One of the more common questions she’s asked at the Lambton County Archives is how to preserve memorabilia, Nicole Aszalos says.
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“We all have our own archives at home,” the archivist and archives supervisor said. “We have images of us as children, adults and our grandparents — all of that.”
She’s one of two speakers appearing at the Judith and Norman Alix Art Gallery this month for Art & Ideas talks, tying in with the museum’s current 10th anniversary Re View exhibition.
The first Nov. 4-Jan. 21 exhibition in the year-and-a-half series includes a look at the photography of J.S. Thom, who built the 1893 Thom building that’s housed the gallery for the past decade.
Aszalos’ Nov. 17 talk, Archiving Memories, is billed as delving into the evolution of different photography technology types, including those Thom used, and what’s known about how they degrade over years and strategies for helping make them last.
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“We all have those meaningful documents and photos and items to us that we want to preserve,” Aszalos said.
Tintype photography, for instance, will show embossed fingerprints after decades while acetate negatives are inherently self-destructive, she said.
Still, there are strategies to get around some of those shortcomings, she noted.
“To still preserve them (for a while), even if it’s not ideal.”
A second Art & Ideas talk featuring heritage planner Jack Mallon is set for Nov. 24.
His session will focus, in part, on the evolution of the Thom building’s renovations for the gallery, which incorporated Victorian and modernist styles, a gallery news release stated. Mallon is also expected to discus the 1953 Sarnia tornado, its impact on downtown commercial Victorian architecture and the subsequent urban renewal, the release added.
Both free talks begin at 7 p.m., and people can register at jnaag.ca, under the Lecture Series: Art & Ideas section.
Veteran Globe photojournalist John Tlumacki has covered everything from the joyous fall of the Berlin Wall to the unthinkable carnage of the Boston Marathon bombings. Try to put yourself in his shoes for a moment.
“Photography can be so mean,” says Tlumacki, a two-time Pulitzer finalist. “For your whole life and career, you embrace it. Each photo you hope tells a story. But as a photojournalist, sometimes the photos become emotional baggage that pull you down into depths never felt before.”
Tlumacki befriended some of the victims of the Marathon tragedy, who thanked him for recording history. But the trauma he witnessed also seared into his soul.
“The photographs I took of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings just didn’t end up on my camera disks, but they have been stored in my mind forever,” he says. “On really bad days, they come back to haunt me, and other times, they remind me of how fragile life is.”
Still, photography is amazing. At a fraction of a second, it forever freezes a moment in time. It can then be savored and studied. Television, on the other hand, is fleeting. It is viewed and then disappears.
When The Boston Daily Globe started publishing 150 years ago, the paper was as gray as a winter’s day. Each edition had tens of thousands of words — and no photographs. Over the years, drawings, cartoons, formal portraits, and, finally, news photographs were included.
One of the early news photos was a three-second time-exposure of lightning. It appeared on Page 8 of the Globe on October 5, 1898, next to a recipe for stewed potatoes and vanilla fingers.
Slowly, the newspaper began to evolve. On April 13, 1908, the Globe ran a photograph from the Great Chelsea Fire, spanning the entire width of the front page. About two years later, it published a photograph of Halley’s Comet and called it a “pretty good spectacle.” Long before motor-driven cameras, news photographers hauled around 4 by 5 Speed Graphic cameras — bulky contraptions that require the film to be exposed one frame at a time — so they had to make every shot count.
The craft was often passed down from generation to generation. Photographer LeRoy Ryan worked for the Globe and The Boston Post for 42 years. Before he retired, he hand-crafted several black metal dodging tools for his son David, a full-time Globe photographer since 1975, and others to use in the darkroom.
Former photography chief Bill Brett began his distinguished Globe career as a newsboy hawking papers on a Dorchester street corner. Sports photographer Frank O’Brien started as a messenger in advertising and then revolutionized the sports section with unique features that captured more than just the game. Feature photographer extraordinaire Ulrike Welsch, the first female photographer on the staffs of the major Boston newspapers, and Ted Dully, who left all his worldly possessions to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston, dominated Globe front pages in the ‘70s and early ‘80s with stunning, uplifting images.
These photographers would each hold court in the large community darkroom, teaching the next generation of Globe photographers their craft.
Today, there’s no more darkroom. No chemical-stained fingernails from sloshing prints in the developer. Photographers now transmit their digital photos from a laptop anywhere they choose.
Today’s staff is perhaps the best ever. Jessica Rinaldi won a Pulitzer in 2016 and Erin Clark and Craig F. Walker were finalists within the last few years. At the most recent Patriots’ Super Bowl victory in 2019, the three photographers on hand for the paper — Barry Chin, Jim Davis, and I — had more than a century of experience combined.
In the early stages of the pandemic, despite the editor’s concern for their health, Globe photographers went into the hospitals, nursing homes, and funeral homes to document this horrific disease. Half of them became infected with COVID-19.
What follows in this special issue is an eclectic mix of photographs from this multitalented group, culled from the Globe’s archives. Each of these images tells a story, as only a photojournalist could tell it. Two of these photographs, by director of photography Bill Greene and staff photographer Suzanne Kreiter, respectively, are personal favorites.
