SINGAPORE: A new series of tours at Gardens by the Bay will educate visitors on nature and sustainability while revealing hidden gems at the attraction.
Beginning in January and slated to run until 2025, the hour-long tours will take place every Saturday and Sunday, Gardens by the Bay said in a media release on Thursday (Dec 15).
Led by professional guides, the tours will be free for all Singaporeans and Singapore residents. Some itineraries will include access to the cooled conservatories.
“The nature and sustainability tours leverage on Gardens by the Bay as a working model for sustainable development and conservation,” Gardens by the Bay said.
“The series will use real – and often little known – examples at the Gardens to illustrate sometimes complex concepts to the layman.”
January’s tours will have the themes Carbon and Climate as well as Urban Wetlands, while February will see visitors embarking on the Biodiversity and Ecosystems, and Seeds and Senses (Smell) tours.
An Energy and Water tour will also be introduced at a later date along with Touch, Sight and Taste variations of the Seeds and Senses tour.
Snap up a $250 discount on the Panasonic Lumix G100 mirrorless camera this holiday season as Best Buy currently has this on sale for a fantastic price.
The $250 discount (opens in new tab) is a pretty big drop, right before Christmas too, as it’s a fantastic price for this camera. We like this camera a lot, and not just for its discount as it features in our camera deals and our best beginner cameras guides.
This is a camera that’s perfectly suited for amateur photographers, vloggers and those without much previous experience. That doesn’t mean it’s short on quality either as it delivers high-quality specs too. If you are looking for your next camera this holiday season it could also be worth checking out our round-ups of the best cameras, best cameras for astrophotography and best mirrorless cameras.
If you’re looking for an ideal camera for vlogging or producing content, or just a high-quality camera that’s easy to use then this $250 discount (opens in new tab) could be perfect timing. It features 4K video capabilities as well as an in-built mic and subject tracking as well as a video selfie mode and other vlogging features, so it’s ideal for content producers.
It’s great for image shooting too as it features 20.3MP as well as five-axis image stabilization and built-in flash. Because it’s a mirrorless camera it’s compact and lightweight, 412g to be exact, so it’s ideal for on-the-go use. Its design makes it far easier to use than any of the best DSLR cameras and it even comes with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity options.
The holiday season is often a great time to be on the hunt for great camera deals and the size of the discount on this fantastic camera is proof of that. If you’re a vlogger, content producer or just looking for something to deliver professional-looking results on-the-go then this deal could be just what you’re looking for.
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The Natural Landscape Photography Awards are all wrapped up and I’m sitting here compiling the book to go with the 2022 results. I thought it would be interesting to recap on the process and show some of the winners and also some of my own personal favourites from our competition finalists.
Going into the competition this year, we weren’t certain of its success. We had done so well in the first year but we knew that there were many people who had entered to support the business but who might not become regular entrants. Fortunately, the idea of the competition seems to have gained some solid traction, and although were slightly under last year’s submissions, it was only by a small fraction. We had nearly 11,000 photographs submitted from 1,200 photographers representing 55 countries. Due to our success in the first year, we were able to attract sponsors and prize money totalling nearly $40,000.
The Judging
Getting the entries is one thing, but honing these down to a smaller and smaller group until eventually choosing a single winner is another. I’ll give you a spoiler – ultimately, we couldn’t! More on that later though.
For the first round, we went through the images to filter out those that we knew wouldn’t be in the running for the winner of the competition. These were images that had fundamental flaws with composition, technique, etc. One the second run, we had a good idea of the quality of the top 10 or 20 percent of entries and so it became easily to eliminate those that were in the bottom 20-30 percent.
We managed this process by each of the organisers scoring every image and combining those scores together. Images that did consistently well across judges went through to the main judging and images that were a particular favourite of each judge automatically went through as well.
After reviewing the ‘borderline’ images manually to make sure we didn’t miss anything that may have interested the main judges, we compiled a set of images and sent them out to our eight judges.
The Judges
On our panel were a few judges from last year but the majority were new. Our panel was Sarah Marino, Alex Noriega, Sandra Bartocha, Paul Zizka, Orsolya Haarberg, David Thompson, David Clapp and Theo Bosboom. You can find out more about these judges on the NLPA website here.
These eight judges then had the task of reviewing all of these images and giving them a score. We used Lightroom for all of our judging, this allowed judges to go back and review scores and adjust things quickly. They can also zoom in and create panels of images to contrast and compare. Exporting the scores from Lightroom allowed us to compile them into small subset, from which we had a live meeting with all of the judges to pick their personal favourite images for each category. These sessions allowed the judges to get used to image choices and so be familiar with all of the images for the final, live judging round.
