German photo gear rental company LensAvenue GmbH has decided to end its operation and focus on “other business activities”. LensAvenue, whose core business was the rental of photographic equipment by mail, stresses that it has not filed for insolvency, but wants to “better allocate its resources” (including time, finances and know-how). It is unclear what this means exactly, but their stock of photo equipment (including cameras, lenses, lighting kits and other accessories) is up for sale - click ‘Gelegenheiten’ on their home page.

Via photoscala

InfoTrends has announced that Fujifilm will sponsor the 2009 Digital Imaging Forum and will participate in three educational panel discussions during the event. The forum features the 2nd annual Photo Publishing Summit taking place September 15-16, 2009 and the 8th annual Digital Imaging Conference which follows directly after on September 16-17. Both events will be hosted at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco Airport in Burlingame, California. During the Photo Publishing Summit, Fujifilm will participate on a panel entitled Sales and Marketing Strategies for Growing Your Products Business. At the Digital Imaging Conference, Fujifilm will take part in two panel discussions: Making the Right Equipment Choices and Convergence of Online Photo Services and Social Networks.

Fujifilm Professional has announced details of an exhibition of images from the 2009 Fujifilm Student Awards. All 30 merit winning images from the Awards will be on view, including the eventual winner, taken by Andrew Partner from Leicester College. The awards were a tie-in between Fujifilm Professional and Penguin Classics and the brief was to supply a cover image for the next edition of Rachel Carson’s work Silent Spring (pictured). The exhibition is on display at the London pro lab, Bayeux on Newman Street, W1T 3EP from now until Friday 16th October. Bayeux is open from 9am to 7pm, Monday to Friday, admission is free and no booking is required.

Phottix, a global manufacturer of photo accessories, announced the official opening of its Distributor for UK and Ireland today, Phottix UK Ltd. Phottix professional photo accessories have long been popular in the UK and Ireland, but prior to the establishment of the UK distribution partnership customers had to make their purchases from unofficial overseas websites. The new company, Phottix UK Ltd, will provide an official channel for Phottix quality photo accessories, and will greatly enhance customer service experience and product support, the company says. The Phottix product range includes unique units like the Phottix Hero wireless camera remote control (pictured),which operates over a video link, the Phottix GeoOne GPS camera geotagging unit, the Phottix O-Flash affordable ring light, the Phottix Nikos digital timer remote release and the Phottix Cleon II wireless/wired remote shutter release, as well as comprehensive replacement accessories ranging from camera grips to batteries, flash accessories, filters and complete studio lighting systems.

Website: Phottix UK

Businessman Simon Brown is urging keen photographers to take a different view of London, by joining one of the new CameraTrails tours, starting at the end of this month. Suitable for either beginners or intermediate photographers, Simon says that both tourists and Londoners alike will be both startled and inspired by gaining a different perspective of the city. Three main tours will shortly be available, focusing not only on the main tourist hotspots of London but also on the lesser-travelled routes, exploring aspects of urban decay and regeneration, culture and diversity. The first tour takes place on Sunday 23 August at 12pm, and focuses on the South Bank region, whilst the second is on Friday 28 August at 9.30am, concentrating on a different perspective of London’s greatest monuments.  Prices are £70 per person.

Website: Camera Trails

S-t-r-e-t-c-h your talent and take your photographic abilities to new heights with Photo Iconic’s Mountains & Panoramas photography course in the Tatra Mountains in October. Focusing on horizontal and vertical panoramic photography, and on landscape and black and white images, this tour will venture into the Tatra Mountains National Park with hand-picked locations specifically chosen for panoramic photography. This stunning region of Central Europe offers amazing opportunities for photography, with emerald lakes and valleys, waterfalls and the high Tatra and low Tatra peaks. The course is open to just seven guests, and will cater for all levels of photographic skill. It is suitable for digital and film photographers and for 35mm, medium or large format users. The week-long holiday costs £985, with everything included. And for every booking made, Photo Iconic and Mountain Paradise will donate £100.00 to the Tatra Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation set up in conjunction with the Animals on the Edge program of Living Earth to provide funding for conservation initiatives throughout Tatra Mountains National Park.