The Greene photograph shows snowflakes kissing the faces of the “Lost Boys of Sudan” — orphans of war, safely sheltered here in Boston. The Kreiter image features a young Syrian refugee playing in an empty cardboard box in her new apartment. Both images magically capture something that we yearn to see more of in these troubled days: Joy.
Explore some indelible images by Globe photographers:
1908 — By Boston Globe staff
Damage is surveyed in the aftermath of the Great Chelsea Fire. At first glance, this could be showing the destruction of Dresden in World War II. The graininess of the photograph only adds to the misery contained within it.
1933 — By Boston Globe Staff
Boys playing baseball on Boston Common in February. Every inch of this frame, with every single kid engaged, has something to be savored. The brownstones surrounding the Common look the same today, but this is the age of the Boston scally cap.
1926 — By Hugh E. O’Donnell
Police pour illicit liquor down an East Cambridge sewer during Prohibition. Like fine wine (but not rot-gut whiskey), photos like this get better with age. For photographers, access is everything, and these officers clearly love getting their picture taken.
1960 — By Ed Kelley
John F. Kennedy gives a speech at the Boston Garden on the eve of the 1960 presidential election. This photo, which captures every detail of that historic moment, was once lost, and eventually found lying on the floor between two file cabinets.
1961 — By LeRoy Ryan
Young residents in Winthrop play a hazardous game with violent waves during a winter storm. It’s a safe bet to say LeRoy Ryan got sopping wet from the ocean spray, his hands numb; this was probably his only frame before the kids started clowning for the camera.
1964 — By Bob Dean
Access was better in the ‘60s, even for The Beatles. “In those days you were welcomed at concerts,” Dean said in a 1984 interview. “You could move around anywhere you wanted backstage, front stage, onstage.” Today, news photographers usually get to take photos for three songs only.
1965 — By Paul Connell
Martin Luther King Jr. addressed a joint session of the Massachusetts Legislature that year. Instead of a headshot that could be from anywhere, Connell went slightly behind Dr. King and used a wide angle to show the Legislature.
1965 — By Dan Goshtigian
Celtics legend Bill Russell grabs a rebound during a game against the Los Angeles Lakers at the Boston Garden. Sometimes one perfectly composed frame can capture the essence of a man’s career. You can feel the energy as Russell rips down a rebound against the hated West Coast rivals.
1969 — ByDonald C. Preston
A woman walks under the elevated line on Washington Street in 1969. This is a classic time-capsule picture: shadows and light, misty sunlight, strong composition. You can almost hear the train coming.
1972 — By Ulrike Welsch
A construction worker carries a tree at a dizzying height atop 1 Beacon Street. Welsch wore a miniskirt to work that day, but rushed to Woolworth’s to buy slacks. Armed with an ultra-wide 20-millimeter lens, she wrapped her left arm around a pole and took the picture one-handed.
1972 — By Frank O’Brien
Boston Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey, left, consoles a sobbing Carlton Fisk after losing to the Detroit Tigers in a critical game. “Yawkey glared at me the whole time because Fisk was a rookie,” O’Brien told me. “He called me the next day and apologized.”
1974 — By George Rizer
Firefighters worked to put down a fire aboard a plane at Logan Airport. The lesson here is never argue with law enforcement. Rizer was threatened with arrest by a state trooper when he arrived at the airport. Wasting no time, he ran upstairs to the observatory. He placed his camera on a railing because of the slow shutter speed and the cold truth that news photographers hate to lug tripods.
1978 — By David Ryan
Cars are stuck on Route 128 in aftermath of the Blizzard of 1978. To get a shot like this from a helicopter, photographers typically set their shutter speed at 1/1,000th of a second to minimize vibrations.
1981 — By Frank O’Brien
Larry Bird smokes Red Auerbach’s cigar after the Celtics defeated the Houston Rockets to win the NBA Championship. “It was kind of bizarre,” O’Brien recalls. “Larry yanked the cigar out of Red’s mouth and put it in his mouth. To me the whole thing was disgusting.”
1982 — By Wendy Maeda
Jim Rice carries 4-year-old Jonathan Keane into the Red Sox dugout after he was injured by a line drive at Fenway Park. In baseball, photographers have to be ready for the unexpected. Rice is a Hall of Famer, but for many fans, this is his greatest moment.
1982 — By John Tlumacki
A firefighter runs from the intense flames as two triple-decker homes burn in Dorchester. This falls under the “shoot and scoot” philosophy of photojournalism. Tlumacki was able to make three frames before he was driven back by the searing heat.
1982 — By Ted Dully
A woman walks near the Christian Science Center in Boston after a spring snowstorm. The swirling snow, the energy of the hardy soul, and the beauty of Boston all come together in a beautiful wide angle composition. You can feel the cold, clean air.
1983 — By Jim Wilson
Marines in Delaware honor their comrades killed in a terrorist bombing in Beirut, Lebanon. This photograph was taken by longtime Globe photographer Jim Wilson, who passed away earlier this month. Behind his camera, there was always a smile.
