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At last month's huge U2 show at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., how could you tell the difference between the professional photographers and your average amateurs? Answer: the professionals were the ones whisked away after Bono and friends finished their third song, and the amateurs were still there, happily shooting to their heart's content. Nearly every person at any show these days is going to have some form of camera with them, be it a point-and-shoot, an iPhone or some other camera phone, and it seems that there is almost no way to imagine keeping all those devices out....

The British Library formally opened it’s landmark photography exhibition Points of View last night at a well-attended private view. The exhibition marks the librarys first ever photographic exhibition. It opens to the public free. At a risk of running out of superlatives Points of View is quite simply the best exhibition that the library has ever put on. It is a large show, but never feels unapproachable. It is well designed and laid out and presents a wealth of the library’s treasures... The poison in the veins: “After the fall of Ceausescu, the country has long delayed the opening of...

Houston Man to Receive "Ultimate" Top Prize From National Geographic and Energizer. From among 12,500 entries, Bernardo Medina's incredible photo was selected as the Grand Prize Winner in the 2009 "Energizer Ultimate Photo Contest"

The late inspiration for this was a book I saw in the bookstore, "Ansel Adams in Color", linked above. Very good photography (as you might expect), but not as iconic like his black-and-white images. So for fun I'm posting a picture of Vernal Falls from Adams in black-and-white and another one from nearly the same vantage in color. Which do you like better? That doesn't mean that color or B&W is really better, it's just an artistic perception. Also included are a couple of aerial shots. I didn't realize how close these falls are to Half Dome; that's because I...

It's big. It's ugly. And it's made from recycled parts, at least for now. It's called the "Frankencamera" — and it might someday change the way you take pictures.Computer scientists at Stanford University say the new camera works something like an iPhone: It can be altered in nearly infinite ways, depending on the applications downloaded to it.Even the best digital camera on the market today has lots of limitations, the professor behind the prototype, Marc Levoy, tells NPR's Guy Raz.Say you want to take a photo of your child playing with a new toy in a dark room, near a...

American photographer Irving Penn, best known for his work in the fashion world, has died in his New York City apartment at the age of 92. The news was reported this afternoon by his brother, the director Arthur Penn. Hailed as a father of fashion photography, and one of the most respected photographers of the last century... Working with precise composition and unfettered settings, Penn pioneered several techniques, and his early portraiture work was unique for putting his celebrity subjects against plain white or grey backgrounds... or by placing them in a corner to achieve dramatic effect. While primarily using...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 6, 2009 – American Forces Press Service, the Defense Department’s vehicle for news and feature content on the Defense.gov Web site, has unveiled a “widget” for photographs. American Forces Press Service has unveiled a “widget” for photographs that allows users to receive the latest Defense Department imagery in real time on their own Web sites or social networking pages. DoD photo   (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The widget, available under the Widgets tab on Defense.gov, allows users to receive the latest Defense Department imagery in real time on their own Web sites or social networking pages...

Me dancing at the shelter,it was crowded today. At a weapons testing sandbox testing out a machinegun i bought. At Anthroxtacy dancing.

In Megan for September’s Wonderland, lensman Mariano Vivanco adroitly pastiches a wonderful dance of earthly elements, cool, beautiful, and possessive along with the more lovely than life, hot, fiery Romani-esque sensuality of Megan Fox. Together, they make for a ying/yang wonderland of striking symbolism.

A public that wants to know everything about Barack Obama can thank Lisa Jack for a glimpse of what the future president was like when he was just another college freshman...with a partly unbuttoned Oxford shirt, a big Panama hat and puffs of cigarette smoke as his props of choice for projecting that coveted aura of post-adolescent confidence and cool... The callow kid kicking back on a couch in a living room near L.A.'s Occidental College, where he and Jack were students, may not have been the image the Obama campaign wanted to project. "I'm sure Hillary would have paid...

Family and friends of British soldier Lance Corporal James Fullarton grieve as his coffin passes through the streets of Wootton Bassett , in Wiltshire, in southern England, on Friday. The bodies of four British soldiers killed in Afghanistan were flown back to Britain Friday. Sergeant Simon Valentine, 29, was returned to RAF Lyneham beside Lance Corporal James Fullarton, Fusilier Simon Annis and Fusilier Louis Carter, all of 2nd Battalion Royal Regiment of Fusiliers.

