Category Archives: Photography

Nikon has announced the development of the Nikkor Z 85mm f/1.2 S, a fast mid-telephoto prime lens that’s ideally suited to portrait photography, and the Nikkor Z 26mm f/2.8, a slim wide-angle prime lens.

Both lenses are full-frame (FX-format) optics and have the Nikon Z mount for use on Nikon’s Z-series mirrorless cameras.

As one of the S-line optics, the Nikkor Z 85mm f/1.2 S is designed to offer optimum performance and large, attractive bokeh. It’s aimed at wedding, portrait and fashion photographers.

Meanwhile, the Nikkor Z 26mm f/2.8 is very slim and light, but is also said to deliver high image quality. It’s aimed at enthusiast photographers who want to carry their camera everywhere.

The lenses are on display on Nikon’s booth at the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas from January 5-8, 2023.

Nikon Nikkor Z 85MM F/1.2 S, Nikon Nikkor Z 26MM F/2.8 price and availability

Nikon has not yet announced the price or availability dates of the Nikon Nikkor Z 85mm F/1.2 S and Z 26mm F/2.8 lenses.



Photography

#animals
#Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards
#humor
#nature
#wildlife

Highly Commended Winner, “Pegasus, the flying horse” © Jagdeep Rajput and Comedy Wildlife 2022

Since its inception in 2015, submissions to the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards (previously) have captured some of nature’s most hapless and humorous moments. The overall winner was Jennifer Hadley’s timely snap of a 3-month old lion cub tumbling down a tree, taken in the Serengeti, Tanzania. Hadley shared that she and her travel companions had been watching the cub in the tree for some time. “It didn’t even occur to me that he would make a go of getting down by himself in the most un-cat like fashion. I mean, how often do cats fall out of trees?” she says.

In this year’s juried contest, 5,000 entries from 85 countries amounted to fierce competition, showcasing “seriously funny” images in an effort to highlight the diversity of the world’s wildlife and raise awareness of the need for conservation. In partnership with the Whitley Fund for Nature, the contest contributes 10% of revenue toward conservation efforts in countries across the Global South.

See a gallery of all winning images on the competition website, and if you would like to enter your own images for consideration in the 2023 contest, applications are now open.

Overall Winner and Serian & Alex Walker’s Creatures of the Land Award, “Not so cat-like reflexes” © Jennifer Hadley and Comedy Wildlife 2022

Affinity Photo 2 People’s Choice Award, “Talk to the Fin” Image © Jennifer Hadley and Comedy Wildlife 2022

Highly Commended Winners. Left: “It’s all kicking off!” © Michael Eastway and Comedy Wildlife 2022. Right: “I’m gonna strangle you” © Emmanuel Do Linh San and Comedy Wildlife 2022

Highly Commended Winner, “Keep calm and keep your head” © Martin Grace and Comedy Wildlife 2022

Creatures Under the Water Award, “Say Cheeeeeeese” © Arturo Telle and Comedy Wildlife 2022

Spectrum Photo Creatures of the Air Award, “Hippo and Heron” © Jean Jacques Alcalay and Comedy Wildlife 2022

Junior Award, “ICU” © Arshdeep Singh and Comedy Wildlife 2022

Highly Commended Winner, “Hello everyone” © Miroslav Srb and Comedy Wildlife 2022

#animals
#Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards
#humor
#nature
#wildlife

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By Barbara Seese

CAMBRIDGE – Robert Sullivan returns to DCA for a winter photography workshop at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge on Jan. 22 from 6:30–8:30 a.m. This workshop features a Blackwater sunrise, as well as the opportunity to capture beautiful winter colors.

According to Sullivan, sunrise is a great time for two reasons: it’s when the wildlife is most active, and the quality of light is amazing and constantly changing. Plus, January is peak time for the migratory geese, duck, and swan that fill the sky in such large numbers.

This workshop will provide information on photographing wildlife at Blackwater, as well as tips and techniques for photographing a sunrise. Photographers at all levels of experience are welcome.

You’ll see – and photograph – Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in ways you haven’t before. Workshop tuition is $25 per person for DCA members, $60 for non-members. If you would like to join DCA and save on this and future class tuition, visit online at www.dorchesterarts.org. A second workshop at Blackwater will be held on Sunday, March 19, from 6:30-8:30 a.m.

The Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge was established in 1933 as a waterfowl sanctuary for birds migrating along the critical migration highway called the Atlantic Flyway. Blackwater is host to over 250 bird species, 35 species of reptiles and amphibians, 165 species of threatened and endangered plants, and numerous mammals that can be spotted throughout the year in Blackwater’s marshes, forests, meadows, and fields. Currently the refuge is home to one of the highest concentrations of nesting bald eagles on the Atlantic coast.

Robert Sullivan is a documentary, landscape, and portrait photographer, with a passion for night photography, including the night sky. Since studying film and photography in college, his career path has taken many twists and turns, before finally settling on what he loves most and feels he should have been doing all along: working as a full-time photographer.