1984 — By Stan Grossfeld
Migrant workers cross the Rio Grande between Mexico and Texas to find work. To make this picture, I waded into the river with a wide angle lens on my camera. The workers were apprehensive. “Yo loco en la cabeza,” I told them in broken Spanish, meaning “I’m crazy in the head.” They embraced me like a brother.
1984 — By John Tlumacki
Patriots fans, ashamed to show their faces, sit motionless in the stands during the final game of the season. Photographers should not just be cheerleaders for the home team. If the team stinks, find a way to show the smell.
1986 — By Joanne Rathe
Youths mourned a Black community leader who had been killed in South Africa before he and other anti-apartheid activists were to meet with an official from the US State Department. What makes this telephoto-lens photo so compelling is the faces, which tell the story, and the mood and the light.
1986 — By Janet Knott
Christa McAuliffe’s parents and her sister reacted after hearing that a malfunction had taken place after the Space Shuttle Challenger’s liftoff of Cape Canaveral. The Challenger exploded, killing all astronauts. “Mayhem in the spectator stands ensued as all reacted with horror and disbelief,” says Knott, who kept shooting. Then the problem was getting the picture back to the Globe. She went to the airport, only to find out the flight to Boston was canceled. She begged the Orlando Sentinel to use their darkroom and transmitted her pictures from there.
1989 — By John Tlumacki
November 11, 1989: People celebrate on a section of the Berlin Wall, at Potsdamer Platz, after its opening. Patience, patience, patience: Tlumacki waited for the perfect composition and then fired. Amateur photographers ask, “How many pictures did you take?” The answer is as many as you need.
1990 — By Michele McDonald
Jo-Anna Rorie, a midwife, attends to a patient at Dimock Health Center in Roxbury in a photo taken as part of reporting on racial disparities in the infant mortality rate. Developing trust between the subject and the photographer is critical. If you are honest and sincere, people will let you into their lives.
1992 — By Yunghi Kim
A press card is no protection in a foreign land. Yunghi Kim and former Globe reporter Wil Haygood were taken hostage by a rebel group in Somalia. When the rebels weren’t watching her, Kim shot photographs, at great personal risk. “She is as brave as they come,” Haygood says. After intervention from the United Nations and the aid group CARE, they were released.
1993 — By Bill Greene
Volunteer Pam Christian in Des Moines, Iowa, after working on sandbags during the Great Flood of 1993 along the Mississippi River. A great photograph can capture elements of emotion, composition, and light to bring awareness to disasters in a way statistics never can.
2001 — By Bill Greene
A week after arriving in the United States, two orphans from Sudan marvel at the snow near where they live with their foster family. When Bill Greene checked the Doppler radar and saw a snow squall was forecast, he called the foster family and asked if he could come over to visually record the special moment.
2002 — By Barry Chin
Tom Brady spikes the ball after scoring a touchdown in the home playoff game that became known as the “Snow Bowl,” en route to the Super Bowl. Photographers root for snow over rain: It’s prettier, it makes better pictures, and it is easier to keep your cameras working.
2002 — By Jim Davis
For this historic shot from the Super Bowl, Davis chose his spot wisely, behind the lineman but ahead of kicker Adam Vinatieri. It’s easy to get blocked out by referees, TV camera people, players, and others. Davis also resisted the urge to follow the ball and kept his lens on Vinatieri, proving that sometimes reaction is better than action. Vinatieri’s 48-yard field goal sealed the Patriots win against the St. Louis Rams, 20-17.
2003 — By Jonathan Wiggs
In Iraq, Wiggs used a low camera angle to capture the pain of relatives finding the bodies of loved ones who were executed under Saddam Hussein’s reign, a dozen years earlier. “One day you’re in a America and comfortable and the next day you’re at a mass grave with people killed by a murderous regime,” Wiggs recalls. “It was a horrific scene just seeing the inhumanity and the grief of the loved ones. It still lives with me.”
2004 — By Barry Chin
Red Sox catcher Jason Varitek and Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees tangle during a bench-clearing brawl. This moment lit a fire under the Boston team, which eventually went on to win the World Series. The old saying “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” holds true here: For Sox fans, this iconic image elicits happiness; for Yankee fans, pain.
2004 — By John Bohn
Jason Varitek, Keith Foulke, and Doug Mientkiewicz celebrated after winning the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals. John Bohn positioned himself high above the third-base side and used a long telephoto lens to record the end of the Curse of the Bambino. Afterward, the Globe team scooped up dirt from home plate with the blessings of their gracious St. Louis hosts.
2008 — By Essdras M Suarez
A 6-year-old who was on a respirator through a tracheotomy showed off some ballet moves while attending summer camp in Newton. Suarez captured this remarkable child’s spirit by using soft window light and a beautiful composition that gives her room to move.
