Epson Launches Focal Points, a new addition to its website

Epson America, makers of professional imaging products for photographers worldwide, has announced the launch of "Focal Points," a supplement to the company's official website. The new addition is Epson's way of spotlighting the success stories of leading professionals in the industry of creative photography, and their experiences in pushing their work to a higher level through the use of Epson products.

One of the portfolios currently on display is "Movie Stars: Portraits by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders." When invited to display his images of famous personalities at the Museo Carlo Bilotti in Rome (following exhibitions at the prestigious Metropolitan Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum), Greenfield-Sanders utilized the Epson Stylus Pro(r) 11880 wide-format inkjet printer to produce stunning 56x72 inch prints in both color and black and white. Focal Points tells the story of how this and other exhibitions came to life.

Other featured stories include "Rock and Roll" by Lynn Goldsmith (September/October 2006), who created enormous, high-detail prints for her exhibitions at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; "Just Suppose" by Maggie Taylor and Jerry Uelsmann (CameraArtsCameraArts May/June 2007), who met a challenge to "go bigger" for their joint exhibition at the Harn Museum; and "Empowered by Color" by Pete Turner, legendary colorist and satisfied user of Epson UltraChrome K3™ ink technology for greater transparency in his prints.

From Dan Steinhardt, Professional Imaging, Epson America, Inc:

"Focal Points features content that is both informational and inspirational. The first round of stories, images and videos allow viewers to experience recent exhibitions in some of the most prestigious galleries and museums in Europe and North America that they otherwise may not have had the opportunity to see. The accounts are also a testament to the overwhelming trust leading artists have in Epson Professional Products."

To view the new stories, and watch video interviews with selected photographers, Click here.

Image © Lynn Goldsmith.

CALL FOR ENTRIES: Ian Parry Scholarship

Began in remembrance of the photojournalist who died in Romania while on assignment for the Sunday Times, the Ian Parry Scholarship offers opportunity for photographers enrolled in a full-time photography course or are under the age of 24, Parry's age at the time of his death. Entrants to the competition must submit their entries via ftp to the Scholarship's website, comprising a portfolio of work and a synopsis of the project they would bring to life if chosen for the award. In addition, scholarship partners World Press Photo and the Getty Images Gallery in London will be participating.

This year, the prize amounts to £2,500, along with vouchers worth £500 to the winner, and £250 in vouchers to honorable mentions.The competition enjoys the ongoing support of the Sunday Times, and the winner will have work published in its pages. The winner will be automatically accepted into the final list of nominees for the Joop Stewart Masterclass in Amsterdam. The juried print exhibition for the Ian Parry Scholarship will begin August 3, 2008 at the Getty Images Gallery in London, and will continue for two weeks.

The competition deadline is June 15, 2008. Click here to submit via the Ian Parry Scholarship website.

CALL FOR ENTRIES: The New Orleans Darkroom

The New Orleans Darkroom proudly presents the Emerging Photographer 2008 show, juried by living photography legend Herman Leonard, and open to all themes and genres. Five young photographers will be chosen for the award: an exhibition at The Darkroom and promotion on the official website. Entry fee is $45 for five images. These five images are the ones to be displayed at the exhibition, and the five photographers' exhibitions run together at The Darkroom Gallery in New Orleans' Garden District, opening October 4, 2008.

There is an age cap on applicants (must be born no earlier than October 1, 1973), and the five images submitted must have a coherent theme. This competition seems aimed to the flickr generation, with its emphasis on smaller photo-sets. To see great photographers such as Leonard fostering the recognition of such young talent through connections spanning generations is truly encouraging. Expect to see more competitions of this kind in the future, where these restrictions, perhaps seen as confining to more venerable photographers, will act to shape the pool of entrants.

