Sony establishes Take Back Recycling Program

Sony has achieved a first: opening a national recycling program for its consumer electronics. Started in collaboration with Waste Management Recycle America, LLC, the program has opened 75 drop-off centers in the United States. There are plans to double the number within the year. Accepted items aren't limited to Sony products, fortunately, as products made by other manufacturers will be recycled—at market prices. The program officially opens on September 15, 2007.

From Sony's announcement:

"By recycling old electronics products, useful materials—such as glass, plastic and metals—can be collected and re-used in the manufacture of other products. Recycling not only minimizes the amount of waste disposed, it also minimizes the extraction of new raw materials from the earth and resources required for processing, saving energy and reducing greenhouse gases in the process."

Will other camera makers like Canon and Nikon follow? Sometimes a camera is busted beyond repair, or no one is interested in purchase. There is some demand for Digital SLR parts in the secondhand market, one that will grow as new versions proliferate. This does not apply to Point and shoots, however, and as their proliferation goes up (the new version has to come out soon, after all) we're simply going to see more and more of them gathering dust.

A complete list of WM Recycle America eCycling Drop-Off centers can be found at Sony's website.

Special Notice: CameraArts delay

Due to circumstances beyond our control concerning the lateness of CameraArts July/August 2007, we have decided to forgo the printing of the September/October issue in favor of the November/December issue.

Read more about it here.

PHOTOTexas to be held in September 2007

Every year in Austin, TX, The Texas Photographic Society holds PHOTOTexas, the three-day symposium of workshops, lectures, and exhibitions. This year's event will take place on September 21, 22 & 23. The TPS National Competition, now in its 15th installment, will also hold its juried exhibition concurrently with the festival, from September 15 to October 6 at St. Edward's University Art Gallery with a reception on September 22. A Print Auction will take place September 21, 2007 at Davis Gallery.

From The Texas Photographic Society's website:

"With over 100 prints being auctioned each year, the auction is an economical way to become of a collector of fantastic prints from the likes of Dan Winter, Ray Meeks, Kim Weston, Dan Burkholder (CameraArts September/October 2006), Kate Breakey, Chip Hooper, Robb Kendrick, Roger Marshutz, Hiroshi Watanabe and Jill Enfield (CameraArts July/August 2006). TPS publishes a color catalog which is mailed to members in advance. The catalog is widely distributed and is available on our website for out-of-town bidders."

September 22-23 will be given over to all-day photographic workshops and lectures with diverse speakers and subjects. These include "Publishing the Photo Book" by Harvey Stein (CameraArts September/October 2006), "Modify Your Holga" and "Podcasting/Vodcasting Made Easy" by Tammy Cromer-Campbell (CameraArts February/March 2001), "Translating Photoshop" by Sean Perry (CameraArts November/December 2006), and many more.

There will also be a portfolio review on the final day, with Jean Caslin and Diane Griffin Gregory presenting "Marketing Tools for Visual Artists." For more information, Click here to go to The Texas Photographic Society's website.

August 22, 2007 CameraArts Preview Portfolios

We are happy to announce our latest trio of photographers chosen for our online feature, The CameraArts Preview Portfolios. Many of the photographers featured in this section will be published in future issues of CameraArts Magazine. We take readers' comments into account when making our decisions, so this is a unique chance to have a hand in the content of our publication! Don't forget, your comments might make it into the print edition, along with some of these great photographers.

Julie Brook Alexander has provided images that are like nothing else: black-and-white images of running water and ebbing shores, taken with a Mamiya 645AFD11, are made into photo collages, hand-assembled and hand-colored. "Dominoes," by Margherita Crocco, give a unique perspective of India through its modern architecture. The still lifes of Mikhail Kudish, shot with a Mamiya C330F with 80mm/f2.8 lens on Ilford XP2 film, have won first and second prize at the 2006 Lucie Awards in the Still Life Category.