2011 — By Jim Davis
Davis knew that the Bruins captain Zdeno Chara would be the first to get to hold the Stanley Club. He set his shutter speed to 1/640th of a second on his 500mm lens and waited patiently. “I’m not a technical guy,” Davis says. “You anticipate the moment, follow him, and push the button.”
2013 — By John Tlumacki
Police officers react to an explosion at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, while runner Bill Iffrig, 78, remains on the ground from a previous explosion. The blast from the terrorist attack tossed the camera Tlumacki was using in the air. This is the epitome of a dedicated news photographer, firing off frames instead of fleeing.
2014 — By Pat Greenhouse
Erin Vasselian receives a flag at the Abington gravesite of her husband, Marine Sergeant Daniel Vasselian. Daniel Vasselian was killed in Afghanistan two days before Christmas. Pat Greenhouse showed respect by using a telephoto lens and a high ISO speed. “I would not have used flash under any conditions,” she recalls. “It would have been disruptive.” The results are a moving portrait that shows a widow’s grief and the pain of war.
2015 — By Jessica Rinaldi
Pedestrians walk through a maze of snowbanks in downtown Boston amid a historically snowy winter. Here, the size of the T sign, the gigantic piles of snow, and the half buried pedestrians make for a unique image.
2016 — By Lane Turner
Deontae McLeod-Annon, left, 16, and Tina Samson, 17, share a moment on a trolley on the Mattapan-Ashmont High-Speed Line. A good photographer is like a tiny fly on the wall, but with a camera. Invisible.
2016 — By Keith Bedford
A girl cheers near the end of the Independence Day celebration at the Hatch Shell, along the Charles River Esplanade. Sometimes in photography, less is more. With hundreds of thousands of fans to choose from, Keith focused on just one to frame the event perfectly.
2017 — By Suzanne Kreiter
Abdulkader Hayani, a refugee from Syria, sets up a new, donated sewing machine as his youngest daughter, Ameeneh, plays in the box it came in. Capturing happiness in photography is one of life’s greatest gifts. The moment lasts forever and never gets old.
2017 — By Matthew J. Lee
This photo is all about anticipation. Matt Lee saw the police chasing this demonstrator at a “free speech” rally on Boston Common that was meet with a sizable counterprotest in August 2017. “He was cornered and I was thinking what’s his exit route going to be?” Lee says. Lee hustled there first and recorded the moment with a wide-angle lens.
2019 — By Erin Clark
A family in Biddeford, Maine, moved to a campground after being evicted from their home. This photograph has the classic rule of thirds where there are important elements in each section of the photo. But what sets it apart is the sunlight skimming across the mesh of the tent. Minutes later, maybe even seconds, it is gone.
2020 — By Jessica Rinaldi
Funeral director Joe Ruggiero, left, and apprentice funeral director Nick Verrocchi move a casket inside a makeshift storage area at the Ruggiero Family Memorial Home in East Boston. A great photograph takes the viewer someplace they have never been, and in April 2020 Jessica Rinaldi bravely captured the horror of the surging COVID-19 pandemic while protecting the dignity of victims.
2020 — By Craig F. Walker
This is a gift from the photo gods. Walker was driving by Carson Beach in the early days of the COVID pandemic and saw a man encased in a bubble. It was already twilight and a flash would ruin the mood, so Walker adjusted his settings and placed his camera on the ground. He aimed up with a wide-angle lens to take advantage of the open space in the almost nighttime sky.
Stan Grossfeld is a two-time Pulitzer prize-winning photojournalist and an associate editor at The Boston Globe. Send comments to [email protected].
BLUETTI Black Friday Sneak Peek: the best backup solutions on sale for hundred of pounds.The biggest sale of the year is almost here. BLUETTI is kicking off the holiday shopping season on November 11. Beyond tons of great deals on power stations, it also offers Mystery Boxes and Exclusive Giveaways, and even arranges Lucky Draws. Score the following best-buys and freebies now or never.
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Here are the 30 interesting photos showing the beauty of nature’s mysteries. The nature always surprise us with amazing miracles and mysteries. There are so many people always love to capture these hidden things and share with us on the internet. Here in this gallery you can find some amazing and interesting photos.
Scroll down and enjoy yourself. All photos are linked and lead to the sources from which they were taken. Please feel free to explore further works of these photographers on their collections or their personal sites.
#1 Sea sheep are one of the few animals that use algae to photosynthesize
Image Source: u/Bunnystrawbery
#2 This is a rare phenomenon, called ‘cross waves’
Image Source: u/crinnoire
#3 Beach Candy (Sea Rocks)
Image Source: u/Ok_Board_4331
#4 Newborn hedgehog puppies
Image Source: u/therra123
#5 The mossy lava fields of Iceland extend as far as the eye can see
Image Source: u/baiqibeendeleted17x
#6 An armadillo girdled lizard (Ouroborus cataphractus)
Image Source: u/therra123
#7 Close up of the fangs of a rattlesnake (left) and Gaboon viper (right)
Image Source: u/therra123
#9 The endangered wrinkled peach mushroom
Image Source: u/Mericanjoe1776
#10 Sailfish have been clocked at speeds in excess of 68mph/112km, some experts consider the Sailfish the fastest fish in the world’s oceans
Image Source: u/rosseepoo
#11 It looks like half of this building is missing
Image Source: Imgur
#12 This cloud looks like a spaceship that is about to land
Image Source: Imgur
#13 These two strawberries got married
Image Source: Imgur
#14 This pepper wants to fight
Image Source: Imgur
#15 Seedpods or skulls hanging on branches?
