PPD: 10 Instagrammers You Should Follow Now
Is Instramming an art? Debate amongst yourselves, but in the meantime please take a look at the 10 people singled out by PetaPixel for using Instagram “to its full potential as a device for unconventional humor or revolutionary marketing.” You might expect someone like National Geographic photographer David Yoder (@daveyoder) to be a skilled Instagrammer. But you’ll also be impressed by the symmetrical compositions of Jussi Ulkuniemi (@skwii) and work by Cory Richards (@coryrichards), one of the top adventure and expedition photographers in the world. The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (@nasagoddard) feed also makes the list. Read the full Story >>
Call for Entries: The Photo Review Competition
The Photo Review, a noted source of fine-art photography, is now taking entries for its 2013 competition. Those that are accepted will be featured on the Photo Review website, and winning photographers will be chosen for an exhibition at the photography gallery of The University of the Arts in Philadelphia. (There are also prizes like a retro Olympus Pen E-PL5 camera.) Go here to see work from past winners. The deadline for entering is June 30. Read the full Story >>
In Focus: The True Have-Nots in Haiti's Have-Not World
Until last year, Russian-born photographer Vlad Sokhin had never set foot in the Americas, much less Haiti. But he has produced a memorable project, “Restavek: Child Slavery in Haiti,’’ about people there who are nearly invisible. International advocates for children estimate that Haiti is home to 250,000 so-called restaveks—children working as unpaid domestic servants after their parents, who cannot afford to raise them, give them away. To discover that a nation born of a slave revolt was “using its own children as slaves was ridiculous to me,’’ says Sokhin. Read the full Story >>
Dept of Ideas: Symbiostock, a Crowd-Managed Photo Agency
Stock photo entrepreneur and blogger-guru Paul Melcher likens Symbiostock to a 2,200-year-old fungus in an Oregon forest that is known as the world’s largest living organism. Symbiostock is an open-source WordPress theme allowing any photographer to create a local stock agency with his or her images—which alone isn’t that impressive. But each of these individual databases is networked to all the others on Symbiostock, so that when an image buyer performs a search on one site, he or she also gets results from others as well. Read the full Story >>
Annals of Photoshop: NY Times Editor Questions T Magazine Policy
Readers expect truth from news imagery, notes New York Times’s public editor in a recent editorial, but should they expect the same from fashion imagery? The editor, Margaret Sullivan, takes issue with the Photoshopping policy of T Magazine, the fashion and style publication put out by the Times. Sullivan’s article comes as a response to comments made recently by T editor Deborah Needleman, who said she had considered fattening up a skinny cover girl. Sullivan suggests that readers be notified about retouched fashion images. Your thoughts? Read the full Story >>
Let's Continue the Conversation ...
Please contact me (button at top) to let me know about any books, shows, or projects you’ve got going. If you "Like" the Pro Photo Daily Facebook page, you'll get updates of stories that don't make the Daily and shared stories from others. And of course we hope you will give us your opinions on some of the issues we address. You can find an archive of Pro Photo Daily posts at http://www.ai-ap.com/prophotodaily/. Follow me on Twitter @davidschonauer. Read the full Story >>
Online: The Web Weighs In On the New Flickr
The Interweb is both ecstatic and troubled about Yahoo’s recently announced revamp of Flickr. Fstoppers has a rundown on all the new features, but the big news is that all Flickrites now get one terabyte of free storage space. (PDN Pulse points out the one terabyte is the equivalent of 500,000 photos at full res!) With that move, Yahoo essentially did away with the rationale for its Flickr Pro service, which is ending. The symbolism was inescapable:"'RIP Professional Photographers,'" wrote PetaPixel. It didn't help when Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer explained that in a world where everyone is a photog, there was no longer such thing as a pro. Bloggers like Jim Colton responded. Read the full Story >>
See It Now: "PDN's 30" Panel at the Palm Springs Photo Fest
If you weren’t at this year’s Palm Springs Photo Festival to hear PDN’s “Strategies for the Emerging Photographer” symposium, you can see it now … on video. The panel includes photographers Ian Allen, John Francis Peters, and Jessica Sample, who were all named to this year’s “PDN’s 30” list of important emerging photographers, as well as photo editor Emily Shornick of NYMag.com’s The Cut and Sony Artisan of Imagery Andy Katz. They discuss their own careers and what photo editors are looking for when hiring photographers. Read the full Story >>
Spotlight: David Stewart Captures "Teenage Pre-occupation"
“As I find myself surrounded by teenagers—my sons and daughter and all their friends—I noticed some interesting things about them,” notes London-based photog David Stewart in a masterful example of British understatement. Stewart began exploring the teenage world after his daughter told him about a hair-cutting ritual at her school. His work is now collected in a book, Teenage Pre-occupation, to be released on May 30. Go here to see an interesting film trailer for the book. Go here and here for more on Stewart. Read the full Story >>
Tech News: Metabones Speed Booster for Micro Four Thirds
In January 2013, lens adapter company Metabones rocked the camera world by announcing the Speed Booster, an SLR-to-mirrorless lens adapter that can magically increase maximum aperture, sharpness, and angle of view. So far the adapter has been released for Sony NEX and Fuji X cameras, but, reports PetaPixel, Metabones will be releasing the Speed Booster for Micro Four Thirds cameras as well. That means you’ll be able to use Contax/Yashica, Leica, Canon, and Nikon lenses on your Micro Four Thirds camera. Read the full Story >>
Impact: Image Still Sparks Outrage Among Israelis, Palestinians
A controversial video clip shot in 2000—and a single frame from the video printed in publications around the world—is still sparking outrage among Palestinians and Israelis, notes the Huffington Post. The video showed a terrified child, Mohammed Al Dura, and his father cowering in front of a wall during an exchange of fire between Israeli troops and Palestinian gunmen. For Palestinians, the imagery became a symbol of Israeli oppression and of their own sense of victimhood. Now a new Israeli report claims that the video was misleading. Read the full Story >>
Final Frame: Most People Don't Know What Stock Photos Are
At least they don’t in the U.K.: Recently, a BBC game show featured a question asking contestants to name the link between four companies: Corbis, Getty, Magnum, and Alamy. None answered that all were photo agencies. The Alamy agency has responded with a blog post: “People, lay people, and Joe Public, do not know who we are or what we do,” notes the agency, which suggests that if people understood what stock photography really is they wouldn’t steal so many images. Read the full Story >>
Let's Continue the Conversation ...
Please contact me (button at top) to let me know about any books, shows, or projects you’ve got going. If you "Like" the Pro Photo Daily Facebook page, you'll get updates of stories that don't make the Daily and shared stories from others. And of course we hope you will give us your opinions on some of the issues we address. You can find an archive of Pro Photo Daily posts at http://www.ai-ap.com/prophotodaily/. Follow me on Twitter @davidschonauer. Read the full Story >>
In Focus: AP Photog Recounts Terror and Hope in Oklahoma
On Tuesday, the world awoke to the photographs of Associated Press staff photographer Sue Ogrocki. Based in Oklahoma City, Ogrocki documented rescue workers carrying injured children from the rubble of Plaza Towers Elementary School in the town of Moore; her images appeared on the cover of many of the world’s leading newspapers, including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. She later talked with Time LightBox about what she witnessed—a scene of devastation and raw humanity. “This is probably the worst,” said Ogrocki, who has cover other tornadoes. “I’ve never seen a school hit.” Go here to read her story at AP. Read the full Story >>
Industry News: Olympus To Drop Budget Point and Shoots
The end of the point-and-shoot era got closer when Olympus announced recently that it would be discontinuing its V lineup of low-cost compact cameras. “With high-tech smartphones and numerous photo apps making it harder to convince people that they need point-and-shoot cameras, it’s no surprise that…Olympus…is shifting focus away from that market,” notes the Wall Street Journal. The company anticipates a steep decline in its camera business, with sales this fiscal year expected to be about 2.7 million units, down from 5.1 million units last year. Read the full Story >>
Trending: Mall Cop Vs. Photographers, The Viral Video
Yesterday we mentioned that more and more airlines are banning photography on flights; today the Photography Is Not A Crime blog reports on one mall cop who got testy about picture taking. The episode began when a truck plummeted into a ravine nearby the Ohio Valley Mall in St. Clairsville, OH. An “Officer Adams” began demanding the onlookers discontinue taking pictures and erase the images. Naturally, the raging cop was caught on video, which went viral. Private companies increasingly seem to be banning photography on their property ... just because they can. Read the full Story >>
Agenda: New Exposure Photography Competition Returns
New Exposure, a photography competition sponsored by Bottega Veneta and Vogue magazine, is back for its second edition. The talent contest aims to help young photographers break into the business: The winner, to be unveiled during New York Fashion Week in September, will take home a $10,000 cash prize, as well as a year-long mentorship with the Art+Commerce agency and another one with Vogue photo director Ivan Shaw. Go here for more info on how to enter. Read the full Story >>
How-To: Shoot Day-To-Night Time Lapse with Bulb Ramping
A transitional time-lapse from day to night can be a challenge … unless you’ve got the right tools for the job, says PetaPixel, which features a video from photographer and “timelapse connoisseur” Joel Schat. His secret: Using a Promote Control—an all-in-one remote control for Canon and Nikon DSLRs—for “bulb ramping,” or modifying exposure settings on a camera in order to maintain a desired exposure value while the camera is in Bulb mode. “Upon choosing a composition and an appropriate aperture, the Promote will do the brunt of the work,” notes PP. Read the full Story >>
Final Frame: Photog Joe McNally Honors "A Wonderful Teacher"
Who was the person who made you a photographer? For noted photographer Joe McNally, it was Fred Demarest, who taught a college photography class that McNally, until then an indifferent Syracuse J-school student, was required to take. At his blog, McNally engagingly describes how his outlook and future took shape under Demarest’s guidance. “There were other profs more dashing and charismatic, to be sure. But none approached his skills at refining a young photographer’s intentions,” he says of Demarest, now 88 and retired. Must read. Read the full Story >>
Let's Continue the Conversation ...
Please contact me (button at top) to let me know about any books, shows, or projects you’ve got going. If you "Like" the Pro Photo Daily Facebook page, you'll get updates of stories that don't make the Daily and shared stories from others. And of course we hope you will give us your opinions on some of the issues we address. You can find an archive of Pro Photo Daily posts at http://www.ai-ap.com/prophotodaily/. Follow me on Twitter @davidschonauer. Read the full Story >>