PhotographyBLOG visitor John P. Yuda has let me know about a new group photography project that he has started which is designed to combat the effects of Winter:

“Winter can be a difficult time for photographers. It’s cold, the days are shorter and often overcast;conditions just make it difficult to get out there and shoot. Almost every photographer - of all skill levels from beginner to pro -  shoots considerably less in the time between the holidays and spring.

To help alleviate this, I’ve started this project. The idea is simple: there are 29 days in February this year. Every day, participants will get out and shoot at least 29 photographs. That’s the only requirement. They can be digital or film, colour or black & white. Feel free to switch cameras, or use different film emulsions every day. At the end of the month, we’ll all collect our work into photo essays.”

Website: 29 Frames for 29 Days

Luminous Landscape editor Michael Reichmann has recently returned from a safari in Tanzania, Africa (lucky *insert expletive here*). He has shared his experiences of both the location and the equipment that he used in a new article:

“Without sounding too romantic about it, there is something about the look, the smell and the sounds of the Serengeti that almost seems to be part of ones racial memory. Hard to describe, but shared by almost everyone that visits there. There is a ?rightness? about it that infuses ones spirit. Being immersed in it, along with the astonishing assortment of animals, all in their natural environment ? which they have called home for millennia ? is an experience that I wish more people could share.”

Website: Luminous Landscape: Tanzanian Photo Safari

If you didn’t know already, PMA 2004 is due to start on February 12th in Las Vegas, USA. This is the largest photographic trade show of the year, where all of the major and minor manufacturers show off their product lines for 2004. We’ve already seen some major announcements from Nikon and Canon this week, and you check back here regularly to catch up with all of the latest news as it happens. You could also spend a little time checking out the following sites, which have dedicated PMA 2004 preview pages.

Website: Luminous Landscape - PMA 2004

Website: LetsGoDigital - PMA 2004

Website: DPReview

This week, Mike Johnston’s Sunday morning column is a review of Frank Van Riper’s “Talking Photography” book.

“Frank Van Riper’s Talking Photography may be the friendliest book of essays about photography ever written. It’s aptly titled: Van Riper has an easy, relaxed writing style that does indeed read very much like someone talking. His deceptively simple prose, which is articulate, and even erudite when needed, flows like water, naturally. Although they’re almost all in classic essay form, each of the book’s nearly one hundred pieces was originally a weekly newspaper column written for The Washington Post, so they’re also short and sweet.”

Website: Sunday Morning Photographer: Talking Photography

Mike Johnston’s weekly column looks at the rather specialized topic of how photos are laid out in magazines, with part of them often being lost in the page gutter.

“Or take color film. You give a man color film, and sooner or later you will catch him out in the garden taking pictures of flowers. This seems inevitable. He just can’t resist. He’s got this colorful film, y’see, and he spies this colorful flower, and…well, not being a chimp, he does realize that there are enough flower pictures in the world already, and that the one he’s about to take isn’t going to be of any use to anybody. But he can’t help himself. It’s too great a temptation to resist. He succumbs to the weakness. (I’m partially kidding here. Flower photographers, forgive me.)”

Website: Sunday Morning Photographer: Lost in the Gutter

Mike Johnston’s Sunday Morning Photographer column discusses the thorny issue of photography and getting paid to do it.

“So here’s the upshot. I’m gonna keep writing “The Sunday Morning Photographer,” but only as long as I get to write about what I want to and say whatever I please. I’m being selfish, yes, but also practical. If I have to write on assignment every week, I’m afraid I’d lose interest. I’m not always right, and I’m not always interesting, and I’m not always writing about the things the majority of people want to read about, if we were to take a poll. But I find the freedom and the independence to be priceless. If everybody pays a few cents, then I can get compensated a little and also continue being a free agent. Sounds like it should work, don’t you think?”

Website: Sunday Morning Photographer: Working For Pay

A-Digital-Eye have been providing some excellent coverage of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, over the last couple of days, including 3 reports with photos of photography-related products. It’s one thing reading all the press releases, but it’s also good to see the products “in the flesh”. Click the links below to actually see what has been announced at CES 2004.

Website: A-Digital-Eye

Website: A-Digital-Eye - CES Photo Gallery 1

Website: A-Digital-Eye - CES Photo Gallery 2

Website: A-Digital-Eye - CES Photo Gallery 3

This week Mike Johnston’s Sunday Morning column asks if Leica has lost the plot…

“And many times over the past decade or so, I’ve had cause to wonder if the current management of Leica really gets it - “it” being the true gestalt of the Leitz Camera - or whether they’ve just lost it.”

Website: Sunday Morning Photographer: Has Leica Lost It?

In this week’s Sunday Morning Photographer column Mike Johnston looks at collecting photographs as a way of getting into the hobby of photography:

“Contrary to some peoples’ assumptions, there are plenty of places to acquire photographs. One of the most obvious is eBay.