His photographs have won many awards and have been displayed in numerous galleries and museums. He also teaches, tutors, and runs workshops dedicated to helping photographers develop new skills and enhance their creativity. Find Robert at workingimagephotography.com.

For details and registration for this workshop and additional activities at the Dorchester Center for the Arts, visit online at www.dorchesterarts.org. As the designated County Arts Council for Dorchester, DCA is committed to increasing access to the arts for all members of our community by supporting extensive outreach and educational opportunities in the arts. Programs at DCA are supported by the Maryland State Arts Council. Find us on Facebook.

Sabrent, one of the leading manufacturers of storage solutions, has just announced its latest dual III SATA and RAID docking station. The Sabrent DS-2BCR offers a combination of USB Type-C ports that enable ultra-fast data transfer speeds and a front USB 3.0 type-A port for added versatility. The device has two removable HD trays to accommodate either 3.5-inch or 2.5-inch SATA drives and supports up to 6TB of storage capacity, making it an ideal solution for photographers, videographers, digital content creators or anyone looking to expand their data storage capabilities.  

The Sabrent DS-2BCR has several features designed to enhance performance and reliability. Built-in cooling fans ensure your disks remain at optimal operating temperatures while its locking key prevents the accidental removal of HD trays in operation. 

When using the USB Type-C connector, users can effortlessly transfer files at 1000 MB/s speed – meaning performance will never be an issue when accessing large files or streaming media from connected disks. Also included is support for RAID 0, 1, JBOD (sequential) and single-mode systems depending on individual user requirements.  

Given its diverse array of ports and connectors (USB Type-C, USB 3.0 Type A), this device can also be used to read and write CFast 2.0 cards at speeds up to 550 MB/s as well as SD UHS-II cards with speeds of up to 270 MB/s in real-time without any extra computers/devices required – which further adds to its usefulness and convenience factor for end users handling multiple tasks simultaneously. 

In terms of system compatibility requirements, wise owners need only Windows, Mac or Linux operating system, plus a USB 3 port(Type–C).  

The Sabrent DS-2BCR looks promising both from the feature set point of view and in terms of price, considering all that has been packed in, making it well worth a more in-depth look, especially considering the size of the image and video files captured by today’s cameras.

The SATA RAID docking station provides imaging professionals and enthusiasts with many benefits, including faster transfer rates with the USB Type-C connection. While USB Type-C is required for optimal performance, the DS-2BCR is backwards compatible. 

If you are looking for a next-generation drive to store and transfer data, then the Sabrent DS-2BCR looks like a great choice. There’s plenty of innovative features. We’ll bring you a full review soon, but for now check out SABRENT USB Type-C To Dual 3.5” SATA and Raid Docking Station

with CFast/SD Card Readers and USB Type-A Port (DS-2BCR)

Turning a hobby into a self-published book, North Augustan Bob Pyle took his camera to showcase the landscape of the Augusta area.

Pyle found his way to landscape photography in the 1970s. He decided to focus on his hobby and spent 13 years collecting images to share in his new book Georgialina Images, which features nature landmarks in North Augusta, Augusta and Aiken.

“I kind of like having the idea of something to publish with your name on it, it’s kind of neat,” Pyle said

Pyle photographed a variety of locations including Aiken’s Hopelands Gardens, Brick Pond Park in North Augusta and the Augusta River Canal in Georgia. Small paragraphs detail the history and impacts of the properties.

Pyle worked on the project for 18 months and published over 100 images from the region. He wanted to share some of the beauty with his loved ones.

“I think this will have mainly regional and local appeal,” he said. “What I am really trying to do is get the book out there and let people see it and enjoy it.”

The book can be purchased for $32 at four locations throughout the region: North Augusta Arts and Heritage Center, The Morris Museum of Art, Sacred Heart Cultural Center and Augusta Canal.

Samantha Winn covers the cities of North Augusta and Augusta, with a focus on community oriented business and events. Follow her on Twitter:@samanthamwinn and on Facebook and Instagram:@swinnnews.

Photographing the night sky can be challenging and technical, but also incredibly rewarding and fascinating. There’s so much to learn about when it comes to night sky photography, and if you’re a total beginner, a good place to start is our 10 quick tips on how to get started with astrophotography (opens in new tab).

Aside from learning all the different types of astrophotography, there’s also the gear. For the greatest success, you’ll need the best camera for astrophotography (opens in new tab) and the best lenses for astrophotography: (opens in new tab) ideally wide-angle options with a fast maximum aperture so that you can gather as much light as possible.

I have been trying to photograph the southern French Alps in the autumn for two years. The process is quite long because it requires a lot of work upstream from me. I try to spot the landscapes in the summer while the roads and trails are still clear and then I use GPS positions to go back during fall.

