RSS
 

Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Slideshow: 2020 World Press Photo contest winners

17 Apr

2020 World Press Photo contest winners

The World Press Photo Foundation recently announced the results of its 63rd annual World Press Photo Contest. World Press Photo of the Year, Story of the Year, plus winners across all 8 categories were included in Thursday evening’s announcement. Nearly 74,000 images were submitted by 4,282 photographers. 44 winners, 30 which are recognized for the first time, hail from 24 countries.

The jury, consisting of 17 professionals from 6 continents, selected ‘Straight Voice’ by Yasuyoshi Chiba (which was featured in our nominee coverage a few months back) as Photo of the Year. ‘This moment was the only peaceful group protest I encountered during my stay. I felt their undefeated solidarity like burning embers that remain to flare up again,’ says Chiba of his winning photo.

‘Kho, the Genesis of a Revolt’ by Romain Laurendeau, which documented the unease of Algerian youth that led to the biggest protest in decades, was selected as World Press Photo Story of the Year. ‘It was impossible for a part of me not to recognize myself in these young people. They are young but they are tired of this situation and they just want to live like everyone else,’ explains Laurendeau.

Elsewhere, fans of the Tiger King docuseries on Netflix will recognize Kevin Antle in Steve Winter’s ‘The Tiger Next Door’ image, which won Second Prize in the Contemporary Issues – Stories category. All digital storytelling contest winners can be viewed on the World Press Photo homepage.

Winning photographs and multimedia will be on display during year-long worldwide exhibition, which premieres every year in Amsterdam. The launch date has been postponed due to the current pandemic. Those interested in attending events can check in with the World Press Photo event calendar.

World Press Photo Story of the Year: ‘Kho, the Genesis of a Revolt’ by Romain Laurendeau (France)

Caption: Football fans gather in the street and sing during a match that is taking place behind closed doors due to violence, in Algiers, Algeria, on 22 November 2014.

Story: Young people make up more than half of Algeria’s population, and according to a UNESCO report 72% of people under 30 in Algeria are unemployed. Pivotal moments in Algerian history, such as the ‘Black October’ revolt of 1988, have had angry youth at their core. Black October was harshly suppressed—more than 500 people were killed in five days—and was followed by a ‘black decade’ of violence and unrest.

Thirty years on, the effects of that decade are still present. In a traumatized country, high unemployment leads to boredom and frustration in everyday life and many young people feel disassociated from the state and its institutions. In neglected working-class neighborhoods such as Bab el-Oued in Algiers, young people often seek refuge in diki—private places that are ‘bubbles of freedom’ away from the gaze of society and from conservative social values. But the sense of community and solidarity is often not enough to erase the trials of poor living conditions.

In February 2019, the United States of young people from working-class neighborhoods again took to the streets in what became a nationwide challenge to the reign of long-time president Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

Kho (the word means ‘brother’ in colloquial North-African Arabic) is about the genesis of a revolt. It is the story of the deep unease of youth, who, by daring to challenge authority, inspired the rest of the population to join their action, giving birth to the largest protest movement in Algeria in decades.

World Press Photo Story of the Year Nominee: ‘Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 Crash Site’ by Mulugeta Ayene (Ethiopia)

Caption: Onlookers inspect debris at the crash site of Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET302, near Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on 11 March 2019.

Story: On 10 March, Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET302, a Boeing 737 MAX, disappeared from the radar six minutes after take-off from Addis Ababa airport and crashed into a field, killing all 157 people on board. The impact was so great that both engines were buried in a crater 10 meters deep.

A week after the crash, empty coffins were buried at a ceremony at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa, as victims were unable to be identified. Officials gave relatives bags of earth from the crash site. On 14 November, eight months after the crash, the site of the impact was covered and the unidentified remains of victims buried in rows of identical coffins.

Comparisons were made with the crash of a Lion Air aircraft, also a 737 MAX, 12 minutes after take-off from Jakarta in October 2018. Countries across the world, initially with the exception of the US, grounded the 737 MAX. First reports showed that pilots had been unable to prevent the plane repeatedly nosediving, despite following procedures recommended by Boeing.

It appeared that in both cases pilots were struggling to deal with an automated safety system designed to prevent stalling, which was repeatedly pushing the nose of the plane down. It seemed that the system was being activated, possibly due to a faulty sensor, even though nothing was wrong.

It later emerged that American Airlines pilots had confronted Boeing about potential safety issues with the MAX. Boeing had resisted their calls but promised a software fix, which had not been done by the time Flight ET302 crashed. Planes remained grounded into 2020.

Contemporary Issues – First Prize, Stories: ‘The Longest War’ by Lorenzo Tugnoli (Italy) for The Washington Post

Caption: An Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) anti-mine team detonate an improvised explosive device (IED) found on the Ghazni-Kandahar highway in eastern Afghanistan, on 2 December 2019. IEDs are one of the leading causes of casualties among civilians and members of the ANDSF.

Story: The Taliban made significant territorial gains and increased their influence in Afghanistan in 2019. Eighteen years after the US invasion, and five years since the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) have been responsible for securing Afghanistan, the Taliban control or contest around half the country, in some districts acting as a shadow government.

Peace talks began in January appeared to be nearing agreement in August, but were scuppered by US president Donald Trump in September. Fighting escalated during talks as both sides tried to gain leverage, while on the ground the talks provided the Taliban with increasing political legitimacy. The frequency and spread of Taliban violence left the ANDSF overstretched and in some cases overwhelmed, with a high casualty rate.

The escalation of the conflict also severely impacted the civilian population, resulting in high casualties, forced displacement, extreme insecurity, lack of access to education and a weakened public health system. A report published in June 2019 by the Institute for Peace and Economics named Afghanistan as the world’s “least peaceful” country, replacing Syria, though by early 2020 it seemed that a peace agreement was once again a possibility.

Contemporary Issues – Second Prize, Stories: ‘The Tigers Next Door’ by Steve Winter (United States) for National Geographic

Caption: Kevin Antle poses with his staff in a swimming pool they use in a tiger show, at his Myrtle Beach Safari entertainment facility in South Carolina, United States, on 30 April 2019. Tourists pay upwards of USD $ 399 each to join a morning tour, during which they play and are photographed with cubs.

Story: Between 5,000 and 10,000 tigers live in captivity in the US. Roadside zoos and other businesses breed tigers and charge guests to pet and pose with them. Individuals also keep tigers as pets. By contrast, there are only 3,900 wild tigers in Asia and 1,659 in accredited zoos worldwide.

Many of America’s exotic pets are not covered by the 1973 Endangered Species Act, which applies only to those taken from the wild, not those bred in captivity. Four US states have no laws on keeping big cats as pets, and in ten others, although a permit is required, once secured for a small pet it can be used to acquire a larger animal such as a tiger.

By the time cubs bought as pets are four months old they become too large and dangerous to keep domestically, and are sold on, opening concerns that this feeds the highly lucrative illegal international trade in tiger parts. Investigations by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), which is tasked with enforcing the Animal Welfare Act, dropped by 92% between 2016 and 2018.

In June, the US House of Representatives reprimanded the USDA for redirecting its focus from active enforcement to providing ‘teachable moment’ interactions with the public. A federal Big Cat Public Safety Act has now been proposed. It will address the gap in state laws and prohibit the private ownership of big cats, and ensure that if they cannot be returned to the wild, they can be transferred to accredited sanctuaries.

Contemporary Issues – Third Prize, Stories: ‘Exodus’ by Nicolò Filippo Rosso (Italy)

Caption: Migrants crowd onto a truck near the Colombia-Venezuela border, in La Guajira, Colombia, on 6 July 2018.

Story: A political and socio-economic crisis in Venezuela, from 2016 onwards, led to an increasing outflow of migrants from the country. Venezuelans said they were compelled to leave for reasons of insecurity and violence, lack of access to food, medicine and essential services, and loss of income due to the political situation. Colombia feels the impact of this exodus most keenly.

According to the UNHCR, by October 2019 approximately 4.5 million Venezuelans had left the country, of which 1.6 million were in Colombia. Others had moved through Colombia before going on to surrounding countries. Even though Venezuela officially closed its land border with Colombia in February, around 300 clandestine crossing points remained active. More than half of Venezuelan migrants in Colombia lacked regular status, and so had no access to health, education or legal employment.

