Total Pageviews

From Readers: Complaints, Kudos and Suggestions for 2013 and Beyond

One thing I’ve found out about many Times readers is that they are not short on opinions - and not hesitant to share them.

In my column in last week’s Sunday Review, I wrote about the business challenges facing The Times - the increasing role of revenue from digital subscriptions, the continued problems caused by the decline of print advertising - and the importance of the year ahead.

The column produced passionate and wide-ranging response from readers that fell into a number of different categories.

Here’s a sense of it:

1. Readers feel strongly that The Times should not cut back on environmental reporting. I wrote two weeks ago about Times editors’ plans to dismantle its environment pod of reporters and editor dedicated to coverage of the environment. Editors emphasized to me that they still plan to have nearly as many staff members devoted to the topic, that coverage won’t suffer, but that the structure will be different. As I noted in my post, that sounds good in theory but may turn out to be a hard promise to keep.

2. Many readers want The Times to keep publishing a print edition forever. And they are fearful that it won’t. Sally Chrisman of Princeton, N.J., echoed Elizabeth Barrett Browning: “How do I love thee Let me count the ways The New York Times is present in my life.” Among the ways: “The pre-dawn smack of the paper hitting my sidewalk … the main section open beneath my cereal … the sections I finish or reread in late afternoon … the articles I clip for my students and colleagues …”

3. Some readers want to help The Times survive. Some readers went so far as to say that they would be willing to help out with extra contr! ibutions beyond their subscriptions. I had one phone call from a man who wanted to write a check then and there: $50 as an indication of his loyalty - above and beyond his subscription.

Jack Ratliff, a Santa Fe, N.M., reader who called the print Times “the touchstone for political discussions among friends,” said that he and his wife “would happily include The Times, along with NPR and PBS, as part of our annual giving.”

4. Many have suggestions for improvement. They focused on coverage or features that they think would boost readership and circulation; several mentioned more searching investigative coverage of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s administration.

Some want to see a broader spectrum of political opinion on the Op-Ed page.

“I would just ask that the conservative voice be given more inches or columnists,” writes Hank Humphrey of Fort Oglethorpe, Ga. “Even a smidgen more would be appreciated.”

Paul Rubinstein of Manhattan agreed, exending his criticism to story placement on the news pages, and he wrote: “The Wall Street Journal, while admittedly far more conservative than The Times, has a more straightforward approach, both to opinions and reporting. “

5. Print subscribers want to know: If I’m so important, why can’t I get my paper on time Many readers told me of their frustration and troubles with timing or placement of their delivered papers, or of not being able to find The Times at their newsstands, both in the metropolitan region and elsewhere. The public editor’s office does not deal with customer service or circulation problems; my assistant and I forward such complaints to the customer service department in circulation.

We’ll give the final words here to the alpha and omega of those who responded.

David deBeer wrote about all the reasons that The Times is not relevant enough to him to cause him to subscribe - everything from his dissatisfaction with international reporti! ng to the! policies of the opinion pages. “Instead, I log onto the Internet and listen to Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez’s ‘Democracy Now’ for the critical reporting that is missing in The Times. Then I occasionally skim The Times at Starbucks to see what was left out, and remind me why I don’t subscribe.”

And on the other end of the spectrum, Roberta Jordan spoke of her longtime bond with The Times: “The N.Y. Times has been my companion since high school in the ’70s in the Berkshires … there for me on a 17-year stint in St. Pete, Fla. … at graduate school in San Francisco and halfway back from Florida to New England when I moved to Asheville, N.C. Even here on top of our Blue Ridge mountain, I listen for the distinct thump late on Saturday nights, when Sunday arrives early and The N.Y. Times hits the deck. No matter where I am geographically, spiritually, educationally, intellectually or emotionally, I have found connection and satisfaction through The N.Y. Times.”



Familiar Rooms, Hidden Faces

#flashHeader{visibility:visible !important;}

If looking at Alison Brady’s photographs makes you inexplicably uncomfortable, then she has accomplished her goal. Her images are carefully structured to blend the familiar with the unknown â€" antique furniture and vintage fabrics jutaposed with unnaturally twisted body forms â€" with the hope of getting viewers to ask one question: “I know these objects, but why does this all feel so foreign”

Ms. Brady’s quest to create images that explore her feelings between conscious and subconscious thoughts began several years ago when she learned that her brother had been told he had schizophrenia. She was studying photography at New York City’s School of Visual Arts, but the idea of her reality being distorted by mental illness left her in a constant state of fear.

“It was a feeling of being normal and everything being O.K. to everything changing,” she said. “I started developing this fear, like, what if one day the reality I knew just changed”

So she began to delve into her feelings through images. Reflecting on her childhood home in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ms. Brady remembers a house overdone with 70s décor, accented with colorful patterns and uncomfortable textures. To set up most of her shots, she! also found everyday household objects â€" dirty bed sheets, cotton balls, pillows, carpets, fake flowers â€" which she used with the printed fabrics to create a feeling of nostalgia and familiarity.

DESCRIPTIONAlison Brady

To trigger more unnerving feelings, she would then place her subjects in distressing positions, often effacing or concealing their faces.

“What I try to do is bring you in with beautiful colors and textures and then leave you feeling like something is wrong here, something is not quite right,” Ms. Brady said. “I think we can all relate to that feeling.”

For the past eight years, Ms. Brady, 33, has traveled between New York, where she lives, to more remote locations in Pennsylvania and Ohio to set up her photographs, seeking settings that re naturally weathered to encapsulate the emotion of a long-forgotten memory.

To create one of her images (Slide 4), Ms. Brady booked a room at an old pay-by-the-hour motel in New York, known at the time for being a common spot for drug users. Her subject is seen lying face down on a circular bed in a dirty motel room with her feet lifelessly hanging off the edge of the bed. An old push-button telephone is closely placed next to an empty ashtray. The bedspread, with the common print of motels, is stained and torn.

Ms. Brady liked the idea of going to the motel, specifically for the old-fashioned circular bed. She said the shape helped create the feeling of despair in the woman.

“This was the weirdest place I ever photographed,” she said. “Whenever we moved anything, we would find used condoms and syringes. But this image was about just giving up and being sort of exhausted. It was about just letting go.”

With her photographs, Ms. Brady also uses her subjects to questio! n female ! identity, sexuality and standards of beauty â€" an issue she often questioned growing up in a conservative Roman Catholic household.

In one portrait series, Ms. Brady places her subjects in colorful vintage dresses and poses them with erect postures with their hands modestly folded in their laps. Tiny flowers are carefully placed over the subject’s faces, concealing any identity or expression. The idea for this series, Ms. Brady explained, was inspired by a woman she saw applying makeup on the train one day.

“This girl was putting on a ridiculous amount of makeup,” she said. “It felt like she was hiding who she was. I thought, how do you take that idea of trying to hide yourself, but wanting to present yourself as beautiful This was just an exaggeration of that feeling.”

Ms. Brady finds that guarding her subjects’ faces allows her viewers to focus on the gestures and subtle details of their body language. She considers her work a combination of photography, still life and art ad is currently working on a 30-minute video installation that will expand her work in moving form.

Although some of her work has dark and uncomfortable subject matter, Ms. Brady hopes that people will also see the humor in most of the situations.

“Using humor to defuse a tense situation is something that has definitely become part of my life,” she said. “Dealing with a situation and still being able to laugh or understand what is going on in your own unconscious, and still being able to see a lighter side to it.”

Follow and @AlisonBrady_ and nytimesphoto on Twitter. Lens is also on Facebook.



Pictures of the Day: Egypt and Elsewhere

#flashHeader{visibility:visible !important;}

Photos from Egypt, Syria, Mali and Romania.

Follow Lens on Facebook and Twitter.



Pictures of the Day: Egypt and Elsewhere

#flashHeader{visibility:visible !important;}

Photos from Egypt, Syria, Mali and Romania.

Follow Lens on Facebook and Twitter.



Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)