PhotoNOLA, the New Orleans photography festival faces the digital age. From @nolanews

PhotoNOLA 2012, the annual New Orleans photography festival opens Friday, Nov. 30, in a different technological environment than when it began seven years ago. Today, just about everyone seems to have a camera in his pocket.

Stand on Camp Street outside of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art and watch the traffic gush by when the light changes. Just imagine, it’s possible that most of the occupants of most of the cars and buses, in the blink of an eye, could snap a picture with their cell phones; in another blink of an eye, they could share the picture via email or social media.

If that picture captures something popular – Brad Pitt passing on his bicycle – it could electronically ripple across the globe. Photography has long been a part of our culture, of course, but since 2006 PhotoNOLA was born, it’s become embedded in our planetary nervous system.

For many of us, taking a photo isn’t a deliberation, it’s an impulse. And, truth be told, some of those cellular snapshots are pretty darned good, making everyone a potential Cartier-Bresson.

With those thoughts in mind, now turn away from the traffic and enter the Ogden, where several exhibits celebrate camera work born of an earlier, less extemporaneous era.

Read on here....http://wtr.mn/U5nc9d