The Imaging Science Group of the Royal Photographic Society (RPS) is organising another Good Picture Symposium, open to all, on selected technical aspects of digital imaging. As 2010 is the 100th anniversary of infrared photography, the organisers have taken the opportunity to celebrate this by including some IR topics including “Infrared in the Surveillance Society”, “Digital Infrared Thermography in Medicine”, “How Infrared Sensing Might Help Us Manage the Resources of Planet Earth”, “Infrared Imaging – The Fever Screening Dilemma” and “Practical Options For Infrared Photography”. Other topics include the use of colour appearance models in imaging and a look at Canon raw conversion options. The Good Picture Symposium is taking place on 4 December at the University of Westminster, Regent Street, London. Admission costs £64.

Garage Studios are showing Kevin Mason’s Your Life Is My Vanity Project, from 29 to 31 May between 10:30 am and 8:00 pm. The project, which spanned thirty weeks of photoshoots over eight months, plots the important physical and emotional transformations as Kevin’s subject Georgie Hobday turns seventeen. Your Life Is My Vanity Project is presented by sponsors Garage Studios, Brighton’s biggest Photography Studio and Training Centre as a series of prints and original polaroids and features over 120 images curated by both Georgie Hobday and M.Halls, a limited edition book of the work will also be available at the exhibition and online at the website below.

Website: Your Life Is My Vanity Project

Hama has announced the retail availability of the new “Varadero” camera bags from Samsonite. The collection comprises seven models, which feature clearly labelled compartments for empty and full batteries and memory cards. Padded handles, removable shoulder straps and a pleasantly soft fleece interior lining are the hallmarks of the new bags, which are priced from €39.99 to €59.99 depending on model.

Website: Hama

AKVIS has released version 11 of AKVIS Sketch for Windows and Macintosh. The software converts photos to colour and black-and-white pencil drawings and watercolor paintings. Version 11 offers the ability to save guidings lines made by the stroke direction tool to a file. Two new interface modes (Express and Advanced) have also been added, and the plugin version is now compatible with Photoshop CS4-CS5 64-bit on both Windows and Macintosh. Express mode provides just the features and parameters you need to quickly obtain a satisfactory result, while Advanced mode reveals the features and parameters hidden in Express mode, giving the user access to the full functionality of Sketch. Users who own versions 9 and 10 of Sketch can upgrade for free; while users of older versions need to pay an upgrade fee. New users can purchase a licence for $72 / €55.

The opening of the Still in Motion London Photography Festival will take place in Paris, at La Cartonnerie, on the 29th and 30th of May 2010 and one week later, at the Horse Hospital in London. The festival programme includes an exhibition of pinhole photographs, a pinhole photo contest on the theme of the changing city, free pinhole portraits in a Victorian lay-out, an exhibition of young photographers, and more. Throughout the weekend, a discovery workshop will be delivered for the public that will play upon the pinhole camera’s origins and the experience of taking a picture in a 19th century studio. “One of the targets of this event is to recreate the social link within the city through photography, and to bring urban people to rediscover their city,” the organisers say. An exhibition of young artists is also part of the programme - the photo above (taken by and reproduced with courtesy of Frank Loriou) is one of the works that are going to be displayed at this exhibition.

Nikon UK has just announced a new cashback promotion that entitles UK and Irish customers to claim £30 / €35 on the Nikon Coolpix S8000 compact digital camera, starting today. Billed as the world’s slimmest wide-angle 10x zoom camera at its launch, the S8000 also boasts a “DSLR class” autofocus system and a 14.2-megapixel sensor. Kevin Egan, Consumer Product Manager at Nikon UK, comments: “As we approach the holiday season and more people consider purchasing a digital camera, I’m delighted that the cashback offer now makes the premium Coolpix S8000 camera an even more attractive option.”

Website: Nikon Coolpix S8000 Cashback Offer

Renowned art college, Central Saint Martins, will be presenting its annual 2010 photography exhibition at its Charing Cross premises beginning 18th June.  Showcasing a diverse selection of images, the exhibition will present the work of 25 emerging photographers. To view the works online, visit the website below.

Website: Central Saint Martins Photography Exhibition

Industry analysists BERTL Inc. have awarded a five-star “Exceptional” rating to Canon’s large-format imagePROGRAF iPF8300, iPF 6350 and iPF6300 printers. “The five-star rating from BERTL, Inc., recognises the significant investment Canon has made in developing technologies that make the new imagePROGRAF models an ideal solution for the photography, graphic arts and photography markets,” said Jim Rosetta, vice president and general manger, Imaging Systems Group, Canon U.S.A. BERTL’s testing criteria addresses 11 categories: Build Quality, Network Administration, Security, Workflow, Finish, Ease of Use, Media Handling, Printing, Image Quality, Features, and Price.

Canon is launching a new advertising campaign for the EOS 550D and Powershot SX210 IS cameras. Created to run throughout Europe, both adverts were shot at the Venice Carnival in Italy earlier this year, and follow three photography enthusiasts as they capture their unique story at the event. Both spots have been shot on an EOS DSLR camera, the 5D Mark II, mixed with stills and films taken on the EOS 550D and PowerShot SX210 IS themselves. The adverts will be broadcast across Germany, UK, France and Pan-European markets until the end of 2010.