The Constitution’s 1st Amendment is no more sacred to looney left Bolsheviks than any other provision they nitpick to death. While pornography may be protected in all it’s many facets, pictures of hunting, fishing and other outdoor activities might be subject to criminal fines and penalties sometime in the near future if the Supreme Court so rules in the case of United States of America v. Robert J. Stevens.

Amazing video!

Enlarge ImageBoom! A drop of water flies apart in midair. Credit: Emmanuel Villermaux Here's a question for a rainy day: How do clouds create such a wide variety of raindrop sizes? The answer, according to stunning new high-speed movies, is much simpler than physicists thought. The idea has been that raindrops grow as they gently bump into each other and coalesce. Meanwhile, more forceful collisions break other drops apart into a scattering of smaller droplets. All this action would explain the wide distribution of shapes and sizes. But trying to unravel how the drops crash and break up led...

In an era when slides and negatives are no longer the coin of the realm, the case of Usher v. Corbis-Sygma may seem to have lost much timeliness. Except for this: one member of the three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals that most recently heard the case was Judge Sonia Sotomayor. The portfolio included photographs Mr. Usher had taken during the 2000 presidential campaign. “The value of these images is certainly more than $7 each,” Mr. Usher, 47, said in a telephone interview Tuesday from Alexandria, Va., where he lives. “But I’d so much rather have the...

Johansson, who replaced Penelope Cruz as the face of the high street brand, was lensed by legendary photog Mario Sorrenti, delightfully capturing the actress’s shimmering sexiness and playful appeal. The Mango ensemble simply looks great on her and will likely be strongly embraced by the fashion conscious.

Steven Meisel shot the Russian gang Natasha Poly, Sasha Pivovarova and Anna Selezneva for the Phi F/W 09-10 ad campaign. And the willowy waifs, back in black, are alright, benefiting from Meisel’s spartan touch. For some reason, they remind us of the three fates stylishly updated for the new millennium or much more groovicized versions of Macbeth’s witches, beautiful Baba Yagas to be sure.

Serenaded by the white goddess: Photographer Willy Vanderperre does a graceful and magnificent job capturing Austrian model Iris Strubegger as an icy marionette, pale of form, cool of beauty, existing in a dreamy realm of her own for V #60. A Touch of Class indeed.

Kodak has closed one of its oldest and most famous product lines, in the latest sign of the film business fading away against the onslaught of digital photography. The US-based group on Monday said it would cease production of Kodachrome, the line of professional quality film that was first developed in 1935 and became one of the company’s pre-eminent brands, known for stunning colours and sharpness. Kodachrome captured some of the world’s most well-known images, including the 1984 photograph ‘Afghan Girl’ of a refugee with a torn red scarf and striking green eyes, which was on the cover of National...

Photographic duo Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott icily vamp up Austrian model Iris Strubegger with “The Hunger� for the Valentino Fall/Winter 09-10 ad campaign. Dark Goth, modern romantic, a coldness to her long-legged heat…why do I get the feeling that she wants to drain the blood of the innocents?

This is obviously not a BIG issue considering all that's going on in the world. Still, with all that Obama is concerned with his image, I'd think he could hire a photographer who had a better eye. The portrait looks like one made by an amateur using photoshop! The composition is terrible. With the dog's head so close to the strong horizon line, it's painful to look at. The depth of field is awful. Who in their right mind would put this photograph out on purpose?

The Home Office has refused to release data on the use of Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 against photographers. The news comes as BJP, as part of its campaign to protect photographers' rights, files more than 46 new Freedom of Information Act requests to uncover where photography can be challenged in England and Wales. Olivier Laurent reports The Home Office has rejected a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the BJP regarding the disclosure of the list of all areas where police officers are authorised to stop-and-search photographers under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000. The...