The weather remains the biggest problem and sometimes requires me to adapt my schedule or unfortunately cancel the hike. I use a lot of google earth to plan a road map, a maximum of 15 days ahead and I go!

Most of the time, I can’t make the pictures I wanted: weather problem, snowy road, bad light… There is a whole bunch of parameters to be taken into account. That’s why I give myself 5 years to try to capture the most beautiful spots of the southern Alps before moving to other places in the French, Swiss and Italian Alps.

I try to stay true to the atmosphere and my post-process is limited to working on contrast and colors. I do not change the sky neither do I stretch the mountains. I find it quite absurd…

I have been trying to photograph the southern French Alps in the autumn for two years.

The process is quite long because it requires a lot of work upstream from me. I try to spot the landscapes in the summer while the roads and trails are still clear and then I use GPS positions to go back during fall.

The weather remains the biggest problem and sometimes requires me to adapt my schedule or unfortunately cancel the hike.

I use a lot of google earth to plan a road map, maximum 15 days ahead and I go!

Most of the time, I can’t make the pictures I wanted: weather problem, snowy road, bad light… There is a whole bunch of parameters to be taken into account.

That’s why I give myself 5 years to try to capture the most beautiful spots of the southern Alps before moving to other places in the French, Swiss and Italian Alps.

I try to stay true to the atmosphere and my post process is limited to working on contrast and colors. I do not change the sky neither do I stretch the mountains. I find it quite absurd.

About David Bouscarle

I was born in Cavaillon in 1980 and grew up during the first ten years of my life in Arles. At the age of eleven, my parents returned to settle in my native region, the Luberon.

At that age, I was already very drawn to the artistic world and until I was 22, I played the guitar and several other instruments assiduously. I put my first foot in the picture following the birth of my first son. I buy a camera very quickly in order to capture all these precious moments.

Sensitive to the atmospheres and the subtle lights of my region and the Alps, native region of my grandparents where I go frequently, I very quickly begin to be attracted by landscape photography, although my young years spent in the city inevitably rub off on my eyes and also gives me a taste for lines and other urban forms.

It was not until 2012 that I decided to seriously equip myself. Living in Carpentras, I made my debut by surveying the slopes of Mt Ventoux, my favorite playground. My vision of nature and my environment are now inseparable from my photographic work, capturing these ephemeral atmospheres and these fleeting lights has become for me vital, like therapy.

You can find David Bouscarle on the Web:

Copyrights:
All the pictures in this post are copyrighted to David Bouscarle. Their reproduction, even in part, is forbidden without the explicit approval of the rightful owners.

Close Enough: New Perspectives from 12 Women Photographers at Magnum presents an immersive installation with multiple layers of photographs and moving images that foreground human relationships. Bringing gender to the forefront, the exhibition probes the boundaries of proximity and asks what is “close” for photographers today, and what are the strategies that elicit this intimacy? The responses unfold the complex gender dynamics that women experience behind the camera. 

In Hannah Price’s “City of Brotherly Love” (2010), striking portraits of male strangers are the result of a game of attraction between Price and the men who initially approach her by catcalling. Proximity here is about an exchange that is not financial but deeply psychological, if not disturbing. Similarly, Cristina de Middel enters the intimate space of sexual transactions in “Gentlemen’s Club” (2015), a tight grid of portraits through which the artist records the stories of men involved with sex workers, pushing herself to cross a boundary that she describes as precarious. As viewers, we look at these portraits as if through a periscope, entering an underground space that the photographer has set out to bravely excavate. 

If the encounter is with another woman, the collaboration can be as playful as transgressive. “You allowed me to look at you so I could understand myself better,” says Bieke Depoorter to her sitter-become-friend, Agata. The boundaries between inside and outside collapse in this extraordinary installation where photographs and animated stills are punctuated with intimate writing. A process of identification culminates with a video of the two women dancing together, and the photographic frame dissolves.

Close Enough opens a narrative dimension that is relational in content and form. Lua Ribeira’s personal involvement with Spanish youth engaged with trap and drill music is evident in her series Agony in the Garden (2022), which unravels an epochal narrative of precarity as her subjects perform pain and ecstasy. In A Room of Her Own, Susan Meiselas animates photographs of interiors with short sentences that run on small monitors and convey the emotions experienced by victims of domestic violence. Newsha Tavakolian also plays with language boundaries by drawing an analogy between the hormonal state of PMS and the political state of her country, Iran. “There is no filter,” she says, “between you, your body, and the rest of the world.” 

The show excels at representing personal stories where stills are layered onto moving images, where the cinematic anticipation of future events is in dialogue with the photographer’s past. As these women provocatively show, photography as a relationship is about transitions, collaborations, reflections, and is, by necessity, fluid and evolving.

Close Enough: New Perspectives from 12 Women Photographers at Magnum continues at the International Center of Photography (79 Essex Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan) through January 9. The exhibition was curated by Charlotte Cotton.