From the New Orleans Darkroom:

"Herman Leonard is one of America's foremost fine art and commercial photographers, with a career spanning six decades. An apprentice of Yousuf Karsh, Leonard developed an instantly recognizable style of portraiture with jazz musicians as his subjects. His icons of American photography are displayed in museums around the globe and his entire collection is housed in The Smithsonian Institution's permanent archives."

Also, starting May 17, 2008, The Darkroom will present "Abstractions in the Landscape," a juried exhibition of photographs selected by Sandra Russell Clark, at The Darkroom's Lower Garden District showroom. The exhibition features 35 prints of abstract photographs taken in the urban and the natural landscape, and selected out of over 550 entries. Click here for a preview.

The competition is open to any photographer under 35 years of age. The deadline to submit original works will be August 22, 2008. Click here for more information.

The Photographic Resource Center presents EXPOSURE

The annual juried exhibition of photography and film-based art at the Photographic Research Center (PRC) at Boston University will be returning again this year. EXPOSURE: The 13th Annual PRC Juried Exhibition, formerly known as the PRC Members' Exhibition, has been made even more prestigious in 2008 by the participation of juror Lesley A. Martin, Publisher of Aperture's Book Program. This year's exhibition, set to open May 23 and continue through July 2, 2008, will present 14 artists selected from a pool of 376 entries, a PRC record for international submissions. Established photographers and hot up-and-comers will bring their own perceptions on popular genres, in a show intended to gather the best of the best.

From the Photographic Research Center's newsletter, concerning the photographers:

"Mariliana Arvelo has been documenting her family and herself in Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, and the United States in her evolving series 'Generations'...In large constructed lightboxes, Clint Baclawski (Boston, MA) investigates places where people congregate...Claire Beckett (Jamaica Plain, MA) is documenting soldiers, military training, and fabricated Iraqi spaces within America in her series 'Simulating Iraq.'

"...Cree Bruins (Cambridge, MA) collects, scans, and prints discarded ends from processed 35mm film in her 'Leader Series'...Lana Z Caplan (Boston, MA) has been researching and photographing former sites of public executions in Europe and the United States...Talia Chetrit (Providence, RI) considers essential qualities of her subjects and photography itself in a series of straightforward, yet open-ended images...Martine Fougeron (New York, NY) is documenting her two sons and their circle of friends in a series of intimate portraits titled 'Tête-à-Tête.'

"Robert Knight (Newton, MA) creates subjective portraits of people via found objects in their domestic surroundings. In this subset of his 'Dwelling' series, Knight explores expectations that parents place on their children...Marta Labad (Providence, RI) photographs crumpled up images of historical artworks depicting conflict...Molly Landreth (Seattle, WA) is traveling around the country photographing and gathering statements from queer individuals and couples in her project 'Embodiment: A Portrait of Queer Life in America.'

"...Benjamin Lowy (New York, NY) is capturing everyday scenes in Iraq as seen through the lens of his camera and the inches-thick, bulletproof window of an American Army Humvee...Eric Percher (Brooklyn, NY) considers the limitations we accept in order to obtain success in his series 'Work,' a semi-autobiographical response to his seven-year experience in the financial offices of Manhattan...

"Erik Schubert (Cambridge, MA), inspired in part by his businessman father and Dale Carnegie’s book How to Win Friends and Influence People, has been collecting and documenting scenes and ephemera of corporate aspirations and failure...In her series “Soldier Portraits,” Ellen Susan (Savannah, GA) produces unique portraits using the historical wet plate process of U.S. Army soldiers based in Southeast Georgia, many of which have been deployed to Iraq two or three times."

A special Summer edition of the PRC's newsletter, in the loupe, will include a spread article of the EXPOSURE exhibition. Click here to find out more.