Please leave a comment below the fold if you have a favorite (or two, or if you love them all). Make your mark and be heard!

SPECIAL OFFER: Get 2 free passes to Photoplus International Conference + Expo 2007

From October 18 to 20, at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City, CameraArts Magazine will be in attendance at PhotoPlus2007, with Publisher Tim Anderson manning booth #767, along with Center for Fine Art Photography Director Larry Padgett. Visiting us there has become a little easier: as a special offer, we are giving away two free expo passes with every new subscription or renewal! Only 100 subscriptions will be honored, so act now! Click here to find out how you can receive your own passes.

This offer is open to US customers only—international orders will not be processed!

If you haven't yet attended Photoplus, we at CameraArts highly recommend it. The event in 2007 will draw professional photographers, art directors, graphic designers, educators, students, imaging professionals, and over 300 manufacturers and suppliers.
Keynotes will run through the entire weekend, with colorful speakers like New York Times technology columnist David Pogue (if you haven't seen any of his quirky videos at NYT.com, I suggest that you check him out). A portfolio review and gallery exhibitions have also been announced.

Click here to visit Photoplus's website. Gold Pass registration is on discount until September 26, 2007. Late price registration will be open until the start of the festival in October. The best deal can be found here!

10 commercial photographers to be adapted in paintings by the disabled

Art Enables is a training and placement program that teaches painting to the developmentally disabled. The work of student Margie Smeller (who has Down's Syndrome) was the inspiration for the upcoming show, in which 10 commercial photographers will also participate. The exhibition, the reception of which will be held October 11, 2007 at Katayama Framing in Portland, OR, is to consist of photographs and the versions created by the painters at Art Enables. The photographers will not be able to see the paintings until they are unveiled.

All proceeds from the exhibition will benefit the individual painters and Art Enables. Donations will also be made to sponsors CCI Enterprises and Special Olympics Oregon. Participating photographers include Phil Bard, Steve Bloch, Sarah Boss, Laura Domela, Smith Eliot (CameraArts May/June 2007), Phil Harris, Joni Kabana, Adrian Klein, Allan Mandell, Kimberli Ransom, and Jane Schiffhauer.

Click here to visit Art Enables' website.

Three Israeli photographers to exhibit at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art

Most of what we hear about Israel today calls to mind images and themes of violence and conflict. In Fall 2007, The Tel Aviv Museum of Art will show the works of three photographers that have found success in portraying the other sides of Israel, encompassing the religious, the familial, and the historical aspects of Israel. The exhibitions remind us that media portrayals, with car bombs and racial tension dominating the headlines, is only one not-very-adequate perspective. The exhibition is made possible through the participation of the American Friends of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.

Through October 13, 2007, Lili Almog's "Perfect Intimacy," is a series of photographs portraying the devotional, contemplative lives of Carmelite nuns. A prominent location is Haifa, Bethlehem. This revered city looks towards Israel from just beyond the border of the West Bank, and it is still prayer that binds lives together.

Vardi Kahana's "One Family," running through October 6, 2007, explores three generations of a Jewish family, encompassing the utopian communities of the kibbutzim, Israeli youth movements in the West Bank, and other political, social, and geographic elements of life in Israel.

The trio is completed with "Moods and Modes in Israeli Photography: Works from the Collection," through September 29, 2007. A gift of collectors Leon and Michaela Constantiner, over 100 photographs by 30 Israeli artists will be on display.

From the Tel Aviv Museum's website:

Prominent among the various themes explored throughout the exhibition is the preoccupation with local landscapes and the urge to investigate the land unfolding lengthwise and crosswise as landscapes of longing, as small blessed plots of land, and as areas of dispute.

For more information about the exhibitions, and more images, click here.