And this is where the final decisions get made and everybody’s subjective opinions on what should be the best images collides in an effort to come out with a single objective outcome.
You would think that there would be some general agreement in what makes the best photographs, especially when you get a range of people with a great deal of experience and visual vocabulary. However, art is ultimately subjective and the disagreements and discussions at this final stage of voting were extensive.
Fortunately, for most of the categories we were able to choose a first, second and third place. However, for the photograph of the year, we had a strong split between the four judges that no amount of discussion could break. As the images made a really strong pairing, we decided to try split the award between the two entries. You can see these two below from Jim Lamont and Philipp Jakesch.
Jim Lamont, Canada
The photograph shows the shadow cast by some peaks on the surface of the Lowell Glacier, in Kluane National Park, Yukon Territory, Canada. It was taken on a July morning in 2022 from a Cessna 172 as part of a decades-long project on glaciers. With climate change the Lowell Glacier, like most glaciers in the world, is crumbling into ruin, its surface gradually disappearing beneath dirt and rubble as the ice melts. The image is intended to suggest the wave of destruction that will overwhelm us unless we stop dumping carbon into the atmosphere.
Philipp Jakesch, US
When I decided to visit the volcanic site on the Reykjanes Peninsula, I was uncertain how it would be and how dangerous it was. Luckily we had good conditions and good filters to protect our lungs. The Image called “Ardor” is one of my favourite images from the volcanic series because of the small fragment of this huge area. The blue hour threw ambient blue light on the background layers, with the orange lava standing out even more. The 1,100°C hot liquid earth is frozen in time. Even though my distance to the erupting volcano was about 500 Meters, I could feel the radiating heat with every outbreak.
MAIN CATEGORIES
We changed our categories this year in order to try to differentiate between the intimate landscapes and grand scenics more clearly, and we also introduced an “Abstracts & Details” category, for those less representational and textural images.
Grand Scenic – Kevin Monahan
Our grand scenic winner wasn’t an epic wide angle shot but it definitely worked under the “Grand” heading. The breaking mist on Chimney Rock in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness is sublime but it was the combination of this with the forested foreground that caught the judges interest. The layering effect of the long lens was used effectively to create something a little different and just the right moment of mist was chosen to enhance the final composition.
Kevin Monahan said “For many years I used to get so caught up in capturing the scene I originally had envisioned that I would miss all these other opportunities around me. Once I learned to let go of that, photography became so much more enjoyable and fulfilling. For this backpacking trip in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, one of the photographs I was hoping for was of these mountains reflecting in a calm alpine lake. After hiking 11 miles and climbing close to 5000 feet, I reached the top and realized the chances of capturing that were slim. We were engulfed in fog, couldn’t see anything around us, and there was too much wind.
Throughout the evening and entire night these mountains were hidden and no pictures were taken however during sunrise the clouds finally began to part, revealing these impressive peaks. I decided not to walk down to the lake but instead focus on these two mountains that really commanded the scene and my attention. The conditions were magical but quickly fleeting. Despite this being nothing I originally anticipated, I couldn’t have been happier photographing this scene out in the backcountry.”
Intimate Landscape – Spencer Cox
Our intimate landscape winner bucked the trend for photographs looking like watercolour paintings by looking more like a Romantic Era Oil Paining of a tree line and stormy sky. The elevetated view of the iron stained, turbulent river recalls Constable’s expressive brush strokes and with an aged varnish effect to boot. It’s the way the trees present themselves as viewed from the side, rather than above, which seals the illusion, for me anyway.
Spencer Cox said “When I first saw this scene, the warm, earthy tones of the riverbed reminded me of 19th-century landscape paintings. Even the fierce rapids of the Yellowstone River felt like gentle brushstrokes when viewed from afar.
I knew that I could play with scale and perspective when I composed this photo, as the trees appeared to stand against a cloudy sky rather than a swirling river. It can be a difficult photograph to parse without a second look.
This photo breaks many of the supposed ‘rules’ of landscape photography. It uses midday sunshine rather than Golden Hour light. The main subjects—the spindly trees along the riverbank—are at the bottom of the frame near the corner. And, to take the photo, I pointed straight downward from the edge of a canyon, not forward at a classic scene.
These unusual factors, though, are what give the photo its personality. I’ve always loved searching for offbeat, intimate views of nature like this wherever I go. It can be the best way to tell the story of a landscape.”
