Youth Sports Begin

Youth soccer season is finally underway, along with football so the camera is clicking again in the great outdoors. Of course it is still 102 degrees in the valley of the sun stroke. Never mind that it is now October! At least the weather soothsayers predict the mercury will dip below triple digits by this Saturday. Just in time for another game.

My trusty Sony A100 and Minolta 70-210mm F4 (Beer Can) lens haven’t seen the outdoors since a trip to California a couple of months ago; my attempt to escape another 112 degree Arizona summer. So last Saturday morning (7:30am to beat the heat) was the first official game of the GYSA soccer season here in Gilbert, Arizona. The kids were ready to get outside and enjoy some heathly competition.

Now that Fall is officially here, the Sony will be getting some exercise and I can get some fresh air without burning my lungs. I’m not sure if I’m mentally prepared for exercise just yet, however.

Featured Photographer - Charlie Cho

Featured in this month's edition of Rangefinder magazine, Charlie Cho creates amazing and imaginative images literally painting with light. Doing what few others can, Cho illuminates the darkness with light paintings of mind-boggling precision and artfulness. Coordinating all of these unseen picture elements sometimes takes him much of the night to choreograph, or in several cases the better part of three consecutive nights.

Read Charlie Cho: Light & Night Painting by Larry Brownstein on Rangefindermag.com.

Featured Photographer - Chris Clor

Chris Clor, featured in the latest issue of Layers Magazine, has more than 25 years of experience working as a commercial photographer, and is passionate about producing the highest quality images for his clients on each and every project. His photographic expertise, innate lighting ability and sense of design, coupled with extensive computer imaging skills provide his clients with the tools necessary to solve any problem either in studio or on location.

Get inspired by viewing his images at clorimages.com

Edward Weston: Mexico

Edward Weston: Mexico
Phoenix Art Museum
Norton Photography Gallery
August 9, 2008 – November 15, 2008

Born in 1886, Edward Weston began his career practicing a popular photographic style called Pictorialism, creating portraits and nudes. The pieces with minimum contrast and soft-focus had a dream like quality. In 1923, an uninspiring and stagnate commercial portrait business prompted Weston to relocate to Mexico with Modotti. While there, he created innovative work exploring a modernist aesthetic characterized by sharp focused portraits, abstractions, and richly textured still lifes. Weston’s work was met with praise and recognition in the midst of the vibrant Mexican artistic culture.

This stunning collection of 60 photographs displays the local culture and scenery of Mexico in the 1920s – a rich period for the arts known as the Mexican Renaissance. Weston used a large camera to create technically accomplished black-and-white photos rich in detail and markedly abstract. Mexico allowed him to experiment with new subject matter, such as still lifes and landscapes, making this period one of the most pivotal of his career.

Current Exhibitions at the Phoenix Art Museum

Photographer Focus - Peter Yang

Photographer Focus of the Day:

Peter Yang

According to Peter he lives in Brooklyn, hails from the great state of Texas, and photographs subjects all over the world.

Peter shoots lots of rock stars. He gets along with them because he's a nice guy and not intimidating. This is confusing to Peter because he thinks he totally looks like a rock star. Peter is a regular contributor to Rolling Stone, ESPN Magazine and Wired, among others.

Website: http://www.peteryang.com/
Image by Peter Yang.

Richard Avedon Exhibit At Phoenix Art Museum

Richard Avedon: Photographer of Influence
Norton Photography Gallery
January 12, 2008 – April 13, 2008
Richard Avedon’s career as a fashion and portrait photographer spanned nearly seven decades in the 20th century and just into the 21st, leaving an indelible impression on American culture. The early years of Avedon’s prolific career were spent photographing the era’s leading models in designer clothing for magazines such as Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. For his signature portraiture style, Avedon placed his subject in front of a spare white background, drawing a viewer’s attention to the posture, expression, and gestures of the people he photographed. This exhibition includes both his early fashion photographs as well as powerful and revealing portraits of actors, politicians, artists, writers and intellectuals.

Phoenix Art Museum website.

Super Bowl XLII: The Ultimate Shoot-out

This year the Superbowl is coming back to Arizona, and no I don’t have tickets. But being a sports shooter at the farthest end of the spectrum of an NFL photographer at the “Big Game”, I was interested to read a recent article on popphoto.com regarding the shooters on the sidelines. Here is a brief excerpt.

..Just off-field, sports shooters and their assistants will dash up field and down following the plays. Runners will rapidly ferry memory cards from sideline DSLRs to the nearby media trailers. There, images will be transmitted almost instantaneously to the home offices of the Associated Press, Getty Images, Reuters, Sports Illustrated, and other news organizations.

The goal: To be the first and fastest to deliver images of the game to their print- and web-based clients -- and the world. This intense off-field action carries with it potential rewards just as significant as those of the big game itself...

Not nearly as intense as an NFL game, shooting Youth Sports is rewarding when I see the faces of the players and parents as they view my images. I’m just glad I can capture the action of these “Big Games.” Read the entire article on popphoto.com.