Image Source: Imgur
#16 What a lovely owl that is… Wow, it’s a mushroom
Image Source: Imgur
#17 This cliff on the beach has an exposed coal seam
Image Source: Imgur
#18 Different thumbs? Here is one very scientific explanation – This person sucked on one of them while going to sleep, as a child
Image Source: Imgur
#19 A sweet potato with a bird-like form. Or perhaps gods imprisoned it inside this vegetable millennia ago as punishment for rebellion
Image Source: Imgur
#20 This banana looks like it came from another planet
Image Source: Imgur
#21 This tree started growing inside a building, but it wanted to see the sun
Image Source: Imgur
#22 When a person went to get some butter for their bread, a parrot-shaped figure emerged
Image Source: Imgur
#23 There was a hailstorm, and the hailstones were the size of golf balls
Image Source: Imgur
#24 A bumblebee bat, that is. It is recognized as the world’s smallest mammal
Image Source: Imgur
#25 My sister found this tiny egg inside her hard boiled egg
Image Source: Imgur
#26 Some bees decided to make a hive in between the window and the shutters
Image Source: Imgur
#27 This person’s elderberry tree is home to the tiniest frog. Only the face is visible; the body and legs are hardly recognizable
Image Source: Imgur
#28 Newborn pigeons look so different compared to adult birds
Image Source: Imgur
#29 Have you ever seen a cat with 13 little fingers?
Image Source: Imgur
#30 We can’t decide if this moth is beautiful or scary. Can it be both at the same time? One thing is certain -it is mesmerizing
Three Kentucky men are preserving the state’s past through photography.
They’re bringing history to life in a new book called “Abandoned Kentucky,” using cameras and drones to capture abandoned properties across the Commonwealth.
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The book combines words and images to tell the story of long-forgotten locations like the former Merchant’s Ice and Cold Storage Tower in Smoketown.
Award-winning photographers and historians Sherman Cahal, Michael Maes, and Adam Paris traveled thousands of miles across the state to photograph a variety of vacant properties including homes, schools, and cemeteries.
They said the goal of documenting them is to show readers there is more to these sites than what meets the eye.
“We hope that people at least take away from the book that there is beauty in decay, and that there is more behind these walls than what people might envision,” said Cahal, who lives outside of Ashland.
Maes is from Louisville, and believes people are genuinely curious about the mystery behind abandoned properties.
“People try to put those pieces together to tell the story, and if you can do that with your photographs I think a lot of people will respond to that,” he said.
According to the photographers, each page of the book is designed to preserve the memory of a different historical site in case it is torn down in the future.
“What you see today, might not be here tomorrow,” Cahal said.
That is why they believe documenting Kentucky’s history is so important.
“I hope the book gives people an interest and inspiration to just remember the history of where we live,” said Paris, who lives in Owensboro.
All three photographers encourage people who read the book to venture out and find the beauty in the abandoned.
Abandoned Kentucky is available at local bookstores across the state, and is sold online by Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
READ THE FULL STORY:‘Abandoned Kentucky’ book preserves state history through photography
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Tech startup BOOM, which said it wanted to be the “Amazon for photography,” has allegedly failed to pay photographers that it inherited from its acquisition of LemonOne due to financial difficulties.
What are BOOM and LemonOne?
BOOM is a Milan-based tech startup that found early success due to its proprietary technology that allowed companies to purchase photos affordably on a global scale. This technology — which was the basis of a large $7 million investment in 2020 –is based on artificial intelligence and machine learning and allows Boom to supposedly trim down a photographer’s work to the “bare essentials” and handle everything else, from logistics to post-production.
LemonOne was a platform that intended to provide benefits to both photographers and companies. Using its network of professionals and internal technology, it matched companies with photographers to book shoots.
This past January, BOOM purchased LemonOne and the two former competitors became one company. Along with LemonOne’s team, Boom also acquired its network of photographers.
In the last week, PetaPixel became aware of a growing number of photographers who had not been paid by BOOM/LemonOne. Some of these disgruntled photographers have made their opinions known in reviews to LemonOne on Google, while others spoke to PetaPixel directly to air their grievances.
This week, PetaPixel received confirmation that the issue was not isolated to just a few photographers and that, unfortunately, a solution to the problem was not coming soon.
Financial Difficulties
In an email sent on November 9 to LemonOne photographers and seen by PetaPixel, LemonOne’s founders Lorenz Marquardt and Maximilian Schwahn explain what happened in the months after their company’s acquisition.
“Earlier this year, we wanted to take the next big step towards that vision and partnered with BOOM, our former competitor from Italy. As a result, we agreed to a deal for BOOM to acquire LemonOne and in the process, Lorenz and I relinquished our previous responsibilities as founders of LemonOne to the Italians and took on responsibilities in Italy instead,” the cofounders explain.
