, the stakes are higher than just one man having to answer for things he's done online. To them, the "doxing" of Violentacrez—"doxing" is hacker slang for publishing someone's personal information in order to intimidate or punish them—is an assault on the very structure of Reddit itself. The Daily Dot sums up their logic:
At Web communities like Reddit, which thrive because users are free to say and do anything they want, doxing is a severe crime, both to users and the site's staff. It's far worse than offensive speech like racism and homophobia or, yes, even posting surreptitiously snapped photos of innocent women for creeps to perv over. Why? Because doxing undermines the community's structural integrity: Reddit simply would not exist as we know it if users weren't operating under the freedom of a flexible identity. So redditors aren't banning Gawker to protect violentacrez, they're doing it to protect themselves.
Under Reddit logic, outing Violentacrez is worse than anonymously posting creepshots of innocent women, because doing so would undermine Reddit's role as a safe place for people to anonymously post creepshots of innocent women.
I am OK with that.
***
Brutsch shut down the Violentacrez account abruptly this past Tuesday, six days after we spoke. When I Gchatted him that night, Brutsch told me, "I guess I just got tired of all the hassle." He said he was done with Reddit for good. "Reddit ceased being fun a while ago," he said.
Now he's going to spend the hours he used to lose to Reddit on work. "Oh, and possibly looking for a job will obviously keep me busy ;)"
I asked what he'll miss most about Reddit. "The people," he said. "Reddit is nothing without the community. I've already gotten a few cheery goodbyes from people: 'Keep in touch. You are still a good friend.'"
But he didn't stay away long. In the past couple days, he apparently popped up in a private subreddit called "modtalk," where moderators and administrators talk clear up some misconceptions about why he'd left. (Including one rumor that I had somehow "blackmailed" him into quitting.) In the ensuing discussion, a user named themanwithnoname wrote, "VA, I don't know you personally, but I've appreciated some of your comments over the years. I hope your life rocks from here out."
To which Violentacrez replied, under the handle VA_11102012: "I miss posting porn."
Update, Monday 10/15: Reddit's Biggest Troll Fired From His Real-World Job; Reddit Continues to Censor Gawker Articles
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Focus on Imaging
Image by Barry Zee
Focus on Imaging 2009, Professional Imaging Supplies, pfd, Gary Walsh
A couple of minutes before 10.00am on the morning of Sunday, January 14th, 1990, Mary Walker was getting ready to open her first exhibition, Focus on Photography.
It had taken her 18 months of hard work to get to that point but she had had tremendous support from right across the industry. As she waited for the clock to tick towards ten o’clock she knew she had succeeded in putting together an exhibition which had so exceeded her early expectations that she had had to have a marquee erected at the back of The Pavilion at the NEC to accommodate everyone who wanted to be there.
Now the only question was “Will the show attract enough visitors – and of the right quality – to make the whole thing a complete success.”
The answer, as everyone connected with the show will tell you, was “yes” and from then onwards Focus has grown in both size and, arguably more important, reputation. However, even now, as Mary puts together the final details for the 20th Focus, now Focus on Imaging of course, she takes nothing for granted and is more than happy to confess that she will still have butterflies when she picks up the microphone to declare Focus 2009, the biggest ever, open.
So much has changed in those 20 years, including the name which Mary presciently changed in 1992. So many well known names have vanished – or at least are now shadows of their former selves while companies which once had no connection with photography – or “imaging” as we now know it – are now market leaders in that industry. Film is now a sideline product. Mobile phones now routinely feature cameras whose “megapixellage” was once thought all but unachievable. The internet has become a real rival to the High Street.
Throughout this time, Focus has provided a unique platform for innovation and product launches that new and emerging technologies have helped create but one thing hasn’t changed, the unique ambience that is Focus on Imaging. Focus is large enough to have a major impact on the imaging world, it’s Europe’s biggest annual imaging industry showcase after all, yet it retains a very personal, almost intimate, persona.
