If you’re not following what documentarian Errol Morris has been writing on the nytimes blog “Opinionator“, you’re missing some of the most intriguing, controversial, exploratory contemporary writing about photography.

His latest posts, about a photograph of a Mickey Mouse doll on a war-torn street in Lebanon, including an at-length interview with the photographer Ben Curtis, have been particularly revealing. Have a look!

Question: What is the difference among these three photographs?

I invite the Times readership to respond. Is it photojournalism, propaganda or art, and why? My own answer is below.

Answer: There is no difference. The photographs are the same. (Although the three captions are different.)

If you like entering your work in contests, you’ll want to check-out the DVA Photo Calendar, a subscribeable Google Calendar run on the DVAFOTO blog by Matt Lutton and M. Scott Brauer. Here’s hoping they stay on top of it and keep it rolling!

To subscribe, just click the “+ Google Calendar” button at the bottom right corner of the calendar.

Photographer and filmmaker Ryan Lobo has a great Ted Talk that was released today.

“Ryan Lobo has traveled the world, taking photographs that tell stories of unusual human lives. In this haunting talk, he reframes controversial subjects with empathy, so that we see the pain of a Liberian war criminal, the quiet strength of UN women peacekeepers and the perseverance of Delhi’s underappreciated firefighters.”

The Frankencamera is a camera that runs open source software to produce HDR images, in camera. Seems like there are endless possibilities for what it might be able to do, as it’s as much a computer as it is a camera. Here’s the story on NPR.

Jerry Siegel’s new show “Now and Then: Snapshots of the South” opens at the Columbus Museum on Thursday night, August 13th.

Jazz great Bill Frisell has set Mike Disfarmer’s vintage portraits to music. I’ve never seen (or heard) a project like this before. Any other great musical interpretations of photography out there? Check it out!

Great to see notice of Atlanta-based artist Dorothy O’Connor’s work currently hanging at Umbrella Arts in NYC, from the New York Times Lens Blog. We’re also pleased that Dorothy is a participating artist in ACP 11!

“Another image (“Green,” by Dorothy O’Connor) is reminiscent of a Henri Rousseau painting, with a young dreamer on a bed of grass surrounded by growing vines.”

If you’re interested in great photographers talking about how things have changed, check out David Burnett’s latest, inspired by the recent upheaval in Iran.

“I always felt that great images would rise to the top of the heap, and be noticed, and that those pictures, however mundane the subject might be, would let an editor know that someone had real talent. Now, as we flitter back and forth on Facebook and YouTube, trying to find the real “news” of the day, I wonder if that’s true any longer. Speed and immediacy seem to trump art and vision. And I have to confess that while it seemed like a burden at the time, finding a willing soul to carry my film back to ‘the world’ was a lovely, almost poetic finish to the process.”

Fascinating to watch the story come to light over this past weekend’s photo essay in the New York Times Magazine by Edgar Martins, which has resulted in this redaction:

“Had the editors known that the photographs had been digitally manipulated, they would not have published the picture essay, which has been removed from NYTimes.com.”

Another example of the efficiency of the net’s hive mind. The photoshoppery was discovered by a reader in this thread on Metafilter, and the ensuing gif-animations in which people essentially uncover how Martins photoshopped his images is worth the click, just as this interview below with the sharp-eyed reader is worth a listen.

From The White House’s Flickrstream, the President and the first family enjoying the Calder show at the Pompidou.

We’re excited to see that Brook Reynolds and Bryan Meltz made Review Santa Fe’s “100″. Check out more of Bryan’s work here, and Brook’s work here.

© Bryan Meltz

© Brook Reynolds

It’s rare to come across an interview like this, where the questions and the photographer’s responses push past pure PR and begin to reach a deeper understanding about an artist and their work. Recent Yale graduate Richard Mosse, whose plane project Airside might be familiar, speaks with BLDGBLOG about his latest project, photographing how the US has appropriated Saddam Hussein’s palaces.

Thanks to Joerg Colberg for the tip.

NYT has an article today “Tight Times Loosen Creativity” which speaks to some of the pressures that artists are experiencing during The New Situation.

“But in the Portland area, Ms. Fallon said, there seems to be a kind of artistic renaissance under way as various groups, like photography cooperatives and drawing collectives, form to connect creative professionals with one another.”

You can exhibit your photograph(s) up north at the New York Photo Festival this weekend by becoming part of their “We’re All Photographers Now” exhibition.

Lens Culture has an audio recording of the World Press Photo Award Lecture from Stephen Mayes, on May 3rd, 2009. Mayes is the managing director of VII photo agency. And here’s a look at the 2009 World Press Photo Award Winners.