“Unfortunately, the world has changed in the meantime, with an emerging economic crisis, a war in Ukraine and continued Corona restrictions. Because of this, BOOM, contrary to expectations, was not able to get fresh money from investors and was therefore forced to cease operations of the previous LemonOne platform. In the course of this, all previous LemonOne team members were fired — including Lorenz and me. To our dismay, we have also heard from many photographers that BOOM has stopped paying outstanding invoices.
“In summary, the last few weeks must have been at least as frustrating and painful for you as they were for us.”
Backing up this statement, LemonOne’s website and URL are no longer active and instead reroute to Boom’s website.
The LemonOne cofounders say that this situation goes against everything they personally wanted to achieve with their photography platform and they are working with a provisional insolvency administrator in order to find a solution for photographers, editors, as well as for our customers of what was LemonOne.
“In concrete terms, this means that we can now initially carry out and pay for photo shoots again within the framework of the provisional insolvency proceedings. This means that the provisional insolvency administrator has announced that he will agree to payment for the shoots from 1/11/22 in order to secure our continued existence for the time being,” the email continues.
“Unfortunately, this also means that payments for previous services, including shoots from September and October, must be legally withheld by the provisional insolvency administrator until the insolvency proceedings are concluded. Only then can a distribution be made. The court-appointed preliminary insolvency administrator will contact you again in regards to this.”
The photographers that PetaPixel spoke to fall into that September and October timeframe, which means it does not seem likely that they will be paid for the jobs they were hired to complete for some time as the legal process moves forward.
BOOM did not respond to request for comment. Boom’s Facebook and Instagram accounts have also been deactivated.
Here are the 30 winning photos of Benjamin Mkapa African Wildlife Photography Awards 2022. This year the grand prize winner is Michelle Kranz of Boulder, Colorado, USA for his photo “Mountain Gorilla” captured in Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda.
African Wildlife Foundation is currently aiding the Rwandan government in a pioneering program to accommodate a vulnerable, but growing, mountain gorilla population. The vision is to enlarge gorilla habitat, boost biodiversity, and improve the tourism experience to benefit the great apes and the people who share their backyard.
Scroll down and inspire yourself. Check their website for more information.
You can find more info about MKAPA Awards:
#1 Grand Prize, Winner: Mountain Gorilla By Michelle Kranz of Boulder, USA
#2 Coexistence & Conflict, Winner: Masai Giraffe By Jose Fragozo of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
#3 African Conservation Heroes, Winner: Caregiver Mary Langees and African Elephant Orphan By Anthony Ochieng Onyango of Nairobi, Kenya
#4 African Wildlife At Risk, Winner: Chimpanzee and Baby By Marc Quireyns of Antwerp, Belgium
#5 Fragile Wilderness, Winner: Ostriches | Damaraland By Tomasz Szpila of Bulowice, Poland
#6 Africa’s Backyard Wildlife, Winner: Karoo Prinia on Gate By William Steel of Kasane, Botswana
#7 Art In Nature, Winner: Lesser Flamingos By Paul Mckenzie of Hong Kong
#8 Mobile, Winner: Caracal By Jon Warburton of Zululand, South Africa
#9 Creative Digital, Winner: White-Bellied Pangolin By Prelena Soma Owen of Hartbeespoort, South Africa
#10 African Wildlife Behavior: Winner, Dawn, Dust, and Duel By Vijayram Harinathan of Chennai, India
#11 African Wildlife Portraits, Winner: African Lion By Russ Burden of Parker, Colorado, USA
#12 Youth In Africa, Winner: African Lioness By Jaime Freeman, at age 15, of Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa.
#13 Youth International, Winner: Bare-faced Go-away-birds By Sadie Hine, at age 18, of Mountain View, California, USA
#14 African Wildlife At Risk, Highly Honored: Eastern Gorilla Baby By Tomasz Szpila of Bulowice, Poland
#15 African Wildlife At Risk, Highly Honored: Black-and-white Ruffed Lemur By Xin Zhong of Shanghai, China
#16 Fragile Wilderness, Highly Honored: Rüppell’s Vulture | Jinbar Waterfall By Marco Gaiotti of Genova, Italy
#17 Fragile Wilderness, Highly Honored: Gemsbok | Sossusvlei Salt Pan By Thomas Vijayan of Oakville, Ontario, Canada
#18 Fragile Wilderness, Highly Honored: Stone Coral Reef By Tobias Friedrich of Wiesbaden, Germany
#19 Art In Nature, Highly Honored: Gemsbok By Craig A. Elson of Los Angeles, California, USA
#20 Art In Nature, Highly Honored: Giraffes, Zebras, Ostriches, Springbok, and Gemsbok By Rian van Schalkwyk of Windhoek, Namibia
#21 Creative Digital, Highly Honored: Into the Wild By Elie Wolf of Orlando, Florida, USA
#22 Creative Digital, Highly Honored: Greater Flamingos By Jing Li of Fujian, China
#23 African Wildlife Behavior Highly Honored: African Lions By Alankar Chandra of Maasai Mara, Kenya
#24 African Wildlife Behavior Highly Honored: Cape Starling and African Mantis By Cameron Azad of La Canada, California, USA
#25 African Wildlife Behavior Highly Honored: Southern Masked-Weaver By Michiel Duvenhage of Bloemfontein, South Africa
#26 African Wildlife Portraits, Highly Honored: African Savanna Elephant Calf By Andrew Y. Liu of Austin, Texas, USA
#27 African Wildlife Portraits, Highly Honored: Cheetah Family By Laura Dyer of Cape Town, South Africa and Henley-on-Thames, England, UK
#28 African Wildlife Portraits, Highly Honored: Serval By Michel C. Zoghzoghi of Beirut, Lebanon
#29 Youth In Africa, Highly Honored: Common Tern By Ruben Jenkins-Bate, at age 18, Cape Town, South Africa
#30 Youth International, Highly Honored: Oustlalet’s Chameleon By Lefei Han, at age 15, Shanghai, China
Whether you like snapping photos for the ‘Gram or just keeping a library of memories, a smartphone that can take crisp, vibrant photos should be part of your arsenal.