Not easy in an industry where some of the biggest companies in the world hold sway but where Focus scores – and scores heavily – over other exhibitions, is that even after 20 years, it’s still Mary Walker herself who pulls the whole thing together every year. It is still very much “her” show, just as that first one was back in 1990 but Mary has no plans to sit back on her laurels. Indeed with Focus 2010 already demanding her attention she’s already looking at ways of making that “coming-of-age” show even more of a success than its predecessors.
It hasn’t been an easy 12 months for anyone since Focus 2008 and the imaging industry has not been immune to the problems affecting the rest of the economy but one thing is clear from this year’s Focus exhibitors’ list – there’s a determination among both the giants and the giants-to-be of the industry to project a positive, “business as usual” message to the 33,000 or so visitors expected to make their way to the NEC over the four days the show is open, Sunday, February 22nd to Wednesday, 25th.
So, what can those visitors expect to see? First of all, a great many of the products which were unveiled at Photokina will be getting their UK debut, some of them indeed getting their first full debut in production rather than pre-production form.
They will be able to say “we were there” to share the excitement as a flurry of new companies set out the kind of thinking which allowed George Eastman to take the Kodak concept from his mother’s kitchen table to international status.
They will able to listen and learn as some of the best known names in the industry show how they do it, how they turn a fiver into fifty quid, how they use their computer as much as their camera to turn a perfectly acceptable photo into a top class Photo with a capital “P”.
And they will leave with their bags full of show special offers and end of range bargains, brochures about products they will want to investigate further, samples of different types of paper they can use at home, quite possibly with that special new lens they have been saving for or with the complete paperwork for the purchase of a new dry minilab or studio lighting system or wide format printer for delivery immediately after the show.
Memories are precious, says photo album specialists, Bob Books, but the rapidly increasing use of digital cameras has meant that the age-old delights of family photo albums are declining. Photographs are now stored in the memory of our computers, yet the desire for the emotive, tactile experience of photographs remains – and this is where Bob Books comes in.
From your computer simply download the Bob Books software. Use the formatting options to choose your desired layout, add your text and images to personalise your book; then just wait for delivery – it's that simple.
The quality of our binding sets the benchmark, says Bob Books, which claims to offer the highest available production standards from its bookbindery in Switzerland where the company enjoys a reputation as one of the world leaders in bookbinding production.
The stand will also feature some brand new software but for now Bob Books will only say: “You’ll have to wait to the Focus doors open to see exactly what it does.”
Broncolor claims to have long set the benchmark by which all other lighting manufacturers are judged and says its new Scoro range sets a new level to which the competition must aspire, as it sets no less than four world bests.
With the new Swiss-built Scoro power packs, you can let your artistic imagination run free. With their uniquely convenient control systems, you can deal with even the most complex lighting setups easily every time. No other flash system gives you so much creative capability – and no other holds so many world records.
A recharging time of 0.6s at 1600 joule and 0.4s at 1200 joule, a 10 f-stop control range with stable colour temperature, adjustable colour temperature (at 200 K intervals), and three independent channels with exactly the same colour temperature – with Scoro, broncolor has set no fewer than four new world records, and remains the industry benchmark in modern flash technology. With its versatile and unparalleled capabilities for power distribution with consistent light quality, this new power pack is the ideal light source for digital photography.
Creativity Backgrounds will be offering 10 percent off all orders taken at the show. A great opportunity to stock up on your Arctic Whites and Blacks and to try one of the 50 colours. Why not go for a Carnation pink for children or wedding photography, or stimulate your imagination with a chromagreen backdrop. This show they will be highlighting the fact that they deliver direct to your studio or any location in the UK for only £5 (or £8 for next day). As a preview have a look at www.creativitybackgrounds.co.uk . This is a brand new website, which makes ordering dead easy. The company is also running a prize draw for a full-length 2.72mx11m roll per day. It’s free to enter, just put your card in the box or fill in a form on the stand for the chance to win.