Charity organizations and NGOs helped supply people with medical attention and food, but many ended up in informal settlements or living on the streets. Early in 2020, the Colombian government announced two new Special Stay Permits that would allow more than 100,000 Venezuelans to stay and work in the country, and ruled that children born in the country to Venezuelan parents could acquire Colombian nationality, but vast numbers of people remain dispossessed.

Environment – Second Prize, Stories: ‘Fading Flamingos’ by Maximilian Mann (Germany)

Caption: Farmers harvest apples near Lake Urmia, Iran, on 14 September 2018. The region is known for its apple production.

Story: Lake Urmia, in northwest Iran, once one of the largest salt lakes in the world, is drying up. In the 1990s, it was twice the size of Luxembourg, but intensified droughts and elevated summer temperatures have sped up evaporation. In addition, illegal wells together with a proliferation of dams and irrigation projects along the lake’s tributaries have diverted water to farm fields.

Research by an international group of scientists conducted in 2014 showed that the lake had shrunk to about 12% of its size in the 1970s. In addition, environmentalists argue that a 15-kilometer-long causeway that cuts the lake in two, built in 2008, contributes to the drying as it inhibits water flow between the two sides.

The exposed lakebed forms a vast salt desert that cannot support agriculture and is susceptible to salt storms which adversely affect surrounding agriculture, and cause eye, skin and lung disorders. Residents in the area, for whom the lake was once a leisure spot, are moving away. The desiccation also affects food sources for migratory birds such as flamingos, ducks and egrets.

President Hassan Rouhani of Iran has pledged US$ 5 billion over ten years to revive Urmia, and the United Nations Development Programme is working with farmers to introduce more sustainable working practices.

General News – Second Prize, Stories: ‘Chile: The Rebellion Against Neoliberalism’ by Fabio Bucciarelli (Italy) for L’Espresso

Caption: Demonstrators resist water-cannon jets during clashes in Santiago, Chile, on 28 November 2019.

Story: In the most extensive civil unrest in Chile’s recent history, people rose throughout the year in protest against economic inequality. Despite being one of the region’s most prosperous nations, Chile is the most unequal country in the OECD group of nations, according to a United Nations report. Just 1% of its population controls 33% of its wealth.

The trigger for the unrest was an increase in subway fares instigated by President Sebastián Piñera on 18 October. A peaceful rally in the capital Santiago sparked further protests leading to a nationwide uprising. Demands grew to include comprehensive economic reform and the replacement of the constitution, which was drawn up during the reign of Augusto Pinochet in the 1980s and which created a legal basis for a market-driven economy and privatized pensions, health and education.

Demonstrations grew in size—the largest comprising more than one million people on 25 October—and became increasingly violent. According to Human Rights Watch, the authorities used excessive force against demonstrators, including pellet shotguns that caused numerous eye injuries, and were accused of abuse, including rape, of people in detention.

Women played a prominent role in the demonstrations, particularly after reports of human-rights and sexual offenses against female protesters by security forces. On 15 November President Piñera announced a referendum on a new constitution to be held in 2020, but unrest continued with demands for an inquiry into human rights violations during the protests and an immediate overhaul of the pension, health and education systems.

General News – Third Prize, Stories: ‘ISIS and its Aftermath in Syria’ by Ivor Prickett (Ireland) for The New York Times

Caption: Two men walk through a destroyed neighborhood in Raqqa, northern Syria, on 4 April 2019. Very few families returned to live in Raqqa after the city’s liberation from IS.

Story: By early 2019, the territory held by the Islamic State group (IS) in Syria had reduced to a four-square-kilometer patch in the southeast, centered on the village of Baghuz. The IS retreat from northern Syria took place under the onslaught of the combined militias of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), led by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and supported by an international coalition of primarily US troops.

As IS drew back, tens of thousands of people emerged from the enclave, many of them the wives and children of foreign IS fighters. Numerous IS fighters themselves surrendered or were captured. The Kurds were left with the conundrum of what to do with so many prisoners, many of them under 18 and orphaned or separated from their families. Then, at the beginning of October, US president Donald Trump ordered US troops out of northern Syria.

On 9 October, Turkey—which regarded Kurdish forces on its border as a security threat, given the decades-long Kurdish insurgency against Turkey—invaded northern Syria, aiming to end Kurdish control over the territory. As Kurdish forces refocused their attention on a new opponent, the fate of the many thousands of prisoners grew even more uncertain.

Long-term Projects, Second Prize: ‘Haf?z: Guardians of the Qur’an’ by Sabiha Çimen (Turkey)

Caption: Students sing religious farewell songs, at their graduation ceremony from a Qur’an school in Istanbul, Turkey, on 23 April 2017.

Story: Muslims who completely memorize the Qur’an are allowed to use the title ‘Haf?z’ before their names. They believe that whoever memorizes the holy book and follows its teachings will be rewarded by Allah and will rise in status in Paradise.

The practice dates back to the days when illiteracy was widespread and paper and vellum were prohibitively expensive, so haf?zes were seen as guardians of the holy word, keeping it alive for future generations. The Qur’an has 6,236 verses, and memorizing is usually achieved by repetition and recitation.

In Turkey, thousands of Qur’an schools exist for the purpose and many are attended by girls. Ranging in age from eight to 17 years old, most take three or four years to complete a task that requires discipline, devotion and focus. After graduating, most of these girls marry and have families but still retain the holy text word for word.

The photographer attended a Qur’an school with her twin sister when they were 12, and so is able to reveal a world unknown to many. Her project follows the daily lives of boarders at Qur’an schools and shows not only their emotions as they try to memorize the sacred texts, but how they retain the dreams of young women their age, as well as the rule-breaking practices and fun of school life when they are not studying.

Nature – Second Prize, Stories: ‘Pangolins in Crisis’ by Brent Stirton (South Africa) for National Geographic

Caption: A man reaches for a pangolin that is about to be slaughtered and prepared for a meal in a restaurant on the outskirts of Guangzhou, China, on 4 January 2019. Pangolin meat at the restaurant sells for around US $ 376 per kilogram.

Story: Pangolins are scaly-skinned mammals, and while sometimes mistaken for reptiles, they are more closely related to dogs and bears than anteaters or armadillos. They range through Asia and parts of Africa, and vary from the size of a domestic cat to over a meter long. They are solitary animals, meeting only to mate and produce a litter of one to three offspring, which are raised for around two years.

Pangolin scales are highly prized in some parts of Asia for traditional medicine, and the meat is considered a delicacy. A 2017 report by Traffic, the wildlife trade monitoring network, states that pangolins are currently the most illegally traded animals in the world, with at least one million estimated to have been poached in the last ten years. All eight pangolin species are protected under national and international laws, and two are officially listed as critically endangered.

Portraits – Second Prize, Stories: ‘Between Right and Shame’ by Tatsiana Tkachova (Belarus)

Caption: Natalia (62) was pregnant at the time of the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Although the baby was born healthy, she didn’t dare risk another pregnancy as she feared the effects of radiation. She also felt she could not cope with two children, so had an abortion the second time she conceived. Taken 22 April, 2018.

Story: Belarus abortion laws allow termination on request up to 12 weeks of pregnancy, and in certain medical or social circumstances up to 28 weeks, which places them among the most liberal in Europe. Nevertheless, abortion is still a taboo for many women, and many are reluctant to admit they have had a termination. ‘No abortion week’ campaigns are held annually, and the decision to have a termination is often accompanied by a sense of shame.

In this project, Belarusian women who have considered or undergone abortion tell their stories. The women had a range of concerns behind their decisions surrounding abortion—from contamination after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster to fear of poverty, not wanting to be a single parent, or a background of sexual abuse. As their decisions were often made with difficulty, in this story they did not want to show their faces and their names have been changed.

Sports – Second Prize, Stories: ‘The Gouandé Gazelles’ by Olivier Papegnies (Belgium)

Caption: Bélassé Tchari (left), in Gouandé, Benin, gets up every morning to work in her field to feed her seven children. She works hard to put Virginie and her two sisters through secondary school and encourages their footballing ambitions. Taken 21 February, 2019.

Story: The Gazelles de Gouandé from Gouandé village in northern Benin is one of 16 football teams set up across the country with the aim of giving young women more control over their futures through sport. The project, established by the Plan International organization, aims to empower women by promoting self-confidence, widening educational opportunities, and through advocacy against early marriage.