I’m assuming that everybody is aware of the “Cameras & Photo” area of eBay, in the “Computers & Electronics” section, where equipment is sold; but are you also aware of the “other” eBay, the “Photographic Images"area, in the “Art” section? Typical for eBay, you can find anything there from treasure to garbage ? from original vintage prints of acknowledged masterpieces to pictures clipped from old magazines, and everything in between.”

Website: Sunday Morning Photographer: The Other eBay

The latest issue of the monthly online photo magazine, Vivid Light Photography, has just been published. Highlights this month include a review of the Olympus E-1 DSLR:

“The ruggedly constructed Olympus E-1 digital SLR feels and handles like a conventional film SLR. Image quality is what you would expect from a five megapixel imaging chip: great at low ISO, somewhat noisy at higher ones. Images are crisp and well resolved aided and abetted by a series of sharp digital Zuiko lenses. The E-1 is a clean slate camera that’s intended for the photographer who doesn’t already have an arsenal of lenses that can be used with another brand’s digital SLR, and one who appreciates the E-1’s purity of design and attention to detail.”

and an article called Traveling with Digital:

“Just about the time I start getting comfortable traveling with 100 rolls of x-rayable film, and a camera bag that, thanks to tightened security, is now swabbed and thoroughly inspected, along comes the digital revolution. Of course, switching from film to digital doesn’t change the fact that the security folks may still want to inspect my camera bag. But just think of the tremendous psychological burden that is lifted off your shoulders knowing that memory cards aren’t affected by the x-ray machine!”

Website: Vivid Light Photography - Issue #32

In this week’s Sunday Morning Photographer column Mike Johnston tells us all to ignore the pixel count and noise levels and concentrate on the image:

“Agreement seems universal that the D2H is a masterpiece of ergonomics, proportion, and responsiveness. Where the cavils creep in is in the discussions of image quality. Too much noise at high ISOs? Too few pixels? Fret, fret.

I wonder sometimes if people can’t see the forest for the trees ? or the pictures for the pixels, in this case.”

Website: Sunday Morning Photographer: Can’t See The Pictures for the Pixels

Congratulations to the long-standing digital camera website Steves Digicams, who have apparentyl just reached the 200 million visitor mark. Yes, you read it correctly, 200 MILLION!! Not bad :-)

Website: Steves Digicams

The last sh1ft.org project for 2003 will be A Day In The Life .. New Years Eve ‘03.

Starting 12 Noon - December 31st 2003 and going straight through to 12 Noon - January 1 2004, take a photograph an hour to document how you spend the last hours of 2003 and the first hours of 2004.

For more details, please visit sh1ft.org/adayinthelife.

Photobird.com Press Release 15/12/03

INTRODUCING PHOTOBIRD.COM
The easy way to share your photos with friends and family around the world

SAN FRANCISCO, CA. - December 15, 2003 - Photobird.com today announced the immediate availability of its new easy-to-use, professionally-designed website that enables digital camera users to easily share their digital photos.  Photobird.com enables digital camera users to easily create online photo albums, using an intuitive, attractive web-based interface.  For a free trial, visit www.photobird.com.

“Digital camera users want an easy and attractive way to share their photos on the web.  Photobird.com was designed specifically for digital camera users to easily create beautifully designed online photo albums, so they can share their photos, and be proud of their photo collections,” said Ed Krimen, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Photobird.com.  “Websites are too difficult to build for most people, and most sites are not designed well, making them difficult or unattractive to use.  Photobird.com makes it very easy to share your photos in professionally designed online photo albums.”

Photobird.com is faster, easier, and more convenient than e-mailing your photos to friends and family.  When you want to share your photos on Photobird.com, you only need to send your personal Photobird.com link—which is much simpler than sending megabytes of data each time you want to send photos to someone.  Your friends and family can then select which photos they want to see, instead of waiting for them all to download.  Plus, Photobird.com automatically creates smaller, web-ready versions of your photos when you add them to your album, so your photos can be viewed quicker.  Your original photo is still available too.

With its attractive, user-friendly web interface, Photobird.com offers a variety of unique features that will interest everyone who takes digital photos.  “It’s very easy and simple to send my photo links to people by using the Send to a Friend button,” said Carol Caruso, a professional photographer in Paris, France.  “I like the picture upload process too, very clean and simple.”

Photo.net have published the results of their Digital Camera of the Year poll. No prizes for guessing which camera won…

“In first place was the 6.3 MP Canon EOS 300D (Digital Rebel). It captured 43% of the total vote, almost twice as much as the second placed camera. Though not the “best” or most technologically advanced digital camera, the 300D was the first digital SLR to break the $1000 barrier and it sold for about $500 less than its nearest cost competitor. In fact when sold with its companion 18-55mm lens it still sold for less than some non-SLR digicams. The EOS 300D was the camera that brought DSLRs to the masses. People who had never before owned an SLR bought this camera - and they are still buying it. It’s the only SLR I’ve seen advertised on network TV recently too!”