Shoot it!, LLC, today announced the launch of its postcard messaging application for the iPhone. Available on the iPhone App Store, the shoot it! application allows users to take a picture, create a personal message and have it mailed as a real postcard from anywhere to anyone in the world (US & Western Europe open now - other countries soon). Available for 99 cents at the iPhone App Store, shoot it! comes with one free postcard.

Red Bull is looking for a reporter to head to Switzerland to capture the twists and pikes of the amazing high divers, the breathtaking location and the all round excitement of the Red Bull Cliff Diving event. The Switzerland stop will be the seventh in the Red Bull Cliff Diving series, and will take place on 5 September 2009 in Sisikon. To be considered for this assignment, head to http://www.redbullreporter.com and keep uploading examples of your best photos. Tag your uploads ‘Cliff Diving’.

Olympus have published their financial results for the quarter ended 30 June 2009, which show that the company is still making profits - but a lot less than a year ago. The company’s net earnings after taxes have shrunk to 1.8bn yen from 6.5bn yen in the same period of last year. The imaging business was particularly badly hit by the global economic crisis, as European and North American sales practically halved versus basis. Most of Olympus’ other businesses also saw a decrease in sales, though it was not quite as drastic as that of digital cameras. Domestic sales of diagnostic systems, surgical and endo-therapy appliances as well as infocommunication solutions have enjoyed some modest growth.

Website: Olympus Financial Results

Work by Sara Ramo, a young emerging Spanish/Brazilian artist, will showcase this Autumn at The Photographers’ Gallery. This will be Sara Ramo’s first exhibition in the UK. Strongly informed by performance art, Ramo sometimes appears in her own works. Using film, installations and photography, she is inspired by the innocence of childhood and magic realism to create parallel worlds beyond the restrictions of adult reason. Exhibition dates: 16 October 2009 – 17 January 2010. Location: 16 – 18 Ramillies St, W1.

Open See, which documents the experiences of refugee, immigrant and trafficked populations who travel from war torn, socially and economically devastated countries to make new lives in Europe, will be the first UK solo exhibition for Magnum photographer Jim Goldberg. Since 2003, Goldberg has been photographing and collecting stories through a range of formats: Polaroids, video, written text, ephemera, and large and medium format photographs. The exhibition installation will reflect Goldberg’s dynamic approach to the documentary genre through multi-faceted displays of imagery and text. These will include Polaroids, which have been marked, destroyed and written on by the subjects they portray. The words and images combine to tell the intimate and often violent stories of past and present experiences. Faces and features are sometimes scratched out, coloured in, or marked in some way. The exhibition will be held at The Photographers’ Gallery, 16-18 Ramillies street, W1, from 16 October 2009 through 17 January 2010.

Epson will stage a number of events and activities to coincide with the 12th IAAF World Championships in Athletics. Prior to the event, Epson will sponsor an almost 700km charity run from Epson Germany’s headquarters in Meerbusch to the Berlin Olympic Stadium, the setting for the world championships. Epson will also turn one of Berlin’s main thoroughfares into a giant street gallery, featuring an international collection of photographs, inspired by athletics, and crafted by some of the most famous photographers of the past 125 years. To ensure high-impact, high-quality, memorable prints, the 200cm x 135cm images will be printed by Epson on a Stylus Pro GS6000 large format printer.

NewBay Media has announced new features, a new location, and new dates for its 13th annual Digital Video Expo. The expo is to be held at the Pasadena Convention Center on September 22-24, 2009. Thousands of professionals in the content creation industry are expected to gather at the show for three full days of intensive education, training, and networking events, as well as the unique opportunity to test drive the latest products and services from over 100 key industry innovators, including Panasonic, Sony, JVC and Matrox Video.