One of OPPO’s latest midrange devices, the Reno8 Z 5G, fits the bill as a powerful handset that lets you unleash your creativity as you practice your phonetography. Armed with a triple rear camera and a capable Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 5G chip, this midranger packs a punch not only when it comes to pictures, but also for gaming.
Previously, we got our hands on the Reno7 Z, this device’s predecessor, but the Reno8 Z is shaping up to be a more stylish option for those looking for a new phone that won’t break the bank.
Design and specs
The Reno8 Z screams stylish with its frosted matte finish. Our test unit came in the Starry Black colorway, which is ideal for those who want a more muted design for their smartphone. In front is a vibrant 6.43-inch display with an in-screen fingerprint display for easy unlocking.
Despite most phones not having a 3.5mm audio jack anymore, this Reno still has one, making it easy to plug in your handy earphones for music listening and calls.
Under the hood, this device boasts 8GB RAM with 128GB internal storage paired with a 5G-enabled Snapdragon 695 processor. It also has a 4,500mAh battery capable of 33W fast-charging.
Watching videos is a treat on the Reno8 Z. On top of a wide, crisp display, this phone has loud speakers that can fill the room with sound. This makes gaming a treat as well.
After a while of not playing MOBAs, I tried my hand at Arena of Valor with this phone and I could not put it down. Gameplay was free of any hitches or lags and the long battery life allowed me to play for three hours straight before needing a charge.
When I’m not using it to play games, this phone’s battery lasts up to eight hours before reaching low. With the 33W SuperVOOC fast charging capability, it took about a little over an hour to get a full charge.
A cool feature is the Breathing Light, which illuminates the rim of the rear camera lenses when you’re charging or receiving calls.
The Reno8 Z is touted as a portrait star, and like the Reno7 Z, it took clear photos with creamy bokeh. The blur in the background of the photos looks so natural and I was even able to tweak it to be softer or sharper. Even in the maximum blur setting, the bokeh isn’t unnatural.
Meanwhile, for normal photos, the camera—equipped with a 64MP main, 2MP mono, and 2MP macro shooters—excels in well-lit environments. Colors are vivid and details are not washed out.
Selfies with the 16MP front camera are also better under natural light, and while the portrait mode also has nice-looking bokeh, some details look awkward. I had photos where I could see the spaces between my hair weren’t blurred out. It looked like my background was photoshopped.
But what impressed me the most is this phone’s feature-rich in-gallery editing. You could edit different aspects of the photo like erasing messy spots in the shot, changing the blur to put an object in focus, applying filters, and even adding text.
The verdict
The OPPO Reno8 Z 5G is a stylish smartphone that packs a punch as a daily driver. With its cameras and neat photo-editing features, it’s the perfect phonetography buddy. In addition, it’s more than capable for other tasks and as a gaming phone.
The Reno8 Z 5G is available in Dawnlight Gold and Starlight Black for P19,999 at OPPO stores, authorized resellers, and online via Lazada and Shopee.
This article OPPO Reno8 Z 5G REVIEW: Stylish mid-ranger that boosts your creativity in photography was originally published in PhilSTAR L!fe
Brodie Ledford says it was a Christmas gift he’d bought for his wife that led to his career in photography.
The 41-year-old Frederick native always loved video cameras and taking photos, but it wasn’t until he purchased a camera for his wife, Dara, a fine arts major in college with a focus on photography, that he became enamored with the art form.
For their Christmas together after she graduated college, Ledford “went out and bought her a brand new DSLR [digital] camera,” he said.
“The funny thing is, the second she opened it, I started playing with it,” he said during a phone interview. “And that camera then became mine. The rest, as they say, is history. That was nearly 17 years ago.”
