Charis Wilson dies at 95; model, muse and last wife of photographer Edward Weston

Charis Wilson, the muse, model and last wife of art photographer Edward Weston and the author of several books including "California and the West," which the two co-wrote, has died. She was 95. Wilson, who had been suffering from various age-related ailments, died Friday in Santa Cruz.
LA Times story.

Road to Freedom: Photographs of the Civil Rights Movement, 1956–1968

Featuring nearly 170 unforgettable images by more than thirty-five photographers, Road to Freedom: Photographs of the Civil Rights Movement, 1956–1968 tracks a crucial episode in American social and political history. Poignant and deeply affecting, the photographs in this exhibition portray historical turning points such as the Montgomery bus boycott (1956), the Freedom Rides to the Deep South (1961), the March on Washington (1963), the Selma-to-Montgomery march (1965), the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. (1968), and the Poor People's Campaign (1968). Some of the photographs have never been displayed to the public. On view are images by recognized names such as Bob Adelman, Morton Broffman, Bruce Davidson, Doris Derby, Larry Fink, James Karales, Danny Lyon, Builder Levy, and Steve Schapiro, as well as by press photographers and amateurs. Read more here.

dpBestflow.org from ASMP

dpBestflow.org is a rich web resource which includes a series of on-line educational seminars, software & hardware solutions, workflow guides and book references, designed to match a wide variety of working styles. Now, by accessing the web site, photographers and others in the visual arts community have real-world solutions for preserving the quality and integrity of digital images, proven best practices that have been shown to produce superior results, and guidelines for streamlined production workflows. Link.

New Getty Images Grants Schedule: How to Apply

Getty Images will award all five of its $20,000 Grants for Editorial Photography at once next year, instead of breaking the announcements up over two rounds. This means there's now one deadline: Circle May 1 on your 2010 calendars.

Getty is also continuing its new Grants for Good program, which awards two grants of $15,000 each. Beginning next year, photographers must have the support of a creative agency in order to be considered for the Grants for Good. The deadline to apply for those awards is March 1, 2010.

Details about how to apply are online here.

Canon White Papers: Beyond the Manual

Canon's White Papers are not manuals. They are:

• A detailed, in-depth look at the major features within each specific camera


• An exploration of new system enhancements, with an explanation of the technology behind each one.


• A comprehensive overview of Canon software and accessories compatible with each model.

All of the White Papers are free to download, easy to read, and they can help Canon shooters take the fullest possible advantage of their cameras.

Link to White Papers.

Black-And-White Black America

In the 1950's, photography was hardly considered art. If you wanted to be taken seriously as a photographer, you snapped mountains and models -- not your neighbors. It also helped to be white. But Roy DeCarava, turned all of that on its head. He died this week at the age of 89. Listen to the NPR story, or this Fresh Air interview.
Read more hear.

METAmachine captioning utility

METAmachine is an inexpensive, metadata browser that streamlines the important process of editing or adding keywords, licenses and other essential metadata to images, either individually or in batches. METAmachine reads and writes XMP formatted metadata in TIFF, JPEG, PSD and DNG images.

METAmachine can be used to write a complete set of the IPTC standard metadata into images. It can also be used to add solely copyright and contact information or licensing terms, leaving all other metadata already in the images unaltered.
METAmachine web site.

New from Adobe Labs - Content-Aware Fill

Removing unwanted items from an image is one of the most common uses of Photoshop. Here’s an early glimpse of improvements to the Spot Healing Brush and Edit/Fill commands that are being developed at Adobe Labs.

iPhone Apps for Photographers

Lots of iPhone apps center on the photos you take with your iPhone. But, many others are useful when you shoot with your DSLR. From exposure calculators to GPS taggers, these apps will make the iPhone or iTouch your best photo assistant ever. Read more.

The Adobe Shortcut App

Can’t remember your shortcuts? No worries. Introducing the Adobe Shortcut App, an amazing new tool from Adobe that lets you find and gather the shortcuts you need on your desktop. Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Flash, After Effects, and a bunch of other Adobe applications, will be right where you need them, when you need them, allowing you to create your masterpieces with ease and yes this is cross-platform so both MAC and PC folks can enjoy. Link

Ask an Art Buyer: Email Promos ?????

From Heather Morton, freelance Art Buyer......"While emailers sounded like a good idea several years ago, they are now little better then spam. Most of the work I get is not appropriate to any need I might possibly have, and lots of it just isn’t good at all. Plus, if the image isn’t displaying in my email window and fast, I’m on to the next one. On the other hand, when I receive a printed promo, at the very least, I look at the image(s). I also notice your attention to detail in your paper and design choice. Most often, email promos feel templated and generic, hence the agency opt-outs". Read more.....

Canon Announces EOS-1D Mark IV

Canon has announced a major update to its flagship professional digital SLR, the EOS 1D Mk III. After listening to professional press, sports and wildlife photographers who are the 1D's main users, Canon has revamped all of the camera's major systems. The new model features a 16.06 million image pixel, 1.3x crop sensor, top ISO of 102,400, 1080p video with external stereo mic jack, a revamped 45-point AF system and a wider-gamut, 920,000-dot rear LCD. Read full story at RobGalbraith.com.

Was the photoshopped Ralph Lauren model fired for being overweight?

Read the full story here.

Nikon announces D3S with 102,400 top ISO

Late next month Nikon will ship the D3S, an update of its venerable D3 digital SLR that features improved high-ISO image quality (and an eye-popping top ISO of 102,400), a 720p D-Movie mode with external stereo mic jack, approximately double the burst depth of the D3, a useful 1.2x crop mode and various other refinements.

Like its predecessor, the D3S is aimed at the working photojournalist. To create the new model, Nikon started by keeping the D3 hardware mostly intact; the D3S' 12.05 million image pixel CMOS image sensor is the only truly-new core hardware component in the camera, and is responsible for its promised improved image quality at stratospheric ISO levels.

Read more at RobGalbraith.com

Do Not Forget - Irving Penn at the Getty

Do not miss the Getty Exhibit of Irving Penn's photography. If you have already seen the exhibit, go again.

Penn was one of the most respected photographers of the 20th century. In a career that began at Vogue in 1943 and spans more than six decades, he has created innovative fashion, still life, and portrait studies. His photographs are defined by the elegant simplicity and meticulous rigor that have become the trademarks of his style.

The exhibition begins with an overview of the Small Trades photographs Penn created in Paris, London, and New York in 1950 and 1951. The first gallery includes original gelatin silver prints, as well as French, British and American editions of Vogue magazine that published selections of the photographs from each city. Several galleries are devoted to the platinum/palladium prints that Penn began to make after several years of experimentation in the mid-1960s. One gallery presents Penn's photographs of one trade as found in each of the three cities. Another focuses on Penn's process, comparing gelatin silver prints and platinum/palladium prints side-by-side. Other groupings demonstrate Penn's use of tools to create elegant, balanced compositions; his fascination with the crisp uniforms associated with the Parisian restaurant trades; and his dynamic treatment of technological occupations in New York. Ends January 10, 2010.