Following the 2019 Women’s World Cup, there was an international surge of interest in women’s football, and projects like the one in Benin can be seen as part of a wider view of the power of sport to unify and spread social awareness. In January 2019, Benin hosted a delegation from FIFA, football’s international governing body, aimed at supporting a new sports strategy in schools, and Beninese president Patrice Talon announced plans for four new football schools, including one for women.

Spot News – Second Prize, Singles: ‘Nairobi DusitD2 Hotel Attack’ by Dai Kurokawa (Japan)

Caption: Women are evacuated as security forces look out for perpetrators of an attack on the DusitD2 luxury hotel and business compound, in Nairobi, Kenya, on 15 January 2019.

Story: Five attackers threw bombs at vehicles in the parking area before entering the hotel lobby, where one staged a suicide bombing. At least 700 people were evacuated from the complex, with 21 killed and 28 wounded. The Somalia-based Islamist extremist group al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the attack, releasing a statement that called it a response to US president Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

The DusitD2 complex houses a number of international companies, and is frequented by government officials and foreign visitors, making it a target that would draw media attention. The attack and subsequent security operation lasted 20 hours, and ended with all five attackers being killed.

Spot News – Second Prize, Stories: ‘Australia’s Bushfire Crisis’ by Matthew Abbott (Australia) for The New York Times

Caption: Aluminum, which melts at 660.3ºC, has streamed from a burning car in Conjola Park, a town where bushfires razed more than 89 properties, in New South Wales, Australia, on 31 December 2019.

Story: The annual fire season in Australia began early and was exceptionally severe—following months of record-breaking drought and fanned by strong winds. Far stronger wildfires than usual, mostly battled by volunteer firefighters, raged through New South Wales and Victoria as well as areas in South Australia and Queensland, laying waste to bushland and rainforest and destroying homes.

By the end of January 2020, more than 30 people had been killed, 3,000 homes lost, and around 12.6 million hectares of land burned (nearly three times the size of the Netherlands). Wildlife was harshly hit. Local scientists estimated that up to one billion animals perished, and more than 50% of the Gondwana rainforest traversing New South Wales and Queensland was burned.

In December, while the intensity and speed at which many bushfires were spreading increased, Australian prime minister Scott Morrison went on holiday to Hawaii, and was prompted to return only after the death of two volunteer firefighters. He continued to champion a pro-fossil-fuel policy and held back from linking the fires to the climate crisis.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
Comments Off on Slideshow: 2020 World Press Photo contest winners

Posted in Uncategorized

 

Film Fridays: Plaubel Makina 67 – The beginning and end of a journey into medium format

17 Apr
Photo: 35mmc.com

We’ve got medium format on our minds – check out some 120 samples in our recent Acros 100 II film gallery – and thought we’d continue the theme by featuring a medium format camera review from our friends at 35mmc.com for this week’s Film Friday.

In this review, a dedicated 35mm photographer and medium format skeptic gets his hands on the lust-worthy Plaubel Makina 67 camera and finds lots to love about its design – and the format in general. But it’s not all a bed of roses. Get the full scoop on this cool, collapsible medium format rangefinder from the link below.

Read: Plaubel Makina 67 – The beginning and end of my medium format journey

About Film Fridays: We recently launched an analog forum and in a continuing effort to promote the fun of the medium, we’ll be sharing film-related content on Fridays, including articles from our friends at 35mmc.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
Comments Off on Film Fridays: Plaubel Makina 67 – The beginning and end of a journey into medium format

Posted in Uncategorized

 

The gear that changed my (photographic) life: reader responses

17 Apr

Reader responses: the gear that changed your (photographic) life

As we share stories of the gear that made the biggest difference to our photography, we’ve asked DPR readers to respond with their stories as well. To our delight (and believe us, we need delight right now), hundreds of you have responded. While we’ve enjoyed reading them all, below are some excerpts from our favorites.

Find out what gear changed the lives of your fellow readers, and be sure to respond with your own if you haven’t already! We’ll continue sharing our favorites until, uh, something different happens in the world.

35mm F2 AIS Nikkor

Image via Wikimedia Commons by Paul1513

lightandaprayer: A 35mm f2 AIS Nikkor was one of the first lenses I bought new for use with a battered black Nikkormat FT2 I found at an LA pawnshop. I still own the lens; I sold the much-loved FT2 to a friend’s son and later replaced it with a mint FT2 that I still use today.

Ultimately the 35mm was replaced with a 35-70 2.8 Nikkor and it quickly became one of my most used work lenses. But a 35mm always had a place in my bag. I’m glad that I have hung onto much of my fave film-era prime glass. I simply enjoy using them more than any AF lens on both digital and film Nikons.

Read the full comment

Kodak Brownie 127

Image via Wikimedia Commons by Enrique

entoman: The gear that changed my life was a Kodak Brownie 127…. given to me as a Christmas present at age 8.

I think I knew instantly that I wanted to be a photographer. When I collected my black and white prints from the local chemist, a kind young lady assistant said “Ooh, these are good pictures, are you going to be a professional photographer when you grow up?”

She inspired me, so I took more pictures. And I’ve never stopped.

Read the full comment

Nikon D4

Razor Sharp Studios: For me the Nikon D4 that I purchased in 2013 took my sports photography to a whole new level. Until then I was barely getting 5 or 6 fps with a gripped D300. In the super quick world of horse racing, I would barely get a second worth of time at the finish line to capture the winning horse…

Being able to go up to 10 fps greatly helped me get more keepers in terms of published images. Still one of my favourite work bodies in the field.

Photo taken in Dubai in 2018 at the Meydan racetrack.

See more of his work on Instagram at @zoomnclick.

Read the full comment

Minolta SRT101

Photo via Wikimedia Commons user Hiyotada

gopherino: My Dad turned me on to photography… He was his high school yearbook photographer/editor, and 28 years later, so was I. By the time I went from Brownie to Instamatic to polaroid, it was time to learn to covet my Dad’s Minolta SRT101…

Photography, travel, tennis and business were interwoven threads that bound me with a most amazing father. He would have been 92 this year, and I think of him every time i pick up my Sony FF cameras and lenses.

Read the full comment

Nikkormat FT3

WV Communications: My dad let me use his Nikkormat FT3 in high school as the yearbook photographer. What a great camera, although the meter was a little wonky. If I asked nicely, I could use his black Nikon F2 with motordrive for football games. I felt pretty awesome clicking off frames of Tri-X.

By the time I was in college shooting for the school paper, I scraped enough money together to buy a brand new FM10, which while a great camera, was in a much lesser league than the classics. By that time, we were developing film and then scanning into a Mac Quadra for layout. I feel fortunate to have experienced the twilight of the film era. Now I’m getting back into film for the joy of it.

Read the full comment

Samsung EX1 / TL500

thielges: For me it was the Samsung EX1 (TL500). Having previously used a Konica Minolta A2, I saw the EX1 as being a lighter carry around camera, not a replacement for the A2. Then one day I was processing photos from both cameras and noticed how those from the EX1 really popped in comparison. Crisp, bright, and with noticeable broad dynamic range.
From then on I used the EX1 exclusively and bought another Samsung travel zoom to cover the tele end….

Read the full comment

Panasonic LX3

Samuel Dilworth: The LX3 was a revelation to me… It made the digital dream a reality, although I had other digital cameras before (notably a Nikon D60 and lenses).

I had moved to Paris, and the combination of that city’s beauty and this small, functional, Raw-capable camera gave me many photos I liked at the time. I should reprocess them with today’s Raw-developing software.

Read the full comment and see more sample photos

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
Comments Off on The gear that changed my (photographic) life: reader responses

Posted in Uncategorized

 

RAW Power 3 available for Mac and iOS, includes workflow improvements and new editing tools

17 Apr

Gentlemen Coders LLC, the creator of RAW Power for macOS and iOS, has released RAW Power 3.0. The latest version introduces more integration with native macOS and iOS Photos applications and delivers an improved workflow.

RAW Power 3 is the first, and currently only, third-party application to include full support for Apple Photos libraries on macOS and iOS. With this integration, photographers can rate and edit their images on their Mac or iOS devices with full iCloud synchronization.