East London photographic gallery theprintspace unveils an alternative look on football, from photographer Alan Powdrill. Straightforward and ordinary men from the Sunday League are captured in a show representing teams as diverse as the Hackney Martians from London and Unreal Madrid from Manchester. The exhibit “Reality Football” opens with a private view at theprintspace gallery from 7pm on June 17th and continues 9am-7pm Monday-Friday until July 13th, coinciding with the World Cup in South Africa.

Leica Akademie, the company’s London training facility, has announced a new programme of photography workshops. Leica Akademie workshops operate in small group sizes to allow attendees to get the utmost support from the experts and maximise their learning potential, the company says. The range of currently available workshops includes courses dedicated to specific Leica models, from film cameras to digital compacts to digital rangefinder cameras, as well as thematic classes such as “Holiday & Travel”, “Pictures for Profit”, “See the World in Black & White”, and more. Interested readers should contact the Leica Store Mayfair on 07514 539566.

Flixtime.com has been upgraded to include a number of new features. These include image highlighting, video presentation speed control, unlimited copies, text integration onto photo stills, voiceover and sharing capabilities as well as an option to keep or strip sound from uploaded videos. Recently launched by Fotolia, Flixtime is a free website that enables users to create free 60-second videos using their personal image collection or those provided by Fotolia.

Website Flixtime

LaCie has announced its newest product - the LaCie Rugged Safe, billed as “the safest mobile hard drive on the market”. Featuring unbreakable government-grade 128-bit AES hardware encryption, the safest biometric authentication technology, and a military-grade shock-proof enclosure, the Rugged Safe is bus-powered through USB or FireWire and is compatible with Mac or PC. The LaCie Rugged Safe comes with a three-year limited warranty and includes the LaCie Backup Assistant software. Available in 500GB and 1TB, the new Rugged Safe mobile hard drive starts at an SRP of £169.

ACD Systems have released a second, free ACDSee Pro 3 update that provides additional flexibility when processing digital images and publishing those images online. The upgrade brings netbook compatibility, improved raw processing performance, workflow customisation, online enhancements and other improvements. ACDSee Pro 3 is available for a free 30-day trial and for purchase at $169.99.

Website: ACDSee

Photodex has released a new iPad device output profile for its ProShow slide show software. The ProShow Device plug-in works directly with ProShow Gold and Producer to create device-ready versions of a user’s slide shows. Now any ProShow user can easily sync their slide shows to their iPad and watch them play back full screen and in HD without the need for complicated formatting or conversions. The ProShow Device plug-in is available for $19.95.

Lexar has just announced that it is shipping Lexar Professional 133x SDHC memory cards in 16GB and 32GB capacities to retail outlets. The Lexar Professional SDHC cards offer the maximum Class 10 speed rating, providing a minimum sustained write speed capability of 20MB per second. All Lexar Professional memory cards include a limited lifetime warranty, a free downloadable copy of Image Rescue 4 software, and exclusive, money-saving promotions from Adobe on popular photo and video editing products, including the latest versions of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, Adobe Photoshop Elements, and Adobe Premiere Elements software.

Microsoft and Phase One today announced that Phase One has acquired the Microsoft Expression Media product. Expression Media is a digital asset management application used to catalog and organize photos, video and music for effortless retrieval, presentation and sharing. Under the terms of the agreement, Phase One takes full ownership of the Expression Media product. To ensure a smooth transition for Expression Media customers, Microsoft will continue to provide support to retail customers for 90 days. Phase One will begin offering support for the Expression Media product after the 90-day transition period. Microsoft customers who are currently using Expression Media under an Enterprise Agreement will continue to receive support from Microsoft through the term of their agreements. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Artists and photographers Ben Raynor, Chris Mear, Robert Attard, Anna Taylor and Nicola Thompson are announced winners of the 2010 Free Range Art Award. The diverse selection, embracing Ben Raynor’s humorous mixed media drawing Albert alongside Anna Taylor’s subtly emotive photograph Grandad (shown above), demonstrates Free Range at its best, the organisers say. Each selected work will be produced as a print in a limited edition of 25, giving the artists the opportunity to sell their work. The exclusive limited edition prints of work by the five winners will be available to buy at Free Range 2010 and also online at CultureLabel from 3rd June.

Website: CultureLabel

The RSPCA Young Photographer Awards 2010 (YPA10) is now open for entries. Photographs can be submitted in the post, to arrive no later than 5pm on 23 August, or online on the contest website until the closing date of midnight on Monday, 6 September. The overall winner will get £1,000 worth of Olympus kit of their choice. Additionally, Danny Green - one of the world’s best wildlife photographers - is offering the overall YPA10 winner the chance to join him for a three-day photography break. Danny will pass on some expert photography tips as well as share his inside knowledge during the annual deer rut in Bradgate Park, in Leicestershire.