Microsoft Usually Annoys, Yet Still Can Inspire

Since I’m on the subject of the Microsoft Professional Photography website, check out the Icons of Imaging section for some inspiration.

Profiled photographers include, Phil Borges, Colin Finlay, Reed Hoffmann and Art Wolfe to name a few. Good stuff.
image © Art Wolfe

New Book - The Creative Digital Darkroom

Wondering what to buy with that holiday gift card? Another photography related book that will be available in a couple of days is The Creative Digital Darkroom from O'Reilly Media.

Co-authored by photographer and teacher Sean Duggan, The Creative Digital Darkroom translates skills, concepts, and nomenclature of the traditional darkroom into digital solutions for photographers who sense that, despite the newness of the technologies at hand, there remains a timeless method for learning and practicing photography the right way. This is not a Photoshop book per se, but it does focus on the photographic aspects of Photoshop, something other books claim to do but rarely have the discipline to accomplish. The Creative Digital Darkroom includes:

- Four sections that cover the black & white darkroom, the color darkroom, creative techniques, and production essentials
- Chapters that begin with a thorough foundation followed by numerous tutorial examples that apply the theory to real-world examples
- Examples and a layout that enables readers to find, understand, and apply the featured techniques quickly and easily
- The authors are both renowned photographers and Photoshop experts

The Creative Digital Darkroom

Joe McNally Video On YouTube

There is a huge buzz about the upcoming book, “The Moment It Clicks” from Photographer Joe McNally. The book, due next month, combines a coffee table format of wonderful images with photography secrets, insight and training. McNally is known for his work in Sports Illustrated, National Geographic and Time magazines. A video introduction for the book has appeared on the Nikon website and now McNally has his own YouTube channel. All I can say is that McNally will be getting my $35 bucks when this book hits store shelves in February.

Photographer, Editor, Publisher And Sage Herbert Keppler Dies

Herbert Keppler, former editor and publisher of Modern Photography and Popular Photography, died Friday night at the age of 82 from heart failure after a brief illness.

Mason Resnick's Adorama News Desk editorial recalls how Keppler gave him his first break in the business.

Adorama has also published a tribute, noting several of their own products "benefitted from Keppler's design suggestions."

Jason Schneider has published a tribute to him at PopPhoto.com. After citing his many accomplishments, he concludes, "What probably mattered to him most is that millions of photography enthusiasts all over the world thought of him as "Kind Old Uncle Burt," the man whose sage, warm-hearted advice and counsel helped them get more out of their photography for more than half a century."

He was also responsible for 'cleaning up' the shady practices in American mail order retailing with the establishment of a Mail Order Code of Ethics, and received numerous awards and titles, including one of the highest awards to be bestowed on a foreigner by the Emperor of Japan for his contribution to the development of the Japanese camera industry, which included numerous visits to offer his advice to manufacturers. He was elected to the Photo Marketing Hall of Fame in 1985 and received the Photographic Manufacturers and Distributors Association Lifetime Achievement Award in 1991. He will be missed.

Photo Illustrator Hugh Kretschmer

Hugh Kretschmer, the in-demand photo illustrator, explains how his creations for Esquire, Men's Health and others are done without the aid of Photoshop. Here is an excerpt from the American Photo online article.

At first glance, professional photographer and photo illustrator Hugh Kretschmer's work looks like the result of Photoshop wizardry. His surreal photographs reveal other worlds, born of Kretschmer's imagination, where a man's body can be firmly set in the ground while his head is, literally, in the clouds; where a giant alien woman attempts to eat all of New York; where tightrope walkers perch gracefully over tiny beds; and where the walls of sound rooms are, of course, covered in ears. Beyond the potency of Kretschmer's content, though, what's really amazing is that the bulk of his work is done manually, through a detailed process of collage and assemblage, with minimal digital finessing. Here, we consider the unusual process behind three of Kretschmer's photographs: Reformed Liar, All Ears and Return of the Thin Man.

Read the entire article on popphoto.com.

Andy Summers Of The Police Releases Photo Book

After the sound checks, in between the room service and before the groupies attacked, Andy Summers, the guitarist of the Police, used to sneak off into deserted America with a black Leica tucked under his arm. He'd spend hours alone wandering through Seattle, Albuquerque, Fresno — hiding in the shadows of the scenery and snapping pictures to illustrate life during the frenzied early '80s, which marked the height of success for the rock supergroup.

"When you're traveling around in a large entourage and being in a group where you're supposed to share ideas, photography was a way for me to have autonomy over my own universe," Summers said, speaking by phone from his Los Angeles home, where he was packing as the band — Summers, Sting and drummer Stewart Copeland — prepared to hit the road again for its reunion tour.

"I'll Be Watching You: Inside the Police 1980-83," is the recently released work in which Summers compiled hundreds of his pictures with dated journal entries.

Read the entire article about the book from The Honolulu Advertiser.