On 6 June at around 6pm a Mr Goa was driving through the Chinese city of Taiyuan near the Yi-Fen bridge when he saw a totally unexplainable object or UFO hovering in the sky above him. Mr Goa pulled up at the side of the road and observed the object for around 40minutes. He managed to take a number of photos (below) with his mobile phone. Mr Goa noted that the object changed shape from a diamond to an orb and while it generally stayed in the same area it swung from side to side before shooting up into the...

It's a photo of Adolf Hitler the world has never seen. And there are dozens more. A full-color shot of the genocidal madman, his brown uniform adorned with blood-red bandanas covered with swaztikas, chillingly shows the hold he had on his murderous Nazi forces. From a passing car, he gives his men the sickening "Heil Hitler" salute. That the in-focus photo is in stunning, sharp color - grainy black and white images are nothing new - makes it all the more real that this madman once tried to conquer a continent and exterminate millions of innocents. The picture is one...

They were taken before Marilyn Monroe became branded as the voluptuous blonde who oozed sex appeal in dozens of Hollywood films. A 24-year-old Marilyn Monroe poses for Life magazine in August 1950. They were taken before rumors of an affair with President John F. Kennedy swirled and her mental breakdowns became public. They were taken before the beautiful actress's mysterious overdose that resulted in her death at the age of 36. In a collection discovered by Life.com last month, unpublished photographs of Monroe reveal a softer, more innocent 24-year-old budding starlet in a more peaceful time, before her fame peaked....

ENSCHEDE, Netherlands — In this small town just across the border from Germany, a small group of Dutch scientists and one irrepressible Austrian salesman have dedicated themselves to the task of reinventing one of the great inventions of the 20th century — Polaroid’s instant film. Digital cameras are ubiquitous, cheap and easy to use — the reasons Polaroid stopped making the film last year — so what this group in Enschede is attempting may seem hopelessly retrograde. But to them, that is exactly the point. They want to recast an outdated production process in an abandoned Polaroid factory for an...

He was tall and stunningly good looking, a guy who could appear pensive and serious one moment and then, with smoke from an unfiltered cigarette swirling around his face, morph into the hippest looking dude this side of James Dean. Which is why budding photographer Lisa Jack knew the moment she saw Barack Obama walk into the campus snack shop at Los Angeles' Occidental College in 1980 that she had to get the freshman in front of a camera. "I was doing portraits of fellow students, the cool people on campus," Jack, a slender, 49-year-old bundle of energy, recalled this...

Blind photography: the very concept sounds like an oxymoron. But an intriguing and often striking exhibition of photographs in Riverside, California, argues that it emanates from the core of contemporary art. The show "Sight Unseen," at the California Museum of Photography until Aug. 29, features everything from underwater scenes off Catalina Island, transvestites in New Orleans and Braille-enhanced black-and-whites as well as portraits, nudes, landscapes, travel shots, abstracts, collages, and everything else you might expect from a "sighted" photographer. Except the subtext and context is blindness: the photographers are legally blind, some born without sight or with limited vision, and...

HONG KONG – Hugh Van Es, a Dutch photojournalist who covered the Vietnam War and recorded the most famous image of the fall of Saigon in 1975 — a group of people scaling a ladder to a CIA helicopter on a rooftop — died Friday morning in Hong Kong, his wife said. He was 67 years old. Van Es died in Queen Mary Hospital in Hong Kong, where he had lived for more than 35 years. He suffered a brain hemorrhage last week and never regained consciousness, his wife Annie said. Hospital officials declined to comment. Slender, tough-talking and always...

A powerful tiger extends a less than friendly paw - and for a horrifying moment it looks as if this little girl is about to become a tasty snack. Just inches away , the tiny two-year-old girl is close enough to feel the animal's breath on the back of her neck. Yet Avery Thompson stands motionless, oblivious to the 370lb beast as he stretches out one of his deadly paws to touch her shoulder. She appears to be just seconds away from certain death in this breathtaking picture, but little Avery is actually perfectly safe. Almos the Royal White Bengal...