Digital Photo Solutions, one of the UK’s leading suppliers of large format printers to the photographic and fine art markets and an authorised specialist dealer for over 30 digital imaging brands, will be demonstrating leading print to finish workflow solutions at Focus on Imaging 2009.
Visitors to the company’s stand will also be to test drive and compare the latest large format printers from Epson and HP, learn how to move seamlessly from image to print to finish to frame in less than 30 minutes, ensure your monitor's colours are displayed correctly and match the output you are looking for with Datacolor's industry-leading range of Spyder 3 monitor and printer profiling hardware calibrators.
They’ll also be able to see the latest version of the acclaimed Shiraz Focus software, explore the extensive range of DPS specialist media and see how you can increase your profits in the photographic, fine art and canvas printing markets, discover how to enhance your print service with the HotPress JetMounter and dind out how to protect your inkjet canvas prints and stretch them on to frames faster than ever before with the DPS QuickMate.
Dunns Imaging Group will be showing their new flex workflow, a complete production and web hosting solution specifically designed for shools and nursery photographers. There will also be demonstrations of their new innovative album creation software Creative Albums. Both products are set to play a major role in Dunns product offering during 2009
If you visit the Extensis stand N8, you’ll find a team of experts showcasing Portfolio Server 8.5, the latest version of their digital asset management solution. Portfolio Server 8.5 provides the core set of capabilities you need to keep your images on-the-move—for routing to other users/departments, for final delivery to clients, partners or vendors, or for secure archiving. Included with Portfolio Server 8.5, Project Sync for Adobe CS3 seamlessly integrates with Adobe CS3 to offer powerful database searching, flexible archiving and automated web delivery—all from within the Creative Suite environment.
Some photographers jump from lab to lab searching for the lowest prices, reckons Portuguese company, Floricolor, adding that others search for a lab to work with them in partnership, to ensure quality, fair pricing and short delivery times.
Floricolor claims to have been pioneers in the protection of digital albums through lamination, and has recently introduced varnish UV protection, pointing out that this is the best system of protecting photos against heat, humidity and scratches, while maintaining the unique touch of photographic paper. Floricolor combines the best in two worlds, the highest technology of digital print (Frontier, two Durst Theta 51s, Laserlab 76, Fuji and Kodak Professional0 and the hands of skilled craftsmen with many years of practice.
“The number of new costumers we have attracted indicates that we are on the right track,” said a company spokesman. “We are looking at the future with optimism because innovation is an inseparable element of our work philosophy.”
Fujifilm UK has expanded its range of professional inkjet media, with additions that include a popular new satin finish canvas type and an outstanding genuine fibre base gloss baryte. Satin Canvas 350gsm is one of two new canvases introduced by Fujifilm UK. Satin has become the canvas finish most favoured by US consumers, a trend the UK is expected to follow. The other new Fujifilm canvas is Fine Art Natural Canvas 290gsm, a single-weave natural matt.
But, says Fuji, the big news in Fine Art must be that two completely new baryte type papers have joined the Fujifilm range of large format print media. The extensively tested new papers are available in gloss and matt, the base paper is genuine fibre based baryte media.
The new Fujifilm baryte papers have a premium look and feel, wide dynamic range, luminous neutral whites, and hold deep, rich blacks, even have the scent of traditional baryte papers, and they give exceptional, museum standard, archival life.
Fujifilm UK have also introduced Boxiprint, an innovative instant canvas wrap box frame product, aimed at retail applications. Boxiprint box frames are supplied as single sheets of high quality satin canvas mounted on carton board. They come pressed and scored with a patented scheme of ingenious folds, enabling each board to be simply folded by hand into a finished box frame canvas, just minutes after printing on an inkjet printer.