Scott Kelby Reference Page On Amazon.com

Being a photographer and Adobe Photoshop user it made sense to finally join the National Association of Photoshop Professionals. Not only do I already own several instructional books from Scott Kelby, President of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP), including “The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book for Digital Photographers” which is essential reading for anyone using or planning to use Adobe’s awesome Lightroom application, I’ve also recently picked up Kelby’s new “7-Point System for Adobe Photoshop CS3” book. I can’t recommend his books and blog enough.

I’ve been a member of NAPP for only a couple of weeks now, and I already have improved my Photoshop knowledge base and skills. The amount of information in the form of tips, tutorials, articles, forums, etc., from the NAPP website is overwhelming. That doesn’t even include all of the great information within the pages of the Photoshop User Magazine that is part of the NAPP membership or the optional Layers Magazine subscription.

Keep all of this in mind as I’m about to shill for Scott Kelby again (and will probably continue to do so), as Amazon.com now provides a Scott Kelby Boutique page with links and information pertaining to his many publications and short video clips about his books.

War Photographer Peter van Agtmael

Peter van Agtmael talks about what drives him to the most dangerous assignments on earth: the hope that pictures can play a role in improving the future.

In the Popular Photography & Imaging ongoing series recognizing today's top professional photographers, Joerg Colberg speaks with Peter van Agtmael, a 26-year-old graduate of Yale University who has spent the majority of his young career in hotspots like Iraq and Afghanistan. Van Agtmael was named one of "25 under 25 - Up and Coming American Photographers" by the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University in 2006 and won a World Press Photo award in 2007 for General News Stories.

Read the entire interview on popphoto.com.

Image © Peter van Agtmael

Conversation With Photographer Adam Bartos

Popphoto.com has a conversation with photographer with Adam Bartos.

...A native New Yorker, Adam Bartos became interested in photography at an early age, inspired largely by the work of Magnum co-founder Henri Cartier-Bresson. Through frequent trips to The Museum of Modern Art, he was well acquainted with the black and white street photography of Garry Winogrand, Lee Friedlander, and Diane Arbus. But in 1974, while studying film at NYU, Bartos struck up a relationship with color pioneer Joel Meyerowitz that inspired his transition away from 35mm black and white work...

The photographer talks fine art strategies and how to avoid the photo cliché. Read the entire Q&A on popphoto.com.

Image © Adam Bartos

Canadian Photographer Jeff Wall

Early in his career, Canadian photographer Jeff Wall, whose retrospective opens at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art on Oct. 27, enjoyed a high reputation as an intellectual among contemporary artists.

When he first got noticed in the late '70s, critics saw Wall's work as a deconstruction of the imaging tactics of advertising. He made, and continues to make, carefully staged pictures presented as large color transparencies in fluorescent light boxes, like those seen in airports, train stations and department stores the world over.

Read the entire online article from the San Francisco Chronicle.

Star Trek's Leonard Nimoy Becoming Controversial Photographer

Best known as Star Trek’s Mr Spock, Leonard Nimoy is carving a reputation as a controversial photographer. He tells Simon Round why he has taken pictures of naked, obese women.

… “She was a very large lady. I’m not that good at guessing weight, but I would estimate she was 300 pounds. She came to my house at Lake Tahoe and, with my wife’s help, I photographed her in the nude. It was a new experience, a different experience. I was not used to looking at that type of body. I realised when I was done that she had the appearance of a Brancusi sculpture. I showed the images subsequently at a couple of exhibitions and people were extremely curious.”

Nimoy says that the reaction to the photographs in the US has been 95 per cent positive. The same cannot be said for his previous book, The Shekhina Project, published in 2002. Here, he photographed nude female models wearing such religious items as tefillin and talitot in overtly sexual poses…

Read the entire article on The Jewish Chronicle website.

Image © The Jewish Chronicle

The Life of a Storm Chasing Photographer

Jim Reed's new book on extreme weather events looks to drive public awareness of the coming climate crisis. Tiffany Meyers at popphoto.com takes a closer look at this new book titled “STORM CHASER: A Photographer's Journey.” Here is a brief excerpt.

…Crouching under a carport in Port Charlotte, Florida, award-winning photographer Jim Reed records a desperate good-bye-and-I-love-you into a rolling camera for his mother. He hopes it'll comfort her when he's gone. Around him, 140 mph winds tear homes apart -- uprooting trees and turning cars into toylike projectiles. He's been caught off-guard: What began as an assignment to document the effects of Category 2 winds on palm trees turns out to put Reed and meteorologist partner Greg Zamarripa in the eye of Hurricane Charley of 2004…

Read the entire article on popphoto.com.

Image © Jim Reed Photography

New Photoshop Lightroom Tips From Matt Kloskowsi

New Surreal Edgy Effect provided by Matt Kloskowski on his Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Killer Tips blog. I’ll be trying this myself later today. It looks promising.

He also has posted a link to Erik Almas Photography, an amazing international photographer with some very impressive images.

Finally his latest post covers the Split Toning panel within Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.