She helped create the modern art of photojournalism. Transcript of radio broadcast: 09 May 2009 VOICE ONE: I'm Barbara Klein. VOICE TWO: And I'm Steve Ember with People in America in VOA Special English. Today we tell about photographer Margaret Bourke-White, one of the leading news reporters of the twentieth century. (MUSIC) VOICE ONE: A young woman is sitting on her knees on top of a large metal statue. She is not in a park. She is outside an office building high above New York City. The young woman reached the statue by climbing through a window on the sixty-first...

In the last few years, the consumer camera market has exploded. As technology advances and prices drop, casual photographers can increasingly get their hands on nifty features previously affordable only to professionals. One example is a growing number of cameras (and camera casings) that can go underwater and come out unscathed, which has opened up a whole new world to hobbyist photogs.

Every spring, we get a lot of goldfinches in our backyard, along with the house finches who stay here, year 'round. (I'm in central California.) This spring, I noticed a larger black-and-yellow bird on one of our feeders, and I don't think it's a goldfinch. He's fast, so I did my best to snap a few pictures. Any ideas what kind of bird he is? The yellow bird on our sunflower seed feeder. Goldfinches (for comparison) on a different feeder A visiting squirrel Our cat, Smudge, watching the birds and the squirrels.

Two beautiful women meet: who is being deceived and who is the deceiver? The questions questioned, the answers unanswered, the distraught shrieks of the unknown whispered through silent lips…

News stories about North Korea have been quite frequent recently, with their test launch of a rocket over Japan, withdrawal from nuclear disarmament talks coupled with a threat to restart their nuclear program, reports that their nuclear attack capabilities may be larger than previously thought - and their recent arrest and indictment of two U.S. reporters on its border with China. Even with all this attention, photographs from North Korea are still restricted and hard to come by. One way around that has been for photographers to peer inside from across the border, a pastime that has also spurred a...

I hadn't planned a trip today, but my grandson needed to get to school early, for an ROTC drill, and I ended up at the gator farm. I've loaded some pics to my Photobucket, a lot more still to process. The smaller herons and egrets are just starting to nest and sit eggs, I'll go back next month for more.

When they’re not raiding the homes of bloggers who are critical of them, Phoenix police are harassing photographers, telling them that it is illegal to take pictures of federal buildings, public transportation, stadiums, street lights and banks. William J. Nash-McAdam told the Downtown Phoenix Journal that he and a friend were detained by a Phoenix cop last weekend who took their identifications and informed them that they had violated some Homeland Security statute.When they asked him to cite the specific statute, the cop told them to “Google it,� according to the article. Sandra Day O'Connor Federal Building Somebody should tell...

Our first reaction when we saw this vibrant Dazed & Confused April 2009 cover with Indian model Lakshmi Menon was ‘WOW’. The second thing we said was ‘Fantastic!’. It’s a spread that deserves consideration for the best fashion shoot of the year, if only for its eye-dazzling exoticism and beaucoup bling content.

A daguerreotype of what really can be called "Old Broadway" — showing the famous New York City thoroughfare as the 1840s country road it once was — is going up for sale at Sotheby's auction house. In the early to mid-19th century, between the American Revolution and the Starbucks revolution, the Upper West Side of Manhattan was open countryside, with large estates, white picket fences and wagons trundling along a rutted road already known as Broadway. Photographic evidence of that era is scant, as most studios offering the newfangled daguerreotypes were located several miles away at the island's populated lower...

What a difference 161 years makes. This charming old farmhouse isn't in rural Vermont but on what is now the Upper West Side. And the rutted dirt path in front of the white picket fence, which once was called Bloomingdale Road, is now better known as Broadway. The half-plate daguerreotype dating from 1848 is the oldest known photographic image of uptown Manhattan. It's expected to fetch as much as $70,000 at a Sotheby's auction on Monday. A handful of street-scene photos from lower Manhattan from the same period do exist, but this is the only one known to depict the...

As a photographer, I find B&H unequaled! So, what’s the beef? This past Sunday they had an event titled: Women in Photography, featuring a panel of top women photographers, this should have been a nice, informative session with great professionals discussing their work, their techniques while presenting a slide show of each individual’s shots. And it almost was just that, as it was billed. But… a friend who attended was deeply hurt at what turned out to be an underhanded, hit below the belt, political session! The event was not meant as a bully pulpit for Ms. Tufankjian’s political views,...