The software was developed by Nik Bhatt, a former Apple engineer. While at Apple, Bhatt led the iPhone and Aperture teams. Of RAW Power 3, Bhatt says, “RAW Power has gained a strong following among serious photographers for its unique control over Apple’s RAW engine, combined with its robust and easy-to-use editing tools.”

RAW Power 3 includes a variety of improvements to its integration with Apple Photos and its overall workspace. Users can utilize tabs to view multiple albums in the library at the same time. Users can also rate, flag and filter albums, with ratings and flags automatically syncing through iCloud Photos. Click to enlarge the image. Image credit: Gentlemen Coders

From its first release, RAW Power has been designed to build upon the existing Apple Photos native application and add additional functionality and editing capabilities. RAW Power allows the user to keep their files organized at the system level while also performing more advanced edits to their photos. By leveraging Apple Photos, users can also avoid committing to a proprietary photo library or subscription-based software.

Considering the Mac version of RAW Power 3.0, the software works directly with your Photos library while adding additional editing and organizational tools. You can browse and create albums and folders, which are then instantly applied to the system’s photo library and changes are synced over iCloud when using iCloud Photos. RAW Power 3 specifically adds rating and flagging functionality to the software, something not available in Apple Photos. In the case of a flag, this will instantly appear on the image file in the Finder as well.

RAW Power 3 introduces a variety of user-requested features, including hot and cold pixel indicators, integration of LUTs and reordering of default adjustments within your customized workspace. Click to enlarge the image. Image credit: Gentlemen Coders

Additionally, RAW Power 3 includes a new section for recently viewed items. There’s a threshold for what counts as “viewed,” meaning that only images you spent more than a few seconds looking at will be included. To make it easier to view and work on multiple images or albums at once, RAW Power 3 includes tabs.

RAW Power 3 introduces a variety of new image adjustments, including: Auto Enhance with Face Balancing, Auto White Balance, LUTs with film simulations, Levels and a Channel Mixer. With the new adjustment tools, the total now available to users is 15. With so many adjustments now built into the software, RAW Power 3 includes a refreshed editing interface and new workflow functionality. Users can reorder and select the default adjustments, to ensure that adjustments they use less frequently do not clog up their workspace.

RAW Power 3 introduces two new Auto adjustment features, including Auto Enhance and Auto White Balance (shown here). Image credit: Gentlemen Coders

RAW Power 3 also adds LUTs. The software ships with 20 of them, including Bhatt’s own film simulation LUTS. Users can add their own LUTs as well. When using LUTs, users can adjust the strength of the effect using an intensity slider. With respect to existing image adjustments, there have also been tweaks. For example, there are now hot pixel indicators in the software.

Considering the new Auto Enhance image adjustment, this works by analyzing the image on a variety of criteria before applying varying levels of different RAW Power adjustments. Auto Enhance can adjust highlights and shadows, change the exposure, adjust white balance and more.

RAW Power 3 for iOS includes many of the same improvements as RAW Power 3 for macOS, including the new image editing tools, including LUT integration. RAW Power 3 for iOS also includes the ability to reorder and organize your workspace, which is even more important when working on the smaller display of an iPhone or iPad.

The iOS version of RAW Power 3 for iPhone and iPad (shown above) includes a nearly identical feature set as the Mac version, including batch editing. For example, you can batch process and apply Auto Enhance to selected images, as shown in this screenshot. Image credit: Gentlemen Coders

With the latest version of RAW Power, users can now manage their images either in the native Photos application or in the iOS Files app. You can switch seamlessly between Photos and Files, although some iOS limitations result in edits, ratings, flags and filters not syncing over iCloud when working in Files.

The same new rating workflow from the Mac version carries over to iOS, representing a first for iCloud photographers on iOS. By utilizing ratings and flags, you can easily sort and filter your image library to quickly find specific images.

RAW Power 3 also includes new one-tap integration with the popular Halide camera application and Halide has added RAW Power to its quick-launch integration within the app’s photo reviewer.

If you use Portrait mode on your iOS device, RAW Power 3, like prior versions, can access the depth data in your image files. By utilizing this data, users can selectively adjust different areas of the image depending on how close or far the subject was from the lens. For example, you can adjust the highlights and shadows in the background and foreground independently while also adjusting the depth mask threshold. You can see the mask created using depth data in this screenshot from the iPad version of RAW Power 3. Image credit: Gentlemen Coders

For users of Apple’s Portrait mode on their iOS devices, RAW Power 3 can access the depth data in the image file and allow users to create depth maps for selective edits. You can access and edit using the depth data on both iOS and Mac versions of RAW Power.

RAW Power 3 for macOS and iOS is available today from the App Store. For existing owners of RAW Power 2, the update is free on both platforms. For new users, RAW Power 3 for macOS is $ 39.99 and RAW Power 3 for iOS is $ 9.99. RAW Power 3 for macOS runs on macOS Catalina and Mojave. On iOS, RAW Power 3 runs on iOS 12 and iOS 13, although the app does not support iPhone 5s, 6 or 6 Plus or iPad mini 3 or earlier.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
Comments Off on RAW Power 3 available for Mac and iOS, includes workflow improvements and new editing tools

Posted in Uncategorized

 

Ins and outs of ISO: where ISO gets complex

17 Apr

Fujifilm’s GFX 50S stops adding analog amplification when it gets to ISO 1600, with all ISOs above that using lighter and lighter tone curves. This means that, by ISO 12,800, there are three stops of fully recoverable highlights that would have been lost if the camera had applied more analog gain, making it possible to produce a very different rendering of the scene.

Fujfilm GFX 50S | ISO 12,800 | 1/90 sec | F2.8 | GF 63mm F2.8 R WR
Photo: Dan Bracaglia

Most people recognize that ISO establishes a connection between exposure and image lightness. As we saw in part one, ISO only connects the input and the JPEG output, without specifying anything what should happen in-between. The important takeaways from the previous article are:

  • ISO relates exposure to final image lightness by whatever means the manufacturer choses
  • ISO is not just analog amplification, and doesn’t dictate what happens at the Raw level

This provides plenty of freedom for manufacturers to use different combinations of analog amplification and tone curve, so long as a given exposure results in the expected lightness.

This is important because analog amplification can help reduce noise but it also reduces the dynamic range that gets retained. So it can sometimes make sense to keep amplification low and do more of the lightening using digital processing, rather than reducing the dynamic range of the images you’re capturing.

Tailoring the highlight response of JPEGs

Before the 2006 definition of ISO was adopted, cameras used the same tone curve for each ISO setting and added a stop of amplification each time you changed the ISO setting (in part due to lack of processing power). The following diagram is based on the tone curve and measured lightness levels from an Olympus camera.

Before 2006 most cameras did increase lightening by increasing analog amplification with each ISO step. They used the same tone curve for all ISO settings.

Once the ISO definition changed, it allowed the Olympus E-620 and the models up to the present day to use the base level of amplification but with ISO 200 exposures. This new ISO 200 mode was similarly noisy to the one on the older cameras, despite using lower analog gain – because most of the noise was photon shot noise, which directly relates to the illumination levels and exposure, not amplification. However, this new way of working afforded an extra stop of highlight capture that was previously amplified to the point of clipping.

If you ignore the exposure implications and give ISO 100 and ISO 200 modes the same exposure, you end up with identical values in the Raw files.

After 2006, this changed. Olympus, for instance, used ISO 200 levels of exposure but without any increase in amplification. This provided an extra stop of highlight capture, with no significant increase in noise, compared to the old ISO 200. All the higher ISOs used the same tone curve.

Many of its cameras indicate that ISO 100 is an expansion, or ‘pull’ mode, despite being the same as the ISO 100 setting on its older models.

All the ISO settings above 200 use the same tone curve, along with one stop less amplification than in older models. Interestingly, the ISO 100 mode is sometimes listed as an expansion mode on some Olympus cameras, because it clips highlights sooner than the other ISO modes (despite being exactly the same as the ‘full’ ISO 100 mode on older models).

DR Modes

Taking this logic further, some cameras have Dynamic Range modes that combine less analog amplification with tone curves that incorporate more highlight information.

