A Spanish newspaper claims that Robert Capa’s iconic photograph, known by the titles “Falling Soldier”, “Death of a Loyalist Soldier” and “Loyalist Militiaman at the Moment of Death”, may have been staged. Questioning the authenticity of the photograph is nothing new - the fact that the split-second shot is almost perfectly composed, with only a bit of the rifle and the tips of the soldier’s feet being cut off, has raised suspicion many times since its first publication in Life magazine over seventy years ago. However, the skeptical voices were silenced when the soldier was identified as Federico Borrell García, a militiaman who was indeed killed in the battle fought near Cerro Muriano on 5 September 1936, and again when Richard Whelan pointed out that the curled fingers of the soldier’s left hand “clearly indicate… that he is already dead.” Despite this, the Spanish newspaper El Periódico now asserts the photo was “fabricated”, claiming that the “real location” was near the town of Espejo rather than Cerro Muriano, where “there was no fighting”. The timing of the article coincides with a major Robert Capa exhibition, currently on show in the Palace of Arts in Budapest.

Via The Independent

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.

Made by Grin & Stir, and distributed exclusively by LightwareDirect, the new FourSquare portable lighting kit is designed to be used with any combination up to four speedlights mounted as one. FourSquares are sold as a complete kit, including the mount and an aproximately 30"x30” softbox (though not the stand shown in the illustration above). A stand adapter is available as an optional accessory, with other accessories - such as a hand grip - coming soon. The FourSquare, which has been test driven by photographer Dave Black, is available now at an introductory price of $249.95.

Website: LightwareDirect

As Official Partner of the 12th IAAF World Championships in Athletics, Epson in cooperation with the non-profit organisation Kulturprojekte Berlin GmbH, will be transforming Berlin’s finest street “Unter den Linden” into a huge open-air photo exhibition. The two-metre high sports images, printed on an Epson Stylus Pro GS6000 large format printer, will accompany the World Championship spectators on their way to Berlin’s KulturStadion which is being temporarily set up at Pariser Platz. The exhibition offers a cross section of 125 years of athletic sports, as well as an overview of 125 years of photographic history.

To celebrate the re-opening of their three new look, refurbished stores in The Strand - London, Cambridge and Guildford, Jessops are offering a number of discounts across their range of products. The opening offers are available in-store Thursday 23rd through to Friday 24th July (London Strand) and Friday 24th through to Saturday 25th July (Cambridge and Guildford). The new re-furbished stores discount offers cover a wide spectrum of Jessops everything photographic product range from tripods, to compact cameras and DSLRs to camera cases. Among the DSLRs on promotion are kits of the Sony A330 and 18-55mm lens (for £399) and the Nikon D5000 with 18-55mm zoom (for £499, pictured). Offers are limited and on a first come first served basis.

X-Rite have released a new software update for the ColorMunki calibration device. Version 1.1 has been expanded to work with more popular desin packages (Adobe InDesign CS4, CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4 & QuarkXPress 8), and offers advancements such as user-defined ambient light levels, user-defined profile naming, optimised display luminance, an optimised display brightness and contrast workflow, and more precise control of display luminance. ColorMunki Photo version 1.1 also contains the end-user license agreement to install and run ColorMunki Photo software on an unlimited number of computers, allowing for a greater degree of flexibility to color manage multiple computers typically owned by photographers.

Forty years ago, Apollo 11 astronauts took the first pictures of their excursions on the surface of the moon – with camera lenses from Carl Zeiss. For the manned spaceflights to the moon, cameras and lenses with special specifications were prepared and subjected to stringent testing. NASA bought the first ZEISS medium format lens to be used successfully in space – a Planar 2,8/80 mm – with a Hasselblad camera in a camera store in Houston. In October 1962 Walter Schirra took this serially manufactured equipment with him into space. Only a few modifications to save weight and facilitate operation were necessary in order to ensure that the astronauts’ freedom of movement was in no way restricted during the mission. Christian Ludwig, head of the optical design department for camera lenses at that time, remembers: “It turned out that the technology of the lenses used, including the Planar 2,8/80 mm and Tessar 5,6/250 mm, was suitable without any need for mechanical modifications. However, the specially produced Biogon 5,6/60 mm posed a major challenge”.

TNT Magazine has anounced a travel writing and photography contest. There are three categories including “Your London”, “People” and “The narural world”. Each of the category winners will be awarded a Canon EOS 500D with EF-S 18-55mm IS lens kit (pictured). The Readers’ Choice Award for Best Travel Photograph is an Olympus E-420 double zoom kit. As always, we recommend that you read the rules before submitting aby photos.

Website: Travel Writing and Phtoography Competition

A new Web site has been launched, promising its users a place to market their intellectual properties such as photos, videos etc. to prospective buyers. The President and CEO of MyPayCut.com, Franklin Lopez, said, “In these hard times this Web site fills a necessary vacuum in the Internet for anyone with talent in any of the areas of intellectual property, allowing them to make money. This Web site even permits anyone who has access to a camera to sell any breaking news materials to news organisations, television stations, or newspapers using an application called Octupix, which will be available for free to MyPayCut users.

Website: MyPayCut

Pandigital has announced the European launch of its PanTouch Clear line of digital photo frames, Measuring just a third of an inch in terms of width, these frames are allegedly the thinnest on the market. To create the perception of floating photos, the new PanTouch Clear frames feature an 800x600 display that appears to be floating in the surrounding glass. Customers can select and view their photos and control the frame’s functions with easy-to-understand icons that can be touched directly across the entire glass surface of the frame. The PanTouch Clear frames come in two sizes – 8 inch and 10.4 inch. The 8 inch model includes 1GB of storage and has an RRP £109, the 10.4 inch model offers 2GB and sets you back £149.