Outside of Tucson, Ariz., the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base is used to store old planes. The airplane 'boneyard' houses thousands of decomissioned military aircraft. The base is still in use, and you can find many active aircraft slightly to the northwest.

My wonderful dear husband and I went for a drive yesterday (February 28) in the foothills around Fresno County in central California, and snapped a few photographs of blossoming trees and blooming wildflowers. Even thought it was a cloudy day, the colors were just magnificent and many trees were in bloom. And the hillsides were filled with orange and yellow flowers -- including poppies! Since much of the nation is still up to its ears in winter, I thought that some color would be a day-brightener for this first day of March. http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d145/Harvie_Ruth/VACATION%202009/Feb28157.jpg

35 Beautiful Examples Of Animals Photography February 15th, 2009 By Tim Mercer, Vailancio Rodrigues and Smashing Editorial Team Animal photography is probably one of the most dangerous types of photography. The outcome totally depends on the skills of photographer and the time when the shot is taken. A photographer who uses good exposure, color and blur settings along with appropriate shutter speed and focusing techniques can produce stunning photographs. Animal photographers have to be prepared and be ready for the unknown. They need to study action and language of animals to know every move. Many animal photographers use camouflage to...

ROCHESTER, NY - Seated by a window in the Illinois state Capitol in 1860, a beardless Abraham Lincoln held still 25 seconds for a classic campaign portrait of the soon-to-be president. It was undoubtedly a personal favorite. "That looks better and expresses me better than any I have ever seen," Lincoln said in a letter to photographer Alexander Hesler. "If it pleases the people, I am satisfied." To mark the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth on Feb. 12, the long-lost positive transparency of this photograph goes on display beginning tomorrow at the George Eastman House museum of photography in Rochester.

A new bill is being introduced called, Camera Phone Predator Alert Act, which would require any mobile phone containing a digital camera to sound a tone whenever a photograph is taken with the camera's phone. It would also prohibit such a phone from being equipped with a means of disabling or silencing the tone. While its a good gesture, I do not believe having such a law would deter criminals from hacking their camera phones to take pictures in inappropriate ways. Also, the real criminals would not even use a camera phone but would probably use other devices such as...

Seconds after BART police officer Johannes Mehserle shot and killed Oscar Grant, police immediately began confiscating cell phones containing videos that have yet to see the light of day. In fact, the only videos that have been seen by the public were filmed by people who managed to leave the scene before police confronted them.In one instance, police chased after Karina Vargas after she stepped on the train, banging on the window after the doors closed and demanding her to turn over the camera. The train sped away with Vargas still holding her camera.Her video, which did not show the...

Taking pictures on most pueblos has been prohibited for decades. And that has prompted Rail Runner officials to ask its riders turn off their cameras on pueblo land. The train conductor lets riders know to put their cameras away on Santo Domingo and San Felipe land. Rail Runner officials say the pueblos made that request. The Isleta and Sandia pueblos have not asked the conductor to have riders put away their cameras. "I think it goes back years and years ago when a lot of folks from other parts of the country would come in and take photos of the...

About an hour ago I was sitting in the parking lot of the St. Augustine Premium Outlet Mall, and, I took several pictures of a Little Blue Heron and a pair of Hooded Mergansers that were in the retention pond. One of their security guards came up and told me that no one was allowed to take pictures there. I'm not sure how the actual law reads on this, but I won't bother them any more, either with my shopping, or my photography. I will make sure that every wildlife photographer I communicate with, a considerable number, is aware that...

As snow blizzards sweep across the country you may be forgiven for wanting to see the back of this Arctic winter. But for scientist Kenneth Libbrecht the prospect of sub zero temperatures, snow blizzards and Arctic winds is music to his ears. Using a specially designed photo-microscope Kenneth, a Professor of Physics at the California Institute of Technology, spent the last 11 years catching and photographing tiny snowflakes. Showcased in his latest book, “Snowflakes” these amazingly detailed images show the unique crystal formation of snowflakes. “When I first began toying with the idea of writing a book about snowflakes,...