Canon’s Highlight Tone Priority and Ricoh’s Highlight Correction DR modes both do this: using one stop less amplification than standard mode to preserve the highlight data that would otherwise be amplified to clipping. The side-effect of this is that the lowest available ISO setting goes up by a stop when you engage these modes.

Fujifilm takes this a step further, offering three Dynamic Range settings. The table below shows the relative levels of amplification and how they combine with exposure levels for the different DR modes:

DR100 DR200 DR400

ISO 200
exposure

 1X — —

ISO 400
exposure

 2X 1X —
ISO 800
exposure		 4X 2X 1X
ISO 1600
exposure		 8X 4X 2X
This table shows a simplification of the amplification level being applied at each DR mode and ISO setting. The colored boxes are the modes shown in the next diagram.

Another way of looking at it is that the DR modes’ tone curves require less and less exposure to correctly render middle gray, so are considered to be higher ISO settings.

This shows the ‘base ISOs’ of the three DR modes, which require less and less exposure to achieve the expected image lightness but keep amplification at its minimal setting, capturing one or two additional stops of highlight data.

Because most of the noise in an ‘ISO 800’ shot comes the randomness of the light you captured (which is dictated by the exposure used), there’s very little noise difference between using DR100 and DR400 modes with an ISO 800 exposure, but the DR400 shot has two stops more highlight information.

Because there’s no connection between ISO and amplification, and because the sensors it uses are highly ISO invariant, Fujifilm is able to offer a series different ISO modes with the sensor’s amplifier in its ‘base ISO’ state.

This can be useful for Raw-shooting photographers: the DR200 and DR400 modes essentially let you expose one or two stops to the right (ie shifting exposure to include highlights that would otherwise be lost), while maintaining a comprehensible preview image. Snapping a quick DR400 mode image lets you check which additional highlights will be captured, without the rest of the image becoming too dark to interpret.

High ISOs without additional amplification

At higher ISOs, there are some brands that stop applying additional amplification after a certain point, and produce all subsequent ISO settings using digital processing.

The pros and cons of amplification

Most cameras can capture their widest dynamic range at ‘base ISO’: the setting with the least amplification.

Adding amplification helps diminish the impact of any electronic noise added after the amplification step (downstream read noise), and boosts the output of the sensor to a level that’s well matched to the analogue to digital converter (ADC).

However, the sensor response remains unchanged, and any additional amplification beyond this ‘base’ level also pushes some of the initially captured signal to the point where it clips, this reduces the available dynamic range of the camera by up to a stop with every additional doubling of amplification.

In many modern sensors, the amount of downstream read noise is so low and the precision of the ADC sufficiently high that there’s only a small difference between the result you get from using a low amount of amplification, then lightening the results later, versus applying lots of amplification. This is a property we call ISO invariance (though should perhaps be called Amplification Invariance). Exploiting this characteristic by using a low amplification but with the exposure settings associated with a higher ISO setting has little noise cost and reduces the amount of highlight data that’s clipped.

The very high ISOs are created either by doubling the captured values before storing them or by adding a metadata flag to indicate that everything should be lightened by a number of stops during processing. Sometimes this is done because sensors’ amplifiers have a maximum gain level they can deliver, but it’s equally true that there’s very little benefit to applying large amounts of analog gain.

The beneficial side effect of preserving highlights can be seen in the GFX 50S example at the top of the page: this isn’t a case of software trying to ‘recover’ highlights from partially clipped data, this comes from multiple stops of highlight data being preserved in the Raw file, just not used by the default tone curve.

Even on a camera that doesn’t do this, it shows the benefit for Raw shooters of selecting appropriate exposure settings then reducing the ISO setting for some low-light shots or times where you need a fast shutter speed. There’ll be little noise cost but highlights such as neon signs won’t be clipped.

All ISO settings from a single amplification level

At its most extreme, there have been cameras that only have a single level of amplification and then generate all their ISO settings from that state (though this is rare). For this to work, you’d need a highly ISO invariant sensor, which wasn’t the case in the one instance we’re aware of.

ISOs in Log mode

Strictly speaking, most cameras’ Log modes stray outside the ISO standard, since they’re not in the sRGB colorspace. But, presumably to avoid your camera having to present you with a a totally different lightness scale, most cameras continue to use the ‘ISO’ terminology in Log mode.

In most cameras, when you switch from a standard color profile to Log mode, the minimum available ISO jumps significantly. This isn’t necessarily because more amplification is being applied, a lot of it will be because the Log tone curve is so flat.

Just like the DR modes we discussed above, if you want to capture more highlight information but you’re already at your lowest amplification level, the only option is to reduce your exposure and brighten the result using a more dramatic tone curve. This is essentially what’s happening in Log modes: the super-flat Log gamma curves require less exposure to deliver middle grey, so are considered higher ISO settings.

This is why, for instance, the Panasonic S1H’s minimum ISO changes dramatically when you change into one of its Log modes, or even into one of its color modes with a flatter tone curve:

Panasonic S1H color mode: Minimum ISO
(expansion turned off)
Standard ISO 100
Cinelike D2 ISO 200
Hybrid Log Gamma ISO 400
V-Log ISO 640

If you shoot them all at the same exposure values, they all clip at the same point, since they’re all based on the camera’s lowest amplification settings. The change in the available ISO settings is purely reflects that their tone curves accommodate an extra 1, 2 and 2.67EV of additional highlights, respectively, compared to Standard mode.

However, that’s not always the case. When you engage the S-Log modes on Sony cameras, there’s an increase in minimum ISO but this jump is the effect of the flatter tone curve combined with an increase in amplification. The size of the jump from standard mode to S-Log2 changes between cameras, but the change in tone curve accounts for 2.33EV of this shift: anything more than this comes from amplification.

Shifting from standard color mode to S-Log2 sees the ISO rating jump by at least 3EV on most Sony cameras. This 3 stop reduction in exposure doesn’t yield 3 stops of extra highlights, though: instead you only get 2.33EV of additional highlight capture because the analog amplification is also being increased (by 0.67EV on the a7R III, illustrated), presumably to overcome a little noise in the deep shadows.

As if to emphasize how far we are from the ISO standard at this point, this produces a JPEG in which a middle gray target would appear darker than the standard 118, 118, 118 RGB value. Instead the camera meters to expose middle gray at what videographers would consider IRE 32.

With this in mind, it’s always worth being careful of any camera where the ISO doesn’t increase when you shift to Log mode: it almost certainly means that some of these ISO settings are ‘pull’ expansion modes, which will prematurely clip highlights.

EI: explicitly separating exposure from analog gain

Interestingly, some more recent video cameras – often the ones that shoot Raw video – offer an EI ‘Exposure Index’ mode. This uses the camera’s base amplification setting at all times, and combines this with the exposure values usually associated with a higher ISO.

It’s terminology that dates back to push-processing film, where you would use a different exposure index than the sensitivity of your film.

Explicitly separating amplification from exposure considerations might let photographers make more informed choices about how to use their cameras

This approach is essentially like generating all your ISO settings from a single amplification level, with the benefit that you gain an extra stop of highlights for each higher EI step (ie: one stop less exposure).

For now, we’ve not seen a stills/video camera explicitly use an EI approach to exposure. But as the two worlds converge, we wouldn’t rule it out. Explicitly separating amplification from exposure considerations might let Raw shooters in particular make more informed choices about how to get the most out of their cameras.

What’s next?

This article tries to show how different cameras exploit the flexibility of the ISO standard to provide different modes and features. Unfortunately, the JPEG-focused nature of ISO makes it difficult to apply this knowledge if you’re shooting in Raw. Because the standard doesn’t define what should happen to the Raw files at different ISO settings, it’s difficult to work out the optimal settings to use.

In a forthcoming article, we’ll look at our Science Editor’s proposals to move beyond the current ISO system. Specifically, a system that accounts for Raw and is able to better exploit modern sensor performance.

Again, thanks to bobn2 for his pre-publication check of this article to prevent overly casual use of the word amplification.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
Comments Off on Ins and outs of ISO: where ISO gets complex

Posted in Uncategorized

 

Canadian non-profit PPOC speaks out against ‘porch portraits’ during pandemic

17 Apr

The growing trend of ‘porch portraits’ has drawn criticism from a number of people, prompting an official advisory against the activity published by the non-profit Professional Photographers of Canada (PPOC). The organization recommends that any type of front porch-based photography be avoided at this time in order to help curb the spread of the novel coronavirus.

