onecameraonelens

Humans win: The IBM jeopardy! Challenge

2011-05-20T18:33:07Z

In February of 2011, an IBM computing system named WATSON competed in an exhibition match against the top human players of the American quiz show JEOPARDY! Ken Jennings (who has that show’s longest winning streak at 74 consecutive games) and Brad Rutter (who had won the most prize money, $3.2 million) faced off against WATSON in three nights of televised play at the TJ Watson Research Center, the IBM labs at Yorktown Heights, NY.

I had the chance to photograph the WATSON research team for two years leading up to the IBM JEOPARDY! Challenge as part of my work at Ogilvy. The story of how WATSON was designed and readied for the competition is documented in a series of films directed by Paul Bozymowski, and a compelling book from Stephen Baker—the photographs here complement the behind-the-scenes story of a revolutionary advance in computing: the development of a system that can understand natural language, and provide confident answers to questions posed to it in real time.

See the photographs here.

West of Cocoa

2011-01-18T02:42:55Z

Film workflow just sucks, but boy, I miss it. The smells, the timing, the light leaks. I use film a lot, and though I’m a devout scanner, I still get that darkroom crap-shoot result from my local processing lab. They’ve had to react to the seismic shift in photography to digital (don’t get me wrong; a very good thing) but it’s as if they suddenly forgot after 35 years, how to develop film. Hence the dust and scratches celebrated here, on a visit a few months ago with my father.

Lenny Rentz is Thankful for a New Year

2011-01-03T01:24:17Z

Daylight Savings

2010-11-18T17:05:38Z

An ode to the loneliest, loveliest time of the season. Who needs stong shadows, direct light?

Jim Hall, Guitarist

2010-10-17T18:30:51Z

Not too many people can reliably be called “legendary.” Jim might blanche at the honorific, but anyone in Jazz will easily acknowledge it. This is from a portrait session I did last month with drummer Joey Baron—their duo project will be released on ArtistShare. Jim is a real gentleman, and, though this frame is more serious, he’s funny as hell (it was hard to keep the onecamera rig steady).

The Lead Story

2010-10-16T23:13:50Z

Sorry for another pun. I did these awhile back, and while I wait for more hams to develop, here’s a set on the onecamera flickr page I’ve always thought was fun. There’s more going on in my post-box cabinet that I realized. These little things have a life of their own.

Neighborhooding

2010-10-15T18:51:42Z

I took this a long, long while ago on a ramble through places I thought I’d not walk through again (which is why you ramble, anyway). All those years later, I find myself working next door. Go figure.

28.300 mHz to 28.500 mHz

2010-06-28T21:50:27Z

I am beginning a series on Ham radio operators. This past weekend I drove to Horton’s Point Lighthouse on the North Fork to chat with fellow radio folk as the Peconic Amateur Radio Club held their annual ARRL Field Day. I was impressed by the ingenuity and shared human purpose on display: to simply reach out and connect.

Steam Heat

2010-06-19T17:17:18Z

Meeting Notes

2010-06-09T21:57:26Z