Image: The grandchildren of my cousin, Hanan Kahana Kiryat Seffer, 2005. ©Vardhi Kahana

Pentax opens part gallery showcase, part photo sharing website

Pentax has unveiled a new Photo Gallery website. Fully original in layout and design, built from scratch by in-house imaging professionals, this commerical-free site is intended to educate budding photographers about the creative capabilities of individual camera bodies and lenses. There is also a voting system, reminiscient of sharing sites like SmugMug, to gauge the popularity of photographers and their images.

Having launched August 6, 2007, the site features 2,500 selected works from more than 300 photographers of ages ranging from 16 to 80. More than 40 countries are depicted in these images, throughout Europe, Asia, the Middle East, the Americas, Africa, and the Pacific Rim. Biographies of each photographer are also posted.

Images are searchable by camera bodies and individual lenses as well, so surfing Pentax's galleries become much more than an elaborate ad for the company. The site has the potential for budding photographers looking to learn more about what kind of images can be shot with what cameras, or long-term professionals trying to make the leap into digital.

For photographers interested in being featured in the gallery,email Pentax for more information.

A flash demonstration of how the gallery works is also available here.

CALL FOR ENTRIES The Hasselblad Masters Award 2008

Along with making some of the most advanced high-end cameras on the market, Hasselblad also hosts the distinguished Masters Award every year. The competition is not exclusive to world-famous lifers in photography, or Hasselblad users: newcomers with promise, or medium-format analog shooters are welcome to enter. An important guideline requires that entrants take at least 51% of their income from photography.

Twelve Masters Awards are given each year, and the chosen photographers are presented in an annual calendar. A H3D digital camera system will be provided to all of the winners for two periods during 2008: a "free" period of sponsored work and a shoot for the commemorative Masters Awards book, to be published in Fall 2008. This may seem a bit outrageous, until one remembers that the H3D system, and many more of Hasselblad's products, rival the price of small sports cars.

From Hasselblad's website:

This year, we are opening the 2008 contest to all established professional photographers, regardless of camera brand. We will award 9 Hasselblad Masters designations, accepting submissions in Fine Art, Nature/Landscape, Social/Wedding, Portrait, Fashion, Editorial, Product, Architecture, and General Photography categories. We have even established a special category for up and coming photographers that is open to all professional photographers, regardless of length of time in the business or camera format used.

Click here to see the winning Masters for 2007 or here to enter Hasselblad Masters for 2008.

Additional calls for entry can be viewed at here at CameraArts.com.

World's Largest Photograph to be exhibited

On September 6, 2007, The Great Picture will be unveiled at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA. This is not an exhibition of a series of photographs—only one will be displayed. The title sounds like a grand claim until the particulars are considered: The Great Picture has been declared the world's largest photograph by The Guinness Book of World Records. Measuring three stories high by eleven stories wide, this gelatin silver print cost $65,000 to produce.

To be displayed at the "Wind Tunnel" exhibition space (where there is ample space to hang the monstrosity), meant to evoke the F-18 jet hangar in Southern California where the photograph was made. A print of this size required a camera larger than any in history, so the hangar itself was shuttered and converted into a giant camera obscura.

A group of six photographers known as The Legacy Project helmed the creation of this photograph over the course of nine months, aided by 400 volunteers, artists, and experts. 80 liters of emulsion were applied onto a custom-made 3,375 square-foot canvas substrate.

From the Legacy Project's press announcement:

"Development was done in a custom Olympic pool-sized developing tray using ten high volume submersible pumps and 1,800 gallons of black and white chemistry. The premier exhibition at Art Center College of Design, South Campus, will feature The Great Picture along with videos and photographs in an environment designed to re-create the dramatic atmosphere within the jet-hangar-ascamera where the giant photograph was made."

The photograph shows the control tower, structures and runways seen from the hangar, part of the 4,700-acre Marine Corps Air Station El Toro in Southern California. The Great Picture will be on display September 6 to 29, 2007.

Click here to visit The Legacy Project's website.