Image: Private Dan Floyd at Basic Training, Fort Knox, KY, © Claire Beckett, from “Simulating Iraq”

The National Museum of Women in the Arts presents Women to Watch

Until June 15, 2008, The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) in Washington, DC will exhibit "Women to Watch," in which 32 works by 11 contemporary female photographers. The exhibition was designed to increase the visibility of emerging female photographers deserving of both national and international attention. Participating artists include Marita Gootee from Mississippi, Lissa Rivera from Massachusetts, Zoe Strauss from Pennsylvania, Tricia Moreau Sweeney from Illinois, Tarrah Krajnak and Wilka Roig of Vermont, Valerie Belin from France, Jin-me Yoon from Canada, Elisa Sighicelli of Great Britain, Paulina Parra from Spain, and Joan Myers from New Mexico.

Joan Myers will contribute her images of industrial encroachment on nature—in this case, beautiful panoramas of generators and power plants. Strauss presents photographs of people in her hometown neighborhood of South Philadelphia. Gootee creates impressionistic images of nature, which emphasize the mutability of photographic perception. Rivera documents and unusual subject with deadpan attention to detail: the gaterings seen at college fraternity and sorority houses. Belin's images of Parisian models have been manipulated to appear lifeless and sexless, raising questions about contemporary identity.

This exhibition represents a collaborative effort between 10 of NMWA s national and international committees and the museum. For more information, click here.

Also, Joan Myers will soon present an exhibit at Andrew Smith Gallery in Santa Fe, titled "Brimsone: Photographs from Iceland, Yellowstone and Pompeii," from June 27 to September 10, 2008.

From Andrew Smith:

"Joan Myers is one of New Mexico's most intelligent and prolific artists. Over the last twenty-five years she has produced photographic projects and books about the Santa Fe Trail, Japanese relocation camps, images of older women, the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain, the environment of the Salton Sea near Palm Springs, California, and a comprehensive document and book of Antarctica.

"In recent years Myers has been photographing globally. The exhibit highlights her color photographs made in Iceland, Italy and in Yellowstone where she has been concentrating on geothermal sites that include boiling lakes, mud pots, hot springs and geysers, as well as the ancient city of Pompeii that was destroyed by the fiery eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D."

Go to Andrew Smith Gallery's website for more information.

Image: Untitled (White), 2006 © Elisa Sighicelli. Partially backlit c-print on lightbox, 48 x 48 x 2.

Photolucida's Great Northwest Portfolio

The photographic scene in the American Northwest is often overlooked by hot spots in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, though one shouldn't doubt for a second the immense range and multitude of talent in this beautiful region. Photolucida, the annual week-long festival of photography in Portland, Oregon, will present a limited edition of The Great Northwest Portfolio, comprising fifteen contemporary photographers from the region. The edition consists of fifteen copies, which will be sure to be coveted by collectors and photography enthusiasts. The portfolio is available for a limited time at an original price of $5000.

Fifteen images will be reproduced in dimensions of 16 x 20, and essays will also be included from Rod Slemmons, Director of the Museum of Contemporary Photography, and Terri Hopkins, Director of Marylhurst University's Art Gym. The prints to be featured have been donated by some of the Northwest's premier photographic talents, including Paul Berger, Phil Borges, Cherie Hiser, Ann Hughes, Stu Levy, Christopher Rauschenberg, Glenn Rudolf, Carrie Mae Weems, and more.

Photolucida is a non-profit organization dedicated to nurturing photographic talent and encouraging a community of local support for fine art photography. This portfolio is part of a bold new fund-raising strategy to keep Photolucida coming back, with its Portfolio Reviews conference and popular calls for entries, such as the Critical Mass competition, year after year.

A preview of this portfolio can also be seen at this year's Fotofest in Houston, from March 7 to 20, 2008. The portfolio can also be viewed here.

AUCTION: Daniel Cooney presents photographs, photographic literature

Daniel Cooney's Early Spring Fine Art Auction has only a few more days before its close on Thursday, March 6, 2008. The lots are divided into photography, photographic literature, and painting categories. Daniel Cooney is holding this auction in conjunction with igavel.com, a partnership that occurs three times a year. As always, a preview of available lots is taking place at the exhibition space in New York City. None of the selections in this auction have been solicited from individual artists, thus creating a collection of images that stand fully on their own merit, in which the contest is decided by those at the helm of the auction.