‘Porch portraits’ is the term used for a new type of photography session involving people, often families, posing on their home’s front porch. The photos commemorate the ongoing quarantines and this unique time in history, but have prompted criticism from some people, including many photographers, who have called the activity risky and unnecessary.

Under present social distancing efforts, the public is encouraged (or, in some places, required) to stay home except when necessary, with the only acceptable exceptions including work in cases where in can’t be performed at home, as well as trips for essential items like prescriptions and groceries. In some cases, the public is also encouraged to go out for exercise, but to maintain a distance from other people.

Traditional photography sessions aren’t something that can be performed under these restrictions, but a number of photographers have started conducting ‘porch portrait’ sessions, which, in the spirit of the activity, involves the photographer maintaining a distance from the subjects and remaining outdoors. That intention doesn’t always pan out in real life, however, and the PPOC notes that mistakes happen.

In its newly published advisory, the PPOC says:

‘We have been contacted by several photographers upset to see this happening in their area when they are abiding by the suggested public health measures and are staying home. We have also heard from photographers who don’t understand why they should not do these kinds of photography sessions, if they are being safe about it, are doing it for charity, and are following their region’s suggested public health restrictions.’

The PPOC’s official position against ‘porch portraits’ is based on concerns that, in addition to ultimately being unnecessary and nonessential, photographers may also make mistakes that put themselves and their communities at risk of contracting and spreading the virus.

PPOC Chair Louise Vessey explained:

‘I understand that photographers are suddenly cut off from most ‘in real life’ social contact and thus their clients; but this type of photography is not a necessary interaction, nor is it an essential service. Although most do it with the very best of intentions, it still leaves room open for mistakes that could potentially cost lives. Some photographers may knock on the door or ring the doorbell, pass someone in the street, a child could run over to hug them, or their built in photographer instinct to go over and fix hair, pose the client and assist could easily kick in. These potential actions risk passing on, or catching COVID-19.’

The PPOC ultimately states that photography is not an essential business or service and that it ‘strongly recommends’ that photographers do not conduct porch portrait sessions at this time. Vessey states:

‘These stories will still be there once the dust settles and we are on the other side of this Pandemic crisis. We can photograph and tell their stories when the time is right. This is serious! Any risk is not a risk worth taking no matter how small you believe it is.’

Some photographers have turned to other unique types of photo sessions that help maintain distance from other people. Ohio-based photographer Nick Fancher, for example, has started shooting ‘Remotrait’ sessions, which involves using FaceTime to capture unique portraits of clients projected on to different backgrounds in order to compensate for poor connection quality.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
Comments Off on Canadian non-profit PPOC speaks out against ‘porch portraits’ during pandemic

Posted in Uncategorized

 

Slideshow: Sony World Photography Awards Open Competition 2020 winners and shortlisted images

17 Apr

Sony World Photography Awards Open Competition 2020 winners and shortlisted images

The World Photography Organisation has announced this year’s category winners and shortlisted entries in the Open competition of the Sony World Photography Awards, 2020. The annual Open competition, now in its 13th year, recognizes the best single images captured in 2019. Judged by Gisela Kayser, Managing and Artistic Director for Freundeskreis Willy-Brandt-Haus e.V. in Berlin, more than 100 photographs were shortlisted across 10 categories.

‘To have my image make the shortlist of this prestigious contest is an incredible honor, especially when it was selected from such a huge number of entries from around the world. I am over the moon to have my work recognized. Congratulations to all the shortlisted and winning photographers for their amazing work,’ Marc Le Cornu tells DPReview about his recognition in the Motion category.

Each category winner will receive a set of Sony’s latest digital imaging equipment and compete for the Open Photographer of the Year title. The overall winner will be announced on June 9th and be awarded a $ 5,000 USD cash prize along with recognition on the World Photography Organization and Sony’s online social accounts.

The ten category winners are:

Architecture
Rosaria Sabrina Pantano (Italy) for ‘Emotional Geography’

Creative
Suxing Zhang (China) for ‘Knot’

Culture
Antoine Veling (Australia) for ‘Mark 5:28’

Landscape
Craig McGowan (Australia) for ‘Ice Reflections’ – who was also a finalist for the International Landscape Photographer of the Year

Motion
Alec Connah (United Kingdom) for ‘Going Down!’

Natural World & Wildlife
Guofei Li (China) for ‘Tai Chi Diagram’

Portraiture
Tom Oldham (United Kingdom) for ‘Black Francis’

Still Life
Jorge Reynal (Argentina) for ‘A Plastic Ocean’

Street Photography
Santiago Mesa (Colombia) for ‘Colombia Resiste’

Travel
Adrian Guerin (Australia) for ‘Riding a Saharan Freight Train’

Due to the current pandemic, this year’s Sony World Photography Awards 2020 exhibition has been cancelled. The World Photography Organisation has launched the Stay Connected page to keep photographers inspired with educational resources. They will also recognize the work of past and current competition winners and finalists across their various online channels.

Open Competition, Travel, Winner: ‘Riding a Saharan Freight Train’ by Adrian Guerin (Australia)

Artist Statement: At 2.5km long, the iron-ore train in Mauritania is one of the longest trains in the world. It covers over 700km on its journey from the coastal town of Nouadhibou to the Saharan wilderness of Zouérat. More than 200 carriages are loaded with rocks in Zouérat, before the train begins its long journey back to Nouadhibou. I rode the train in both directions in July 2019.

On the first leg of the journey I learnt that in order to photograph the full length of the train I needed to stand on the rocks for height, position myself in a rear carriage to get the full view, and keep the sun behind me. Alas, none of this was possible until the morning of day three, at which point I had almost given up.

This shot was taken as I balanced on my toes atop a mountain of rocks, trying to remain steady as the train jolted from side to side.

Open Competition, Street Photography, Winner: ‘Colombia Resiste’ by Santiago Mesa (Columbia)

Artist Statement: In recent years, a number of protests have broken out across Latin America. Reasons for this unrest range from a proposed end to fuel subsidies in Ecuador to a rise in metro fares in Chile, and feelings of inequality and a general lack of opportunity in Colombia. In Medellín, north-western Colombia, workers and street vendors were taking part in a march when the Medellin riot squad dispersed them.

Open Competition, Still Life, Winner: ‘A Plastic Ocean’ by Jorge Reynal (Argentina)

Artist Statement: Each year, eight million tons of plastic end up in our oceans – equivalent to emptying a garbage truck into the water every minute. This is my protest against pollution.

In my language (Spanish), we use the words ‘Naturaleza Muerta’ to refer to still life, which ironically translates as ‘Dead Nature.’

Open Competition, Natural World & Wildlife, Winner: ‘Tai Chi Diagram’ by Guofei Li (China)

Artist Statement: These cheetahs had just eaten an antelope, and were licking the bloodstains off each other’s faces. It’s a very rare posture, and one that reminded me of the traditional Chinese Tai Chi diagram. The picture was taken in Botswana in January 2019.

Open Competition, Portraiture, Winner: ‘Black Francis’ by Tom Oldham (United Kingdom)

Artist Statement: Photographers for MOJO Magazine enjoy a rare degree of freedom and trust with what is usually an open brief. This allows us to capture our own experience with very high profile musicians. However, when photographing famous singers, we are often painfully aware of how many times the sitter has, well, sat.

I like to acknowledge this and asked Charles (aka Black Francis) to show me the level of frustration photoshoots can generate. He offered up this perfect gesture of exasperation, and the image ran as the lead portrait for the feature.

Open Competition, Motion, Winner: ‘Going Down!’ by Alec Connah (United Kingdom)

Artist Statement: Despite measuring 125 metres high, it took the four cooling towers of Ironbridge Power Station in Shropshire, England, just 10 seconds to be demolished on 6 December 2019. The towers had been a feature of the landscape for 50 years, but were brought down as part of a new development on the site.

The demolition had been a long time coming – the towers were close to a river, railway line and protected woodland, so their destruction had to be precise. This picture was taken from my garden, which is on the hillside opposite the site.