August 8, 2007 CameraArts Preview Portfolios

Three more portfolios have been posted in the CameraArts web exclusives section. These Preview Portfolios are meant to give you a taste of the photographic submissions we regularly consider for the pages of CameraArts. Tell us what you think!

Tim Greyhavens' series "Phantasts" defies description—part portraiture and part fine art sculpture, these images take the viewer into another world. Lorne Resnick has captured a wide variety of subjects through the rangefinder, including wild animals, cityscape vistas, and children from around the world. Ted Sabarese pokes fun at the evolution vs. creationism "debate" (if you can call it that) with his series of portraits, "Evolution."

We want to hear your thoughts about these photographers! Please leave all comments below the fold—they just may make it into a future issue of CameraArts!

WORKSHOPS SERIES: 6 Photographers to teach in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico

In the fall of 2007, the Santa Fe Workshops presents its seventh annual series of one-week photography workshops in the historic Mexican town of San Miguel de Allende. Veteran Santa Fe Workshops instructors lead 14 workshops in personal vision, figure study, documentary story telling, travel photography, and portraiture, along with workshops exploring Mexican culture and heritage.

The first two weeks of the new season of Workshops in San Miguel de Allende will be a fount for creative inspiration and photography. Renowned photographers Norman Mauskopf (CameraArts March/April 2007) teaching Heart, Mind, and Eye, Renie Haiduk will teach his course The Visual Journey; Chicago based photographers Paul Elledge and Leasha Overturf present Beyond the Surface: The Contemporary Color Portrait; Macduff Everton, with The Travel Assignment; and many more.

For more information on workshops in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico or other workshops offered by the Santa Fe Photographic Workshops, visit www.santafeworkshops.com.

Telluride Festival of the Arts Announces Schedule of Events

Taking place August 16 to 19, 2007, The Telluride Festival of the Arts will showcase artists both regional and national, as well as fine food and drink from Telluride’s finest culinary experts. The outdoor festival will take place in the skiing town of Mountain Village, Colorado, before a vista of the majestic San Juan Mountains.

Through all four days, an exhibition of participating events will run at the Conference Center and Heritage Plaza, concurrent with Chef demonstrations, wine tastings, and other events for food lovers. For a full schedule, visit www.TellurideFest.com.

Photographers that have signed on include Ginger Delater of San Jose, NM; Howie Garber of Salt Lake City, UT; Bryan David Griffith of Flagstaff, AZ; Ray Hartl of Salem, WI; and Kenny Tong of Chino Hills, CA. A complete list can be viewed here. The Telluride Festival takes place once every year.

Seminar: O'Reilly offers CS3 training

O'Reilly Media, in partnership with Aquent Graphics Institute (AGI), has announced a series of global training seminars for Adobe Creative Suite 3. Based on the Dynamic Learning book series created by AGI, these seminars will be presented in more than 20 cities in the US, Europe, and Australia. Creative Professionals can expect to learn from experts in Photoshop, InDesign, Flash, and Dreamweaver. Live demonstrations will be combined with lessons from books in the Dynamic Learning Series.

From the Dynamic Learning website:

Creative professionals can register for a single day ($99) or all 3 days ($279). Along with the hands-on classroom session, attendees will also receive a free Dynamic Learning book appropriate to their session and a DVD with videos and lesson files. In addition to live seminars, see the author demonstrate live exercises, many of which are in the Dynamic Learning series book which you take home with you. A list of cities and corresponding dates can be viewed here.

New Book and Interview with Sean Perry

Transitory: The Abstract is Sean Perry’s (CameraArts November/December 2006) photographic study of architecture with text by Roy Flukinger. An interview with Perry will be featured in the column "Publishing the Photography Book" co-authored by Darius Himes & Mary Virginia Swanson. Look for it in the Fall 2007 issue of Photo-Eye Booklist.