Click here to view some of the selections available for auction, as well as estimated prices and the final selling price (where applicable).

Click here to view igavel's official auction site. Scroll down the list of photographs to see those that will remain available for the duration of the auction.

Image: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bicep Pose © Michael McKenzie

Leica European Publishers Award now open for entries

From March 1 to 21, 2008, Leica will be accepting book entries for the prestigious Leica European Publishers Award, which is open to photographers worldwide and is brought to us through a collaboration of seven European publishers. Submitted projects must be in the form of a finished photographic book with substance that has never been published. The winning entry will be published by each participating publisher and released to audiences in each respective country. An entry fee of 50 Euro covers the cost of returned materials.

Participating publishers include Actes Sud of France, Apeiron of Greece, Dewi Lewis Publishing of Britain, Edition Braus of Germany, Lunwerg Editores of Spain, Mets & Schilt of The Netherlands, and Peliti Associati of Italy. The chance for publication in so many languages, right off the bat, is a great opportunity for professional photographers ready to break into markets all over Europe. Click here to find out how to enter.

Last year's winning entry, "As I Was Dying," by Paolo Pellegrin, has just been released by award participants Dewi Lewis. This book captures moving (and often brutal) images of human tragedy and suffering. The horrors of war is the main subject in Pellegrin's photographs, and the vulnerable families and disadvantaged communities that inevitably are caught in the middle. For more about this entry, visit Dewi Lewis here.

WORKSHOPS: Fotofest 2008

Two public workshops, "Career Builders and Art Makers," and "Publishing Photo Books Today," will be running in March 2008 during Fotofest 2008 in Houston, TX. Taking place March 11 and March 16, respectively, both are coordinated by Mary Virginia Swanson, photography marketing consultant and prolific blogger. HP is collaborating on hosting "Career Builders," a comprehensive course on marketing one's art and building a business by promoting oneself in editorial, curatorial, and online markets; and Darius Himes, Editor and Publisher of Radius Books in New Mexico, is co-hosting "Publishing Photo Books." Both workshops have a $150 registration fee.

Each workshop will have nine speakers each. Brian Paul Clamp, Director of ClampArt Gallery; Katherine Ware, of the Philadelphia Museum of Arts; Manfred Zollner, Photo Editor of FOTOMagazin; artists Sean Perry and Lisa M. Robinson; Denise Wolff of Phaidon Publishing; and Thomas Hoepker of Magnum Photos are but a few of the excellent speakers who will be joining the hosts for these one-day workshops.

Fotofest, the Twelfth International Biennial of Photography and Photo-Related Art, runs March 7 to April 8, 2008. Click here for more information, and to register.

Conservation Photographer named one of the best by World Photographic Arts Corporation

Dr. Joe Zammit-Lucia, conservation photographer and CameraArts feature artist (January-February 2008) has been included in a new collection released in January by the World Photographic Arts Corporation: "The World's Greatest Black & White Photography." The selections have been made via the Corporation's Black and White Spider Awards. Zammit-Lucia has worked extensively in high-quality color photography using the complete control provided by digital formats. However, he also uses his impressive tools, both behind the camera and at the workstation, to create arresting monochrome images.

From the World Photographic Arts Corporation:

"A showcase of the finest in contemporary black and white photography, the book was three years in the making. Over 13,000 images were screened by a judging panel of nearly 50 international jurors which included representatives from the Tate Gallery, Magnum Photos, The Rekjavik Museum of Photography, Life Magazine, The British Institute of Professional Photography and many others."

Joe Zammit-Lucia's image "Pride #1," part of his Fauves series, was selected as a representative image of his work in the Nature section. This series, selections of which can be viewed at Zammit-Lucia's fabulous website here, portrays animals in portraits accentuating the emotion and pathos usually only associated with humanity."Pride #1" will also be included in "First Steps: Conserving Our Environment," to be published on Earth Day, April 22nd, 2008. View the website here.