Boxiprint instant canvas box frames can be printed on most professional inkjets that have a straight paper path and a 'board' setting, allowing them to accept boards up to 1.7mm thick. This includes all Fujifilm Epson Stylus Pro printers supplied as GreenBox bundles, as well as many other printers. The product is ideal for retail photo labs, and is also suitable for portrait studios, art and framing businesses, and the gift and card sector. Boxiprint is easy to use, but for added peace of mind the product is supported with ICC colour profiles for many Fujifilm Epson Stylus Pro printers, and print templates for Fujifilm
Graphistudio is to launch Graphiware, a new design of software created to give photographers an amazing tool in today’s competitive and highly creative market at Focus 2009.
It’s powerful, yet easy to use. You can gather your images and design your own layout with the option to use Graphistudio’s renowned multi-award winning templates, modify them to suit your needs or even design from scratch your own. The simple drag and drop logic of Graphiware will enable you to design stunning layouts in minutes, adding effects, re-touching elements with Photoshop and much, much more.
At the same time, Graphistudio has created a new on-line ordering system, dedicated to making production faster, efficient and more cost effective Gone are the days of hand written or typed orders. Now with a few taps of the keyboard the huge choice of sizes, orientations, covers and copies can be chosen and directly loaded into the system live at the same time as you upload your order or it will await delivery of your disk, negatives or prints.
Very few companies worldwide can look back with pride over such a long and rich tradition as Hahnemühle. Since its founding in 1584 Hahnemühle in Dassel has demonstrated its superb mastery of a traditional craft, creating uniquely beautiful papers from pure spring water and premium cellulose.
Using this rich experience enables the company to be at the forefront of the ever evolving digital inkjet market as well as the realm of traditional artists paper. Recent technological advances such as its true Baryta papers which enable photographers to recreate darkroom prints digitally, newly released papers available in a 64 inch format to match the latest Giclee printing technology and environmentally friendly papers made from highly renewable resources such as bamboo and cotton rag.
To celebrate its 425 year anniversary Hahnemühle will release an exclusive Anniversary Collection Box. This Anniversary Edition consists of an elegant cotton rag paper with a particularly smooth texture for Fine Art images as well as other special anniversary products. It’s all packaged in a unique presentation box designed exclusively by Prat, Paris.
There is another exciting new addition to our environmentally friendly range of products. Hahnemühle Sugar Cane is made from 75 percent sugar cane fibre. The organic by-product of sugar cane processing is used to make a pulp. This pulp or “bagasse” is an eco-friendly renewable resource endorsed by environmental organizations. Cotton fibres extracted from recycling our own paper surplus make up the remaining 25 percent of raw material used to produce the paper. The result is a natural white Fine Art paper extremely resistant to ageing. The premium inkjet coating guarantees Fine Art images rich in contrast and detail, and the texture of this artist paper has a wonderful feel to it. Hahnemühle Sugar Cane is ideal for warm toned colour and monochrome prints of Fine Art photography and art reproductions. This Paper will have its UK debut as an exclusive preview at Focus.
Luminati says that once again it will be setting out to capture photographers’ imaginations, delivering a range of acrylic frames which are said to push the boundaries for the professional image maker.
Clear2C Professional with its diamond polished flush fronted finish and unique magnet back panel, has been a great success following its launch at Focus on Imaging 2008. Launched as a 15mm thick frame, the range was extended to include the sleeker 9mm thick Impression range. Following customer feedback Luminati also introduced a range of panoramic formats.
This year sees Luminati extend the Clear2C range further with their Capture, and Snap frames. A unique front image holder allows images to be mounted and changed with ease, whilst the frame hangs on the wall. The Clear2C Professional, Impression, Capture, and Snap frames are available in a range of colours, and in single aperture, multiple aperture, and panoramic aperture formats. Luminati experts will be on hand to demonstrate the range, but are just as keen to discuss visitors’ needs, and would welcome discussions regards the need for unique sizes and formats.
Middlewall remain one of the few British wedding album manufacturers who continue to produce quality hand made, non imported traditional albums, ranging from size 5x5 to 12x12.