Open Competition, Creative, Winner: ‘Knot’ by Suxing Zhang (China)

Artist Statement: This picture is from my series ‘Hua,’ which means flower in Chinese. Flowers are often used as metaphors for life and eroticism in art. Hua explores the commonalities and connections between flowers and the feminine – in particular, emotional vulnerability and sensitivity. Qualities such as calmness, and emotions such as uncertainty, fear, anxiety, and loneliness are translated into conceptual and artistic forms.

In Knot, I use a combination of light and texture to create strong visuals that heighten the senses. I like to use symbolic and metaphoric ingredients in my work, which I hope allows the audience to blend their own subjectivity with the objectivity of the photograph, leading to different interpretations and emotions.

Open Competition, Culture, Winner: ‘Mark 5:28’ by Antoine Veling (Australia)

Artist Statement: When audience members were invited on stage to dance at an Iggy Pop concert in Sydney Opera House, Australia, on 17 April 2019, it showed the warm welcome Aussies extend to overseas artists who travel long distances to reach them.

A woman’s outstretched arm lunges to touch Iggy. He seems unaware of her approach as the crowd presses around him. One of Iggy’s assistants, Jos (in the grey checked shirt) tries to make some space around Iggy. The scene is reminiscent of a passage from the Bible: ‘Because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.”’ (Mark 5:25-34, line 28).

The image has been likened to religious paintings by Caravaggio, and his chiaroscuro technique. It went crazy on social media, making 40,000 people, including Iggy Pop, very happy.

Open Competition, Architecture, Winner: ‘Emotional Geometry’ by Rosaria Sabrina Pantano (Italy)

Artist Statement: Having returned to Sicily for the holidays, myself and a group of friends visited Fiumara d’Arte, an open museum showcasing sculptures made by contemporary artists, located along the banks of the Tusa River. Among these works is 38° Parallelo by Mauro Staccioli – a pyramid that stands at the exact point where the geographical coordinates touch the 38th parallel.

Open Competition, Motion, Shortlist: ‘NEOM Spin’ by Marc Le Cornu (United Kingdom)

Artist Statement: This image was taken during a commission to capture the area of NEOM in Saudi Arabia as part of a project for the NEOM tourism team. Our captain asked for a photo of his vessel, and I happily obliged! The golden hour light was catching the boat and its wake, and the patterns on the water looked incredible from above.

Marc elaborated a bit more for DPReview: ‘The inspiration for the shot came from our transport driver who requested a photo of his boat. I couldn’t just give him a standard photo, so I asked him to maneuver the boat in a circle whilst I captured the shot by DJI Inspire 2 drone from above. The light was perfect for giving a lovely, rich, warm feel to the image as it caught the boat’s wake and the boat itself, and the patterns left in the water from the boat’s wake created the final striking image.’

Open Competition, Natural World & Wildlife, Shortlist: ‘A Fever of Cownose Rays’ by Alex Kydd (Australia)

Artist Statement: A rare encounter with a fever of cownose rays on the Ningaloo Reef, Western Australia. The rays were circling and rubbing together in a behavior that is not fully understood. They were spiraling up and down the water column for approximately 20 minutes, at which point they disappeared.

Undeterred by my presence, they continued to focus on each other while I documented the encounter. There have been few reports of cownose rays in the Ningaloo Reef region in recent years. The image was taken while free-diving – it was a once-in-a-lifetime encounter.

Open Competition, Landscape, Shortlist: ‘Come on In’ by Kai Hornung (Germany)

Artist Statement: A small path in the ancient forests of the Anaga Mountains in Tenerife, Spain. The clouds hung inside the moss-covered trees, creating a spooky atmosphere. When I arrived at this spot, I was smiling while setting up my tripod – I just knew I was about to take one of my best images of that tour, if not one of my best pictures of 2019.

Open Competition, Creative, Shortlist: ‘Fractals and Flowers’ by David Swindler (United States)

Artist Statement: The Badlands of Utah, USA, are fascinating to explore and photograph. We had a really prolific wildflower bloom last year, which only happens every decade or so. The yellow flowers added a nice accent to the erosion lines and patterns in the ground. These patterns reminded me of fractal mathematics.

Open Competition, Culture, Shortlist: ‘Colourful Catrina’ by Sergio Carrasco (Mexico)

Artist Statement: My wife dressed as a Catrina – one of the most recognizable symbols of the Day of the Dead celebrations in Mexico.

Open Competition, Street Photography, Shortlist: ‘Back Home’ by Liu Jon (China)

Artist Statement: After a downpour, there is often a moment of beauty. Here, a zebra crossing, an umbrella and a lone figure combine to make a colorful composition.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
Comments Off on Slideshow: Sony World Photography Awards Open Competition 2020 winners and shortlisted images

Posted in Uncategorized

 

Photographer cited, had drone confiscated for documenting Hart Island mass burials with his drone

17 Apr
A drone shot of the New York skyline. Hart Island is located east of Manhatten at the western end of Long Island Sound.

George Steinmetz is a regular contributor for National Geographic and The New York Times. Over the span of his 30-plus-year career, he has received numerous accolades for his aerial photography work including three World Press Photo Awards. Steinmetz started out by piloting a foot-launched motorized paraglider to capture his aerial perspectives. These days he uses a drone.

This past Tuesday, while documenting a burial ditch located on Hart Island, due to the alarming number of COVID-19 fatalities in New York City, Steinmetz’ drone was confiscated by the New York Police Department (NYPD) and he was issued a Desk Appearance Ticket. He was cited for violating NYC Administrative Code § 10–126, which prohibits the takeoff and landing of drones within New York City (NYC).

A screenshot of Hart Island, captured in Apple Maps.

‘I’m not trying to be an advocate, but my encounter with the NYPD [on Tuesday] was not about any safety or privacy considerations that I assume the law was designed for. The officers who cited me were not local, and appeared to be working in conjunction with city employees involved with Hart Island interments. It was a clear example of a law being used for petty press intimidation. It doesn’t look good to see the city’s poor treated like toxic waste,’ Steinmetz tells DPReview.

‘Preparing for burials of what appear to be more COVID-19 victims this morning on Hart Island, New York City. For over 150 years this island with no public access has been used to bury over a million souls (whose) bodies were not claimed for private burial. With the morgues of NYC strained, the pace of burials on Hart Island has increased dramatically. I was cited by NYPD while taking this photo, and my drone was confiscated as evidence, for a court date tentatively scheduled for mid-August,’ reads the quote from Steinmetz’ official Instagram account.

View this post on Instagram

Preparing for burials of what appear to be more COVID-19 victims this morning on Hart Island, New York City. For over 150 years this island with no public access has been used to bury over a million souls who’s bodies were not claimed for private burial. With the morgues of NYC strained, the pace of burials on Hart Island has increased dramatically. I was cited by NYPD while taking this photo, and my drone was confiscated as evidence, for a court date tentatively scheduled for mid-August. #keepthememorycard

A post shared by George Steinmetz (@geosteinmetz) on

The post, documenting the mass burial site, currently has over 30,000 likes and 813 comments as of publishing this article. It has also ignited an online debate over ethics in photojournalism and the need to overhaul existing drone laws in NYC. While some online commenters criticized Steinmetz for invading the privacy of those being buried, and others questioned the legality of his flight, many more are supportive of the image he was able to capture.

‘This one hits close to home – George Steinmetz does incredible work and this photo is important. I hope some photojournalist groups will step in to defend him. There is a rough NYC working group forming to revise the avigation law. But it got stalled with COVID from what I understand. NYPD is supposed to get first crack at the rewrite which was scheduled for May before this happened,’ states Scott Harrigan in a comment on the Commercial sUAS Remote Pilots Facebook Group.

When asked to elaborate, Harrigan shared the following information with DPReview:

‘As of today, NYC currently has the ‘avigation’ law still on the books. NYC has recently shown interest in overturning this law after an architect was tragically killed last December by falling debris from a facade that went un-inspected.

As a result, detailed in that article above, NYC council members outlined three goals:

1. That the 1948 avigation law would be revised to allow commercial drone use.
2. That a bill would be proposed requiring a facade inspection within 48 hours following any NYC 311 complaint of an unsafe facade
3. That a study would be performed determining the efficiency of using UAVs to inspect NYC owned buildings (performed by DOB)

An informal working group has been formed, to address this law – a coalition of local architects, real estate developers, drone pilots, and drone manufacturers. Mr. Steinmetz’ ticketing highlights how the avigation law is being used inconsistently by NYPD to penalize drone flights at the officer’s whim with no enforcement guidance, rather than in a standardized manner that takes into account public safety. This particular flight posed no threat to public safety, was conducted in compliance with existing federal UAV regulations and was an important act of newsgathering.