Website: Photo.net - Digital Camera of the Year

In this week’s Sunday Morning Photographer column Mike Johnston explains why he’s buying the $150 HP 7660 printer to use exclusively for black and white prints:

“Print color (the Achilles heel of color printers using colored inks to make B&W output): Outstanding. There’s no perceptible metamerism (color shift), which is the great failing of the Epson 2200, for one, in B&W mode. HP’s highlight, shadow, and paper-base colors are well integrated, and the print color is perfect: in formulating its #59 inks, HP seems to have deliberately mimicked the look of a neutral/cold conventional paper with light selenium toning, long the standard look for fine-art B&W prints. They did a good job on this.”

Website: Sunday Morning Photographer: Hooray for Hewlett-Packard!

There are a couple on interesting articles in the latest issue of Nature Photographers Online Magazine that will appeal to nature and non-nature photographers alike:

Catching the Cold by Jess Lee
“Winter photography gives us an opportunity to capture scenes that are unique to many viewers. Streams, rivers and lakes can be covered with pancake layers of ice or blanketed with pillows of powder snow. Animals covered in hoary frost appear ghostlike in early morning ice fog. Even in the southwest you can find icicles hanging against the red rocks. The variety of subjects is only limited by our imagination.”

Nature Photography Best Sellers - What Sells and Why? by Darwin Wiggett.
“There is a huge disparity between what photographers think is a great image and what photo-buyers think is great. Photographers are impressed by images that show mastery of technical skills, artful compositions, sublime light, and refreshing creativity. Photo buyers, on the other hand, look for images with a strong story, powerful mood, and universal appeal…”

Website: Nature Photographers Online Magazine

Funtigo Press Release 03/12/03

Photo Site Funtigo Continues to Innovate by Adding Holiday and Other Clipart
New generation photo site provides complete Web pages, not just photos

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, December 4, 2003 - Funtigo LLC announced today that its photo sharing website, www.funtigo.com, has added 362 high-quality pieces of clipart from collections of Ultimate Symbol and WebstarWest.  An additional collection of 250 GIF animations is soon to follow, according to the company.

Although clipart is typically not associated with photo sites, it fits squarely with Funtigo’s philosophy of photo sharing, according to Jim Conning, Funtigo’s founder.

“With the proliferation of digital cameras, people treat photos as one - but not the only - element that helps them preserve and share their memories.  Our customers often create complete Web pages around their photos, including text, custom backgrounds, text balloons, and clipart.  All these things combined help them preserve their memories and express themselves.”

158 of the new clipart pieces have holiday themes, including Halloween, Thanksgiving, Chanukah, Christmas, and New Year’s.  The clipart displays as ultra-crisp and resolution-independent Flash 6 files.  In browsers that don’t support Flash 6 the clipart is automatically displayed as PNG files, according to Funtigo.

As is the case with other Web page elements, such as text and photos, Funtigo users can click and drag the clipart in their Web browser and place it exactly where they want it.  For instance, they can place a mistletoe piece of clipart next to or superimposed onto a Christmas party photo.  They can also click and drag to interactively resize the clipart.

Funtigo is a subscription-based photo site, offered as a free 60 try-out service and priced as low as $1.49 per month.

Founded in 2002, Funtigo LLC is a privately held company, based in San Francisco, California.
A special press whitepaper with 13 interviews of photosharing digital camera users can be downloaded at http://www.funtigo.com/press/testimonials.pdf.  Email [email protected] to arrange interviews with any of these users.

Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), in association with Country Life magazine, is throwing down a challenge to amateur photographers. Can you capture the enduring beauty of the English countryside in the dead of winter, when the days are at their very shortest and skies are generally grey? Photographs entered for our competition must have been taken between dawn on Sunday 21 December (the eve of the longest night) and dusk on Monday 22 December 2003 (the shortest day).

We’ve organised this competition:
- to promote CPRE and its work through the media by working in partnership with one of the nation’s leading countryside magazines.
- to raise awareness of the enduring value of the countryside’s beauty through the seasons and the years.

The prizes and judging
?400 for winning entrant aged 16 or under, ?500 for the winning entrant aged 17 or over. There will also be prizes of ?50 for the runner ups. The winning photographs and those of the runners up will be published in a future issue of Country Life and on this website. The judging panel includes Sir Max Hastings, CPRE President and Country Life editor Clive Aslet.

Website: Campaign to Protect Rural England

The popular online photo magazine 28mm.org has returned with its 11th issue. The work of 10 different photographers is featured this month.

On Display:
- Home grown portraits, by Katie Cooke
- Munich Airport, by Alexandra Emde
- Abandoned Industrial, by Matthew Hollett
- So Cal…So Cool, by Phillip Massey
- Walls, Windows, and Doors, by Davin Risk & Gayla Sanders
- In the Spotlight, by Rannie Turingan
- Westside Connection, by Dominic Turner
- Steam, by Khoi Uong
- Through The Looking Glass, by Tracey Yeoh

Cover Photo:
by C Gary Moyer