They have extended their range of Digital Albums with various styles and sizes including silk and aluminium finishes and see the latest ‘Triangle’ Digital Album.
The Oxford (sticky!) album can be designed to any specific requests with a choice of adhesive or non adhesive pages, embossed photo relief frame, a vast choice of material finishes, personalisation and corners.
Middlewall have recently launched MacLab Limited a new sister company, which specialises in digital printing with full photographic prints on Fuji Crystal Archive paper, up to an astounding 24ins x100 ins.
This year for Focus onOne Software will be showing new products, including the brand new PhotoFrame 4 and the new plug-ins for Adobe Photoshop Light Room and Apple’s Aperture, along with many of its existing highly successful software products.
Every day of the show visitors will be given the chance of winning Lastolite equipment worth £250 if they buy an onOne software product. When the customer makes an onOne software purchase they will be given a raffle ticket and entered in to the draw, all they have to do is return at the end of the day with their raffle ticket and their receipt as a proof of purchase and wait for the winner to be called.
On show will also be the new Essentials for iPhoto. This is very similar to the Essentials for Elements, as they both have “Make it better” (the ColourTune half of PhotoTune), “Frame it” (reduced version of PhotoFrame) and “Enlarge it” (reduced version of Genuine Fractals). The difference between the two is that Essentials for Elements has “Cut it out” (reduced version of Mask Pro) and Essentials for iPhoto has “Blur it” (full version of FocalPoint). Not forgetting products such as Genuine fractals 5, Mask Pro 4 and PhotoTools 1.0, PhotoFrame 3.1 and PhotoTune 2.2 these plug-in favorites are still going strong and will be making an appearance at Focus
There’s also the all-new PhotoFrame 4 which comes in two editions - Professional and Standard – and new plug-ins for Lightroom and Aperture
The Open College of the Arts is a creative arts college specialising in distance learning, with courses, which can be entirely studied at home, spanning a wide range of disciplines, and including three new ones, People and Place, Creative Digital Film and Visual Studies. The OCA’s Photography courses have been written by Michael Freeman, one of the world’s most widely published photography authors. Course materials are practically based and set out clear programmes of work that develop practical expertise and stimulate critical and formal awareness.
All OCA courses are supported by one-to-one tuition. OCA tutors are experienced teachers and practising artists in their fields. This combination of professional expertise with a strong background in teaching means you can be confident in your tutor’s ability to help you develop your skills and to provide supportive and constructive feedback.
OCA courses are open to anyone and you can enrol at anytime. You can study with us for pleasure, to explore your creativity, to learn new skills or to gain a degree.
New Eco-Flo systems for the new Epson R1900 and R2880 will come under the spotlight on the Permajet stand along with a new addition to the Portrait family of papers. Portrait Velvet 310gsm has a 100 percent white cotton rag base with an ultra smooth surface that has all the characteristics of Permajet’s popular and successful Portrait 300 and Portrait White 285 product.
“The moment you pick up this beautiful velvet smooth surface,” says the company, “you immediately appreciate the paper for what it is, a wonderful fine art product that exhibits an extremely high Dmax making it ideal for monochrome as well as colour reproductions.”
The stand, which will feature a number of special show offers, will also showcase a range of photoBooks developed for the artist, photographer, graphic designer, educational market and others. They’re described as ideal for photographic/fine art work, personal portfolios, photo books, albums, school projects and much more and “best of all,” adds Permajet, “no heat binding is required.”
As well as offering live quotes Photoguard will be giving visitors the opportunity to photograph a professional model, something which was well received last year with many professional and budding photographers scrambling to get a good picture.
Photoguard will also be offering a free-prize draw, worth up to a value of £500. No need to answer any difficult questions, simply fill in your contact details and drop your entry into a box for a chance to win.
In addition, the stand will be offering 10 percent off the cost of policies to all those who take a leaflet, so when it’s renewal time test our quote and find out how we fare. “We’re so confident in our prices we offer a price guarantee of double the difference if you find a better deal elsewhere,” says Photoguard.
Photomart will once again be featuring “loads of exciting new products” on their Focus stand. Alongside the UK's leading "nanobook" press, the Imijit, exclusively by Photomart, in the limelight will be latest retail solutions from Sony including the new "Super" Snaplab and Sony kiosk, Mitsubishi Electric’s new EasyPhoto consumer station and their high volume drylab solution or "MPU", Fujifilm’s Frontier DL-410 and Silverlab’s ML-9000 drylab solution. Fomei, the people who helped develop bandw multicontrast paper emulsions, will have their range of wide format media on display as well as their latest retail offering, the MicroLab system. On the studio side, some of the biggest names in photographic studio lighting will be featured with live lighting demonstrations by top photographers and models. There will also be demonstrations of the “amazing” PhotoRobot. This heralds in a revolution in product photography for the web allowing the viewer to see a product from any angle by manipulating the image along any three-dimensional axis with the mouse pointer.
First time Focus exhibitors at Focus, Premier Ink and Photographic is a family-owned photography retailer, based in Leamington Spa, founded seven years ago, and still run by the original core staff. Its stand will be packed full of “Show Specials”, with something of interest for all photographers, professionals, amateurs and enthusiasts alike.
There will be a huge range of photographic consumables on display, and available to buy on the day, including: square filters, circular threaded filters, DSLR camera batteries and battery grips, memory cards, inkjet papers and inkjet cartridges. There will also be “Show Deals” across our entire range, with products from many manufacturers, including Epson, Canon, HP, Ilford, Kood, Cokin, Energizer, Hahnel, and Sandisk.
Praktica’s back at Focus again, this time with a more prominent stand which will help the company place special emphasis on developing links with independent high street retailers. National sales manager David Grandison will be on hand to show current and prospective trade and retail customers the company’s 2009 range of digital cameras, digital frames and binoculars.
With over 20 years experience in the UK recording, broadcast and film-making industries, Protape is a provider of quality blank recording products, offering a wide range of digital data storage, video and audio formats to customers throughout the UK. Established in 1989, the business is located in London’s West End.
Protape supplies a wide range of quality blank recording products that come directly from the UK branches of the world leading manufactures such as Sony, Fuji and Panasonic and are stored in the Protape's local depot to ensure a swift delivery. The products include digital data storage, hard drives, memory sticks and accessories, audio and video tapes, making them perfect for a wide range of customers, and they are available for purchase online and over the phone.
At Focus it will be offering a range of recording products at discounted rates, together with a range of consumer hard drives, CDs, DVDs, memory sticks, Blu-ray discs and other popular formats.
Bob Rigby's will be showing their range of imported lines, including Acratech Ball Heads, Wimberley Gimbal heads, Pinhole Cameras and the Shutterbeam system. A full range of tripods and heads from Gitzo, Manfrotto and solutions for computer work from Wacom tablets and OnOne software. There will also be a range of accessories for all photographic needs, be it digital or traditional
SRB-Griturn is a manufacturer of adaptors and supplier of camera and photographic accessories. It will be introducing its very own slide copier for use with DSLRs and compact digital cameras, as well as showing its better known, filters, adaptors, stepping rings and much more. The company also has its own specialist manufacturing service, which it will be happy to discuss with Focus visitors.
Towergate Camerasure is one of the UK’s leading providers of insurance to the photographic, video and multi media industries, and offers competitive quotations whilst providing one of the most comprehensive policies within the market.
It will be offering exclusive Focus 2009 rates across the whole range of products available and, once again, there will be the Towergate Camerasure Free Prize draw where a year’s free insurance up to the value of £1500.00 can be won.
“Be inspired this Focus” is the message from Annabel Williams’ Contemporary Photographic Training with Catherine Connor and Jane Breakell hosting informal sessions for photographers needing training advice and support. Sessions are completely free and will give advice on which is the best training route, in order to meet both photographic aspirations and educational needs. The CPT stand will host a team of experts, dedicated to ensuring those that visit the stand gain the best form of insight and direction.