It is my hope that this event will spur NYC policymakers to create a consistent legal framework that allows drone operators to perform the many tasks that benefit the public, such as newsgathering, facade inspections, search and rescue, construction progress monitoring, etc.’

‘I could be misinformed but I don’t believe anyone flying a drone has actually been held to the 1940 statute. The prosecutor may not feel it is applicable. This is a reason to clarify and reform the provision so that there is actual accountability for things that matter in New York,’ adds Brendan Schulman, DJI’s Vice President of Policy & Legal Affairs, followed on the same comment thread as Harrigan.

New York City Mayer, Bill de Blasio, has confirmed unclaimed COVID-019 victims are being buried on Hart Island, but not en masse, saying ‘everything will be individual and every body will be treated with dignity.’ Below is the first of a thread of tweets wherein he addresses the subject:

This isn’t the first time a drone has been used to capture images on Hart Island, which hosts numerous gravesites and is accessible by appointment. Melinda Hunt, who founded the Hart Island Project, which documents the information of those buried on the small island located Northeast of the Bronx, insists that the burials aren’t disrespectful.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
Comments Off on Photographer cited, had drone confiscated for documenting Hart Island mass burials with his drone

Posted in Uncategorized

 

New York court rules website didn’t violate image copyright by embedding Instagram post

16 Apr

A Manhattan federal court has dismissed professional photojournalist Stephanie Sinclair’s copyright claim against digital media website Mashable, ruling that it did not violate her copyright by embedding one of her Instagram posts on its website. The legal issue arose in 2016 when Mashable published an article on female photographers whose work includes the topic of social justice, putting Sinclair at #9 on its list.

According to court documents, Mashable contacted Sinclair in March 2016 and offered to pay $ 50 to license one of her images for use in its article on female photographers. Sinclair declined the offer, so Mashable instead embedded an Instagram post of the image that Sinclair had published on her public Instagram account.

Fast-forward to January 2018 when, according to the court documents, Sinclair contacted Mashable and demanded that they remove the embedded post from the article on the grounds of copyright infringement. Mashable refused to remove the Instagram post and 10 days later, Sinclair filed a copyright lawsuit against the publication and its parent company Ziff Davis, LLC.

The lawsuit raised questions over Instagram’s Terms of Service, its right to grant sublicenses for images uploaded to its platform, and whether sharing and embedding public social media posts without permission or a direct image license constitutes copyright infringement.

Instagram states in its Terms of Use that while it does not claim ownership of a user’s images, they grant the company a license to use it when they upload the content to the platform. Instagram says that when a user uploads images to its website…

‘…you hereby grant to us a non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license to host, use, distribute, modify, run, copy, publicly perform or display, translate, and create derivative works of your content (consistent with your privacy and application settings). You can end this license anytime by deleting your content or account.’

Mashable argued that based on that Terms of Use, it had a valid sublicense from Instagram that allowed it to embed the image post on its website. The defendant argued, among other things, that:

‘…because Plaintiff uploaded the Photograph to Instagram and designated it as “public,” she agreed to allow Mashable, as Instagram’s sublicensee, to embed the Photograph in its website.’

Sinclair’s legal claim countered this, according to court documents, which cite multiple arguments, including a claim that because Mashable didn’t get a direct image license from the photographer, it shouldn’t have been able to get a sublicense for the content from Instagram. The court disagreed with that argument, however, with U.S. District Court Judge Kimba Wood noting:

‘Plaintiff’s right to grant a license directly to Mashable, and Instagram’s right, as Plaintiff’s licensee, to grant a sublicense to Mashable, operate independently. Mashable was within its rights to seek a sublicense from Instagram when Mashable failed to obtain a license directly from Plaintiff—just as Mashable would be within its rights to again seek a license from Plaintiff, perhaps at a higher price, if Plaintiff switched her Instagram account to “private” mode.’

As well, Sinclair had argued that it is ‘unfair’ that a platform like Instagram is able to force professional photographers to choose between keeping their accounts private or allowing the company to sublicense their publicly shared content because it is ‘one of the most popular public photo-sharing platforms in the world.’

Judge Wood acknowledges the nature of this issue, but ultimately states that:

‘Unquestionably, Instagram’s dominance of photograph- and video-sharing social media, coupled with the expansive transfer of rights that Instagram demands from its users, means that Plaintiff’s dilemma is a real one. But by posting the Photograph to her public Instagram account, Plaintiff made her choice. This Court cannot release her from the agreement she made.’

The copyright claim was ultimately dismissed, a conclusion that contrasts the ruling from a New York court in early 2018 on the case of an embedded tweet that featured an image of athlete Tom Brady.

In that case, the court found that embedding such tweets may constitute copyright infringement and the fact they were uploaded to a third-party server like Twitter didn’t change that. The basis of the latest ruling is different, however, focusing on the terms of use the photographer agreed to rather than the ‘server test’ used in the 2018 copyrighted tweet case.

Both of these legal claims follow a different legal case from 2007 in which the precedent was set for how the Internet of today operates: that a person or company who embeds content hosted by a third-party source like Facebook or Twitter are not in violation of copyright, but rather that the hosting company itself is liable.

DPReview contacted Mickey Osterreicher, NPPA’s general counsel, for comment. He had the following to say about this New York ruling:

‘I have not had an opportunity to review the court’s opinion and order in this case so I do not feel it appropriate for me to comment. I will repeat something that NPPA has stressed for many years – photographers read and understand the terms of service or the terms of use on each and every social media platform before agreeing to them or posting on those sites. They also must continue to vigilantly monitor those terms as they are frequently changed and updated.’

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
Comments Off on New York court rules website didn’t violate image copyright by embedding Instagram post

Posted in Uncategorized

 

Practice your portrait lighting in lockdown with this virtual studio program

16 Apr

With many people being off work at the moment it might seem the perfect time to practice our photography – except that in so much of the world we’re not allowed to go out of the house let alone meet up for a portrait shoot. Software company Elixxier claims to have a neat solution in its recently updated set.a.light 3D application that allows us to keep experimenting, perfecting and testing studio set-ups even when we have to stay at home.

Users of the application can create a virtual studio filled with lights, modifiers, backgrounds as well as a host of models to choose from. Photographers can pose their models and add lights to the scene while previewing exactly how each move and position will change the way the picture looks.

The program allows us a 3D view of the set-up we are creating so we can view the relationship between models and lights from the side or even above, and users have a choice of manufacturer-specific studio lights, speedlights and continuous light sources. A range of softboxes, snoots, barndoors and grids are available to alter the way the light looks, and colored gels can be added for atmosphere.

Users are able to shift the position of the lights and alter their intensity while seeing the effect immediately in the camera preview window. There is also a choice of lenses, apertures, shutter speeds and, of course, camera positions that all have an impact on the way the picture looks. You can even select the size of the sensor to match that of your camera so the settings, lens effects and looks can be mirrored in your real-life set-ups with a live sitter.

Not only can you experiment with your lighting set-ups using set.a.light but the complex range of options allows users to have precise control over the model’s poses. Legs bend and props can be placed under feet to get more shape into a pose, and even individual fingers can be carefully arranged. Models can be dressed, or undressed, the way you want them and glasses can be added for an extra challenge – in a range of colors and styles.

Once you are happy with the way the model looks you can actually ‘take’ the picture and the result is rendered out as a normal picture file. You can also save the lighting diagram and 3D plan so you can refer to it at a later date when preparing to shoot a person for real. The program is great to allow us to practice during this lock-down, but in normal times it lets us test and experiment at leisure without the cost of studio and model hire, and it should make us more prepared when we arrive at a real shoot.

The latest version of the program adds a community discussion area where users can share their setups with others and chat about how images could be improved.

The Basic version of the application costs €79 (approx. $ 90) at the moment, while the Studio version is €154 (approx. $ 170), and company offers a free trial of the full version for 15 days. For more information see the Elixxier website.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
Comments Off on Practice your portrait lighting in lockdown with this virtual studio program

Posted in Uncategorized

 
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »