Thanks, Adam. The YouTube format actually makes the video look worse than it is, (Veoh's a little better) although it's no replacement for an actual video camera obviously.

I'm in agreement with most reviewers on the DP1. It's a milestone, long-needed, but seriously flawed. I've been able to get very good images using it, but I'd prefer to not have to work around so many glaring design flaws in doing so. I know other pros who bought and then dumped it out of frustration, but I'm still using it, working around its considerable idiosyncrasies, because it's the only game in town for a snapshot cam with this image quality. (Nikon, Canon, and Leica, are you listening?)

My (very early, very brief) thoughts on it a couple weeks after I got it:
http://blog.photoshelter.com/2008/04/sigma-dp1-review-with-clayton-cubitt.html

Others agree, but more in-depth:
dpreview:
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sigmadp1/

Luminous Landscape:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/sigma-dp1.shtml

And regarding this brief video clip, I really want to thank Vic for his openness and courage in posing for me, and talking with me about this subject matter. I wish I could have done him more justice with a real interview.

Hi all, thanks for your thoughtful interest.

First off, please read the entirety of my own post (not just what's been excerpted here), and view my work and the video styling that's jumped off from it, I think you'll see the connections are direct and clear.

But to reiterate in this forum, if nobody bothers to read my original post: I think the video is wonderful. When it was shown to me by people who follow my work I immediately assumed we just had a visual kinship, and applauded the similarities.

From my post:

I think artists, and scientists, have to be finely-tuned receivers. In the artist’s case, receivers of fantasy and cultural tides, in the scientist’s case, of underlying currents and causes. So it’s inevitable that the sensitive among us should “receive” similar ideas at similar times, and it’s only luck or position that leads one of us to do it before another. I’m so in love with the idea itself, I don’t mind seeing it replicated. There’s enough of it for all of us to mine in our own ways.

I was then made aware that it wasn't just an accidental meme we had both picked up on, but that my work was one of the jumping-off points for the video styling itself, as indicated by the production company's email.

Again, from my post:

Again, I think the video came out wonderfully, and I’m proud to have been at least partially influential on its style. And I was firmly tongue in cheek when grousing about credit (although I listed credits as diverse as Nick Knight, Pieter Hugo, and Malick Sidibe along with my original fashion story, to show that we all exist and mingle in a cultural and artistic river). If anything, I was disappointed that the production team would contact Rene’ asking him for his style advice, and then not hire him for the actual production. That’s it.

And that really is it. I'm not claiming we invented rude boy, skinhead, or suedehead style, although to the best of my knowledge we were the first to remix it in this manner. And I don't expect a reference credit roll in an ephemeral music video. And I'm well aware of the long tradition of cultural remixing in both fashion photography and music video, as I myself stated at the outset. And lastly, I never claimed "copyright infringement" or "IP rights" or anything else as ridiculous.

I simply noted the relationship, griped that they hadn't hired my genius stylist despite lifting his style, and moved on to the next project.

Which, if I'm lucky, you may or may not see remixed in a music video in the near future. :)

-Clayton Cubitt

Right, JARDINE, now greatly multiply the power or frequency of those events that your region has been getting, and you'll get what I'm talking about. On the bright side, one can hope that your disaster response agency will be less likely to be privatized and crony-fied than FEMA was, but never say never.

RAMPANTIDIOCY, you make a good point about the possible futility of it all, and one that I've heard expressed a lot since the disaster. As I've said before in interviews when the same point has been pressed, I think Katrina is a lens through which we all need to look hard at our possible futures.

New Orleans is the canary in the coalmine for a whole range of issues, from coastal danger in the face of global warming, to the environmental impact of development, to the proper role of government versus private disaster response and preparedness, to how well we can hold our government accountable for its action, or inaction.

Don't think that what happened in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in 2005 is special to the region, or just the fault of poor city location. Most climate models predict this kind of an event coming to a town near you in the not so distant future. So, if you're one of the millions anywhere along the Eastern Seaboard, or in the great floodplains of the Midwest, look at New Orleans as a lesson in "there but for the grace of god go I", and act accordingly.