The World Photographic Arts Corporation will open its 32rd annual call for entries February 4, 2008, for color photography. Click here for details.

Image: Pride #1, © Joe Zammit-Lucia

Now Online: CameraArts Holiday Gift Guide

Running out of ideas for the photographers on your Holiday gift list? Here's a list of our own, what we hope will be a helpful series of recommendations. Click here to visit the CameraArts website and see some Yule-time hints for books, videos, subscriptions, and workshops. Merry Christmas from all of us at CameraArts!

Daniel Cooney Fine Art teams up with iGavel.com

Located in the Chelsea District of Manhattan, NYC, Daniel Cooney Fine Art is a gallery committed to making fine art photographs of exceptional quality available to the collecting community. Now the gallery is expanding its range online with its auctions of fine photographic prints, held three times a year on iGavel.com. A preview exhibition takes place at the gallery, but bids may be made online.

Available works include those by Alexander Calder, David Halliday, Lewis Hine, Dorothea Lange, Sally Mann, Ralph Morse, Herb Ritts, Edward Steichen, Arthur Tress, Joel Peter Witkin and many more. Prospective material for auction should be submitted only by consignment. Daniel Cooney Fine Art does not accept material directly from artists. If you are interested, contact the gallery at its website with a list of what you want to offer.

Click here to view a list of all items being auctioned by Daniel Cooney (username: dcooney) at this time.

Auction to benefit the Photo Review

Every year, The Photo Review, the journal of fine art photography, holds a benefit auction featuring an international collection of 270 photographs in vintage and contemporary categories. Items on auction are expected to go for anywhere from $50 to $8,000. A silent auction will coincide with the live event, offering photography and computer equipment, as well as books, musem tickets, and restaurant meals. Online bids are available through November 9, 2007.

Photographers include Eugène Atget, Maxime Du Camp,Gordon Parks, Herb Ritts, Edward Steichen, and many more, including a considerable selection of 19th century works. The auction will take place 7pm, November 10, 2007 at the Dorrance-Hamilton Building at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. A reception at 6 p.m. will honor Ricardo Viera and the Lehigh University Art Galleries in Bethlehem, PA, with The Photo Review Award for 2007.
You may make online bids at photo review's website by clicking here.

Image: Bruce Springsteen(profile). © Herb Ritts

Four masters of photography are the pride of Philly

Gallery 339, one of Philadelphia's finest photography-focused galleries, will present an exhibition from four local photographers who have achieved worldwide reknown: Philadelphia Masters. Running November 2, 2007 to January 28, 2008, the exhibition intends to recognize the contributions these photographers have made to Philadelphia's contemporary art scene and photography community. In honoring four distinst photographers, Gallery 339 intends to emphasize the diversity and long-term progressive nature of Philadelphia' photography scene.

George Krause, William Larson, Ray K. Metzker, and Ruth Thorne-Thomsen share a common passion for experimentation in their work: perhaps the only thread, aside from the city that they call home, that they can claim in common.

From Gallery 339's press announcement:

"Like a magician, Krause is able to take the average stuff of the world around him to conjure suspense and wonder. Since beginning his career in Philadelphia in the late 1950s, Krause has explored basic human concerns of sensuality, mortality, and spirituality to create his ambiguous, symbolically rich images...

"Since completing his studies at the Institute of Design in Chicago in the late 1960s, Larson has pursued a number of influential conceptual projects that reconsider the ways that the still and the moving image are rendered in art. Experimenting with a range of technologies, including early fax machines and slit-scan cameras, Larson disassembled and reconstructed traditional ways of recording time and movement...

"While experimenting with multiple exposures, unusual juxtapositions, and the unexpected use of light and darkness, Metzker has imbued his images with an emotional resonance. By bisecting a streetscape with an intense ribbon of sunlight or a dense wall of shadow, he is able to evoke a feeling of hope or an aura of menace...