Today, Ledford owns Brodie Ledford Studios in Frederick and was recently featured in a photography competition called Creator Series. Ledford was one of 10 photographers selected to be part of the 11-episode series, available to stream online.
In each episode, the photographers were challenged in various aspects of photography, from lighting to composition to posing — and they were given only 10 minutes to get the shot.
The web series, which can be viewed on YouTube, was judged by Canon Explorers of Light photographers: Sal Cincotta, an award-winning wedding and portrait photographer; Laretta Houston, who is known for shooting the Tyra Banks Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition; and Vanessa Joy, a renowned wedding photographer. The series was based in St. Louis, where Cincotta, the show’s producer and host, owns his studio.
Ledford entered the contest after seeing a promo for Creator Series at ShutterFest, a large photography conference. He admits he had reservations about entering a competition that would be broadcast worldwide. He considers himself a private person. But he decided to apply anyway.
After applying, Ledford was then interviewed. His portfolio and online presence also were reviewed before he got to the next round. Then he had a submit a 90-second video that explained “why us.” But after sending in the video, several weeks went by, and Ledford assumed he hadn’t been chosen.
“Then when I finally had lost all hope, I got an email saying ‘congratulations, you’re in,’” he recalled. “I was completely shocked, and I was excited and terrified all at the same time.”
He spent July shooting the series in St. Louis. It premiered online in August.
His biggest adjustment was learning how to use the Canon gear that was required for the series because, of course, it was sponsored by Canon.
Cincotta was each photographer’s assistant throughout the series.
“It’s a little bit intimidating because he’s absolutely fantastic,” Ledford said. “He’s one of those guys who expects the best because he is there as the best, and he’s known to be amazing.”
The photographers being allowed only 10 minutes to shoot their assignments for the day made it all the more challenging. Normally, setting up a studio shot can take up to an hour, Ledford said. “We basically had 10 minutes to pick the gear we wanted, set the shot up, talk to the model about what we were looking for, coach the model and then shoot it.”
Then, the photographers were asked to immediately hand over their memory cards.
It wasn’t until every photographer finished their shoot that the contestants could see the photos they’d shot and work on them further. They got 30 minutes to select and edit the images. But, Ledford said, realistically, by the time he would select his images, he would only have 15 minutes, on average, to edit.
“The images that were created are mind-blowing to me — that it was done in such a short period of time,” Ledford said. “That’s where the challenge was.”
The cards were given to the judges who then selected the best and the worst. Every week someone was sent home.
“My favorite competition was probably the reflections competition,” where a model was reflected in a mirror or window, for example, he said. “Because it was something that was outside of what I would normally do.”
The entire competition, he said, was challenging because it forced the photographers to try a type of photography they normally don’t do every day.
He said the series really showed that there’s more to photography than people realize.
“I think the biggest thing that is difficult for photographers is that people think that the cameras have a magic button because they don’t see the behind-the-scenes stuff,” he said. “People don’t see the editing process. They don’t see all the lighting. They don’t understand setting [the camera] on manual mode, not on auto mode.”
Ledford credits his wife for getting him into photography as a profession, and he dabbled in it while he held a full-time job as a store manager for Best Buy.
“My wife would take my photos, and she would make photo books for me and just keep, you know, pushing me and say, ‘Hey, look, it’s great stuff,’” he said.
He and his wife, who is also a photographer, cofounded Brodie Ledford Studios, and when someone asked if he did weddings, it became his first professional gig. After a while, his wife again encouraged him to take the leap full-time into his new passion.
“I walked away from that life, and I was able to do what I want to do now,” he said. “And it’s unbelievable.”
Ledford’s business is considered a luxury, service-based company, where he focuses on client relationships.
“There are a lot of people out there that take pictures, and there’s a huge difference between a picture taker and a professional photographer,” he said. “I really pride myself on the fact that we focus on the experience for the client, and our clients truly do become like friends and family.”
Lexar has announced the Lexar Professional CFexpress Type A Card Gold Series in 320GB capacity. It’s ideally suited for use in cameras such as the new Sony A7R V and Sony A7 IV which are compatible with CFexpress Type A cards as well as SD-type media.
The new 320GB Lexar CFexpress card is capable of read speeds up to 900MB/s and write speeds up to 800MB/s. It’s also rated as Video Performance Guarantee 400 (VPG 400), which means it has a minimum write speed of 700MB/s and video is captured without any dropped frames. The faster transfer times of the CFexpress Type A cards are required to enable the most advanced video features of compatible cards.
According to Lexar, the new card is temperature-proof and able to withstand an operating temperature range from -10ºC to 70°C (14ºF to 158ºF) and non-operating temperatures from -20ºC to 85°C (-4ºF to 185ºF). The card is also shock resistant and vibration resistant.
Lexar is selling the 320GB CFexpress Type A card bundled with the Lexar Professional CFexpress Type A / SD USB 3.2 Gen 2 Reader.
Lexar Professional CFexpress Type A Card Gold Series 320GB price
The 320GB Lexar Professional CFexpress Type A Gold Series card and Lexar Professional CFexpress Type A/SD Card Reader bundle is available immediately for £499.