From Sean Perry's Transitory website:

The first volume in a series of three, Transitory: The Abstract is a plate book featuring ten tipped-in artist prints and one free-standing platinum print...it is letterpress-printed and hand-bound in a quarter leather binding. The book and platinum print are enclosed in a full cloth drop spine box. Handmade by book artist Jace Graf and published by Cloverleaf Press in a limited edition of eighty-seven numbered and signed copies.

A .pdf of the Foreword can be found here.

Microsoft announces new universal image format

Microsoft has proposed a new image file standard—formerly known as HD Photo format, now called JPEG XR—to the Joint Photographic Expert Group (JPEG). Now awaiting approval, Microsoft has claimed that the new format will capture sensor information with improved fidelity and greater efficiency, so that less pixels are left behind.

From Microsoft’s press announcement:

The ballot deadline for this new project is early October 2007. Finalizing and publishing the completed standard is expected to take up to one year after that. Throughout, Microsoft will be working closely with JPEG to ensure that this new proposed standard serves the needs of the next generation of consumer and professional photographers and delivers the next experience in image display. If approved, Microsoft will offer a royalty free grant for its patents that are required to implement the standard.

This news comes despite ongoing efforts by Adobe to raise support and awareness for its own image format, DNG, which it hopes will replace many proprietary image formats in many different brands of digital cameras. The format originated as a by-product of RAW format, which is sensor data captured in full by a digital camera, unprocessed and unfiltered.

From Underexposed: A blog by Steven Shankland:

Personally, I'd welcome a little competition among powerful companies trying to improve image quality, as long as the world isn't saddled with two competing standards that do the same thing. But although there's definitely some overlap, I suspect the two formats will remain more in separate domains--and not just because Adobe spoke positively about JPEG XR earlier this year, indicating it doesn't feel too threatened by JPEG XR.

In promising better image quality and processing efficency with JPEG-XR, Microsoft seems to have short-term benefits more in mind than Adobe. Adobe's DNG will have to rely on changes in digital camera technology and cooperation from camera-makers to make its presence felt. Only time will tell if Adobe's plan will work out.

CALL FOR ENTRIES: 14th Annual Popular Photography Photo Contest

In early 2008, Popular Photography magazine will announce the winners of the publication's 14th Annual Photo Contest. Photographers have the opportunity to be featured in the January 2008 issue of Popular Photography & Imaging, as well as on PopPhoto.com. Additional prizes will be provided by Panasonic, Circuit City, and SmugMug, including those listed here.

Submission categories include Action/Sports, Architecture, Candid/Humor, People, Nature, and Travel. A slide show of some of the most recent entries for the 2007 competition can be viewed here. The competition is open to work produced from September 2006-September 2007. Entry fee is $10. Deadline is September 14, 2007. Visit popphotocontest.com for more information on how to enter.

For more Calls for Entries, click here to see our listings at CameraArts.com.

CALL FOR ENTRIES: The Red Show

The Darkroom at the New Orleans Center for the Photographic Arts, the only public darkroom in New Orleans, has announced a call for entries for a juried exhibition of photographs. The Red Show will take place in Fall 2007, with acclaimed photographer and author Richard Sexton judging the submissions. The show will open on October 6, 2007, in conjunction with New Orleans' first Saturday Art for Art’s Sake gallery event.

From the Red Show website:

Of all the colors in the spectrum, red is the one that provokes the most physiological responses. It is the color that is most easily recognized and the most visible in daylight. It has been shown that red causes the human heart to beat faster and blood pressure to rise. It symbolizes excitement, energy, passion, desire, love, power, danger, fire, blood, war, violence and aggression: all things intense and passionate.

The competition is open to all photographers using any printing process on any media. Proceeds from sales at the exhibition will be split 60% to the artist, and %40 to The Darkroom. Entry fee is $20 for up to five images in .jpg, .tiff, or .psd format. The deadline for submissions is August 31^st.

For more Calls for Entries, click here to see our listings at CameraArts.com.