Rob Fergus, Associate Professor at NewYork University, and Dilip Krishnan, a first-year student at the same institution, have developed a flashgun that emits invisible light. According to a report by the New Scientist, the “dark flash” actually works over a wider range of wavelengths than normal flashes, but visible light is filtered out. In order to use it with a digital camera, the camera’s IR cut filter has to be removed. The resulting image is, unsurprisingly, monochromatic, and resembles the view through a night-vision system. To address this issue, Fergus and Krishnan have come up with the idea of taking two exposures - one with the “dark flash” and one without it, by ambient light. The second one is captured at a fairly high shutter speed, and is underexposed for it, but contains valuable colour information. In other words, the shot with the “dark flash” delivers the necessary luminance information, whereas colour is derived from the exposure captured by ambient light. The main benefit over regular flash shots? Well, the “dark flash” does not disturb or dazzle the models, Krishnan claims. The technique also makes for glare-free photos that do not suffer from the annoying reflections you see in many photos taken with “normal” flash.

Website: Dilip Krishnan’s Dark Flash Page

The Centre for Railroad Photography & Art has just released an illustrated guide to North American railroad history, featuring 50 images, including copies of daguerrotypes. Each image is accompanied by a description that explains the photograph’s importance and how it relates to railroad history. The guide traces the history of railroads in North America from its beginnings, illustrated by a copy of a daguerreotype of the locomotive “Tioga,” to today’s preservation movement, illustrated by one of noted photographer David Plowden’s early photographs, a Canadian steam engine that now pulls excursion trains. Copies are available for $19.95 plus shipping and handling.

Website: Centre for Railroad Photography & Art Publications

Today marks the 40th anniversary of the first lunar landing, whose historic moments were captured with Hasselblad medium-format cameras. The first Hasselblads used by NASA in space were modified Hasselblad 500C models, whereas the ones used during lunar missions were called Hasselblad Electric Data Cameras. They had a glass plate with reference crosses that recorded on the film during exposure. These crosses can be seen on all pictures taken on the moon from 1969 to 1972. The most interesting photographs can be downloaded from NASA’s website. NASA has also made available the Apollo 11 onboard voice transcription, which is where our title quote comes from.

Website: Great Images in NASA

World famous architectural photographer Julius Shulman passed away on Wednesday. He is noted for documenting the works of leading Modernist architects throughout most of the 20th century and his mission of building the reputation of these architects through his excellently composed photographs. His career as an architectural photographer started at the age of 26, when he met architect Richard Neutra, and he continued taking assignments into his 90s until his declining health prevented him from carrying on.

Website: Obituary in The Los Angeles Times

Rollei Redbird is a new “redscale” colour negative film offered in 135 format. In the Rollei Redbird emulsion, the red layer is on top of the others, whereas with other C-41 print films, it is usually the bottom layer. This results in the reds being accentuated much more than usual - hence the name. The Rollei Redbird film has a nominal sensitivity of ISO 400/27° and the manufacturer says it is equally well suited to Lomography and creative use in “serious” cameras. Shutter speed is apparently a major factor in how the film renders colours - with relatively slow speeds such as 1/30 second, essentially the whole scene is rendered in different shades of red, whereas with shutter speeds faster than 1/125 second, white objects take on a strong yellow cast, while greens are accentuated. This opens up great possibilities for those involved in hybrid analogue/digital photography, the manufacturer claims. The Rollei Redbird film is available now from Spürsinn and Ars-imago at €5 per roll.

Fujifilm has announced a firmware update for the FinePix F200EXR digital compact camera. Version 1.10 improves the performance of the Super Intelligent Flash and adds Finnish, Norwegian, Danish and Slovak as selectable languages for On Screen Display.

Website: Fujifilm FinePix F200EXR Firmware Update
Review: Read our in-depth review of the Fujifilm FinePix F200EXR

Today (17 July 2009) at TeeFury.com, they are selling a T-shirt for photographers. The scene shows a man with a camera who becomes a part of the moment he is capturing on film. Titled Another Point of View, this design was created by artist Willy Piva. Like all shirts at Teefury.com, this design will only be sold for 24 hours.

Website: TeeFury.Com

Pentax have released a new version of their raw codec for Windows Vista. The update adds support to the new Pentax K-7 digital SLR, which we reviewed recently.

Website: Pentax Raw Codec Software for Windows Vista

Via The Imaging Resource

Olympus has announced the Olympus mju TOUGH-6010, a twelve-megapixel shockproof, waterproof and freezeproof digital compact camera. The µ TOUGH-6010 has a 3.6x wide zoom whose angle-of-view range is equivalent to that of a 28-102mm lens in 35mm format. The camera is freezeproof to -10 degrees Celsius, waterproof to 3m and provides shockproof protection against drops of up to 1.5m. As a new addition, the µ TOUGH-6010 now features a number of “Magic Filters”. Some of these - including ‘Pinhole’ and ‘Pop Art’ are apparently the same “Art Filters” we have seen in some of the manufacturer’s newer DSLRs as well as the Olympus E-P1 (review), but others seem new. The latest µ TOUGH will be available from July 2009 for a retail price of £299.99