Zund UK will be exhibiting for the first time at Focus 2009. It will be showing one of its digital cutting systems complete with the appropriate tooling to show all aspects of finishing. With its modular tooling concept the system can be configured to X/Y trim roll or sheet fed media such as photographs, posters, banners and so on. A simple tool change is all that’s needed for the system to produce photo mounts or even rout thicker substrates such as acrylic, Perspex and so on.
Sometimes companies invest heavily in equipment such as digital printers without any consideration as to how the printed product will be finished, thus causing a bottleneck and inefficiencies in the production process. The Zund range of products is said to fit perfectly into the workflow eliminating these scenarios.
Focus on Imaging 2009 takes place as usual in Halls 9 and 10 at the NEC. It opens on Sunday, February 22nd, and runs until Wednesday, February 25th.
Check out the Focus on Imaging website to find everything there you need to know and a whole lot more as well about Europe’s biggest annual imaging event.
Trade, business and professional visitors can pre-register for free admission via the website. Admission for non-trade or non-professional visitors, including amateurs, who are also very welcome, remains at £6.00 but they can save time on the day by registering in advance via the Focus website.
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bit.ly/wU7GuHIf you have an advanced degree in the arts, wondering what to do when you finish your studies can be a bit confusing, especially in today's troubled economy. What fine art job opportunities are actually out there? What are some of the different careers an MFA graduate might pursue? What jobs require a master's degree in the fine arts? And what can a graduate with an MFA degree do to give themselves an edge when talking to potential employers? First of all, the field that has the most job opportunities for fine arts graduates is education. In the academic world, the MFA is recognized as a terminal degree which not only demonstrates the degree-bearer’s professional accomplishments as a working artist, but also attests to his or her abilities to teach in the field as well. In fact, many universities require that arts their teaching staff have an MFA, and it is getting increasingly difficult to get a job teaching fine arts at the undergraduate or graduate level without one. Even those who want to teach art at the pre-college level will find that having an MFA is certainly an advantage. At the high school level and even the middle-school level, the MFA degree can open doors and give job applicants a competitive edge. The MFA can also help artists get a head start on a teaching certificate or an MA in education, if they to teach their skills at a public school. Another employment option is to look for a paid position as an assistant or intern under an established artistic mentor. Most successful artists, actors, writers and other creative professionals understand how difficult it can be for recent graduates to make a living in their chosen field and are willing to help these up-and-coming talents get their careers off to a successful start. The general area of commercial art is another area where someone with an MFA degree might be able to find rewarding career opportunities. Studio artists might consider jobs in a museum's design department, or working in sales or marketing at an action house, or managing an art gallery. Since the MFA is considered a terminal degree, an MFA graduate might find themselves at an advantage over other applicants for these jobs who have the more typical MA in art history. Since an MFA degree indicates that the holder is both a creative and innovative thinker and an expert in the field of fine arts, MFA graduates can find themselves in demand in non-arts-related businesses as well. A studio artist with an MFA may find job openings as a graphic designer or creative director for a marketing or advertising firm. And those with an MFA degree in theater may follow a career as a private acting instructor, or as a public-speaking coach in the corporate world. Meanwhile, those whose skills lie in writing can find or create a wide variety of writing workshops in cooperation with arts agencies, business training programs, universities, community colleges and even prisons to offer personalized instruction in their craft. Likewise actors and studio artists may find workshop and teaching opportunities in community theaters, local galleries, and local or regional public arts agencies. Finally, even the most creative and unconventional MFA degree-holder may find that basic administrative work in the university setting can also be an attractive option. Though such jobs usually offer little scope for creative expression per se, a clerical job in a school’s art or theater departments can provide important benefits such as access to libraries, studios, office space and other amenities that can help an MFA graduate get started on their way to building a successful career.
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