Legndary camera designer and engineer Yoshihisa Maitani, creator of the original Olympus PEN and Olympus OM-1, OM-2 and other cult cameras, passed away on 30 July 2009. Born in 1933, Maitani built his first box camera at age 10, and by the time he turned 16, he already held four design patents. He joined Olympus in 1956, and two years later he was commissioned to develop a camera that could be purchased for under 6,000 yen, the average monthly wage in Japan at the time. The result was the Olympus PEN (pictured). The PEN was a huge success and evolved into a whole series of half-frame cameras, including the PEN F, FT and FV interchangeable-lens SLRs. Maitani then went on to design the Olympus OM-1, a legendary 35mm SLR, the starting point of the OM system noted for its compactness, high-quality optics and a series of innovations. Maitani received the PMA Hall of Fame Award in 1992, and retired in 1996. As the 1001 Noisy Cameras blog points out, he “lived to see his Pen re-born into the digital world with the E-P1”.

Source: DCWatch via 1001 Noisy Cameras

Leica is joining many other premium brands and launching its own UK store in September 2009. The Leica facility will comprise a ground floor retail store showcasing and selling the full Leica range of products, first floor offices, a ‘Leica Akademie’ training and demonstration centre and a Leica S-System studio. The location will be in Bruton Place, Mayfair, situated between Old Bond Street and Berkeley Square, London W1. Opening hours of the store will be 10.00 to 18.00 Monday to Friday, and 10.00 to 15.00 on Saturdays. Office, training facilities and studio will be by appointment only.

ImageSpan and liveBooks today announced that they have formed a strategic alliance to “deliver a set of best-in-class services that empower photographers to dramatically extend their online reach and generate new revenues”. liveBooks, which is dedicated to helping grow and sustain the photo community by providing resources that empower photographers to succeed in business, will promote LicenseStream Creator to the 5,000 photographers and other imaging professionals using its services and offer discounts that make it easy for these customers to promote, protect, license, track, create new revenue streams and settle royalties for new and existing photos. ImageSpan will create a co-branded liveBooks LicenseStream store that will feature liveBooks’ member-generated content.

Canon has posted second-quarter results for 2009, which show that demand for DSLRs like the Canon EOS 5D Mark II (pictured) remains strong in an otherwise gloomy economic climate. The sales of pretty much everything else, including office equipment, laser and inkjet printers, optical equipment and compact cameras, declined versus the same period of last year. Within Canon’s product portfolio, business machines - including computer peripherals, office imaging and business information products - make up the lion’s share (61%), with cameras - including both compacts and SLRs - being a distant second (31%). As far as regions are concerned, Europe is the most important market, trailed by the Americas, Japan and other areas. Canon’s total operating profit is down 72% against the same period of last year, but the mere fact that the company is still making a profit in this era of world economic crisis is still positive news for investors.

Website: Canon’s Consolidated Results

This year’s Retail Imaging Show (RIS) is getting closer and closer, and the organisers have put together a list of 10 reasons to check it out. The RIS 2009 is a trade show that is targeted at minilab, consumer electronics, computer/software and AV retailers. It is taking place on 25 September 2009, in the London Marriott on Grosvenor Square. Click through / read on to find out why it might be worth visiting.

Western Digital (WD) is launching the WD Creative Masters Programme, an educational programme that will share the knowledge and experience of three world-class artists and emphasise the critical importance of safely storing priceless files and backing up. WD’s Creative Masters Programme will offer a colourful, educational and inspirational look at artistry and the creative workflow as presented through the eyes and minds of three of the world’s most respected photographers—Bruce Dorn, Colin Finlay and Peter Read Miller. The Creative Masters Web site will provide visitors with helpful tutorials and tips for taking better photographs, organising their digital files and protecting them using the right storage tools.

Website: Western Digital Creative Masters Programme

The International Photographic Review, organised by Rhubarb Rhubarb, celebrates its tenth anniversary this year by posing the provocative statement Photography is dead… Rhubarb has combined retrospectives with up and coming photographers, plus such renowned names as Nadav Kander, to create a high profile gathering of contemporary photographic talent and public participation, promoting a real appreciation of how photography can and does influence our lives. Forty international gallerists, photographic publishers and agents arrive in Birmingham as the guests of the International Photographic Review and for three days meet aspiring photographers from all over the world. The International Photographic Review will take place in the UK from 30 July to 2 August.