"Thorne-Thomsen combines elements from myth, 19th century travel photography, folklore, allegory and other influences to compose landscapes that appear both familiar and impossible. While surreal, these constructed scenes have a seamlessness and an internal logic that makes them seem real, yet it is a reality that is remembered from a dream.

The reception will take place 6 pm, November 2, 2007. Gallery 339's website can be found here.

Image: Fountan Head, 1970 © George Krause.

CameraArts Preview Portfolios: October 3, 2007

We at CameraArts Magazine are pleased to present our latest three preview portfolios, after a two-week hiatus. Perhaps that isn't much, but it's felt much longer to us! We love reading your comments on every new installment, and look forward to printing them in future issues of CameraArts! The new batch of portfolios includes the black-and-white portraiture and street scenes of Polish photographer Taduesz Dabrowski, the urban night images of Lynn Saville, and the series "Flora" by Randy Turoff.

Feel free to leave your comments below the fold!

Photography Festival: Contact 2008!

Registration is now open for Contact 2008, Toronto's Photography Festival, which will celebrate its 12th year for all of May 2008. The theme will Registration will be open until December 21, 2007, with the early registration period (and registration for non-profit organizations) ending on December 3, 2007. Participants may arrange their own exhibitions in the greater Toronto Area, which must take place during the month of May 2008. Exhibitions may be hosted in both traditional venues and other spaces in community centers, restaurants, personal studios, and stores. A venue is required to exhibit: spaces will not be provided. The festival also accepts volunteers in staying true to its ongoing non-profit status.

Contact 2008 is, in fact, North America's largest annual photography event. Over 500 artists will come from all over the world to exhibit in 200 venues. The festival has become a cultural destination in Toronto, attracting a collective audience that has grown to nearly 1,000,000 people. An even greater level of interest and participation is expected in 2008. By allowing anyone to participate with exhibitions, the Contact Festival has increased their turnout numbers dramatically with a simple variation on the tried-and-true photography festival format. Anyone who signs up will make it into the Festival Magazine, submissions for which are due January 14, 2008.

The theme, "Between Memory and History," will be carried throughout the festival's selection of public installations, lectures, films, and events. Exhibitions may be on any subject, taken in any medium, but a connection to the theme is encouraged. Inclusion in the Festival Magazine and other press materials are part and parcel of registration, which is now available at an early rate of $450.50.

You can view a list of past festival exhibitors here.

Click here to register.

Image: Kitka-River 2004, from the series "Museum of Nature," ©Ilkka Halso

CALL FOR ENTRIES: BJP International Photography Award

The British Journal of Photography has announced the fourth annual BJP International Photography Award. Submissions should represent a single, cohesive body of work, and consist of 20 to 30 images. The winning photographer will have an exhibition of his or her images at The Association Gallery in Shoreditch, London. All printing from digital files or negatives will be done by Spectrum Photographic, one of Europe's leading fine art photography specialists. A Linhof Master Technika Classic 4x5 large format camera will also be provided, along with accessories valued at more than £5600 ($11,400), presented by Linhof Studio. Entry fee is £20 ($40 US).

The Deadline is September 24, 2007.

UK photographer Charlie Crane was the winner of last year's competition, and the resulting book, Welcome to Pyongyang, is now available from book publisher Chris Boot. An inside look at North Korea's tourism industry, the series presents its subjects, from architectural landmarks to classroom interiors, with a formality that makes the shoots seem like regal events. These images represent the pride of the North Korean people, meant to be shown to the rest of the world. Anything less would be far more difficult, and perhaps dangerous, to capture on film.

There is no fixed theme. The judges will be looking for an original perspective combined with high-quality images—a series that will carry a two-story exhibition. The winner will have to make his or her own travel arrangements to the exhibition. Click here to find out more about entering this year's competition.

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.