Abstracts & Details – Mieke Boynton
One of the standout images from the competition in my opinion, and of quite a lot of international press it seems (it featured pride of place in Der Spiegel print edition!), Mieke’s aerial is more representational than abstract in presentation but it’s the pareidolic effect which draws attention the most. The shape of the sandy beach and black steam bed broken by fresh sand, the promintory of a nose and black sand mouth builds the convincing shape of a serene female face.
Mieke Boynton said “This photo, “Ocean Deity”, means so much to me. It was a gift. And she has a deeper meaning… if you look closely, her eyes have been “sewn shut” by tyre tracks. More than 6,000 marine turtles live in Gutharraguda/Shark Bay, including the globally endangered green turtle (Chelonia mydas) and loggerhead turtle (Caretta caretta). When people drive along the beach in 4WDs, they put the lives of turtles at risk, as this is where they nest.”
Some Personal Favourites
I’ve spent the last couple of weeks getting the bulk of our second book designed and I’d like to share a some of my favourite images from it. Apart from Brian Pollock’s photograph, which came first in the Frozen Worlds category and Eduardo Blanco Mendizaba, who came second in the Nightscape category, none of the other images placed. Hopefully you can see why the book is so important to us as there are so many other great images that wouldn’t get any exposure without it. It may take a lot of work but I think people enjoy it.
Our next book is being printed on the 15th of January and we’ll be taking discounted pre-orders in the new year (join our mailing list to keep updated). We’re using a printers near my parents home and I’ll be able to work on press during it’s printing. Joe Cornish, Alex Nail and others I know have used the printers so I’m very confident we’ll have a product ready to ship around mid-February. If you would like to see more images from the competition, take a look at the galleries at the Natural Landscape Awards website.
Lawrence Pallant
In a stunning example of complex composition, Lawrence has recognised the potential of a scene and found the perfect position that allows all of it’s elements to play a part in a coherent, if complex, whole. The key two trees in the centre, lean over the central smaller tree as if in a dance. The two smaller trees on the left bow in their presence. All of this would still appear off balance if it weren’t for the reaching arms of the maple on the far left. Even the right side is ‘closed’ nicely by the spiralling trunk of the last tree. And we haven’t even mentioned that glorious colour of sandstone, desert varnish and dogwood. A textbook example of resolving complexity
Eduardo Blanco Mendizaba
We presume that in order to enter the competition Eduardo must have survived his encounter with his volcano but the apparent proximity still leaves me in some doubt. The volcanic bombs spray like a fountain in front of the camera and the background littered like a aerial scene of a Dresden memory. It’s the few stripped trees that give some sense of the epic scale of what we can see though. A truly sublime scene.
Andy MacDougal
Building an engaging wide panorama is not simple. To create something that moves beyond a literal snapshot requires that the photograph has multiple engaging components and then stitches them into a whole. Andy’s use of the visually intruiging circular melt holes in the snow covered ice is a great major theme linking the left and right sides. The sweep of the foreground closes the left corner. The promintory with a small bog myrtle bush and break in the ice crerates a focus mid point. The hollow of the glaciated valley behind the moorland finishes your journey across the picture.
Josh Glaister
Looking up through a wintery tree allows each branch to appear outlined in snow. The illusion separates and emphasises each stroke of a branch, creating a filigreed abstraction. The composition makes great use of this effect, the main branch boldly arching over the left and top and the smaller branches filling the spaces below.
Pete Hyde
Most of this photograph is playing a supporting role, a canvas onto which the frost limned hole through which a rich brown fern frond peeks. The fine needles of the hoar frost reach to close the gap, set off against the dark of the hole. The background isn’t plain though, there’s enough texture and pattern to keep our interest; an edge of ice sweeps left from the elliptical hole and larger frost needles grow above.
James Rodewald
The meaning of “Photography” is “Writing with Light” and what a brilliant example of that we have here. The reflection of what I think is the moon dances in the darkness, dragging a pyramidal light trail across the sensor. The top half of the image just about reveals the canvas to be the side of a flowing river. Amazing what you can do with a four year old phone camera (Galaxy S9)!
Louis Ouimet
It’s often been said that you can consider a forest scene as an environmental portrait, imbuing the trees with an animus and interpreting their relationships as part of their expressive nature. Here we see a collection of aspen clustered together like penguins in the cool light of a snow storm. In reality, the aspen cluster because they are all a single organism, trunks sprouting from rhizomatic roots to help protect the whole against poor environmental conditions. Whichever story you read into a picture, it still needs to stand on it’s aesthetics and this moodily lit, winter photograph does just that.
Jason Pettit
As the top, bleached layer of wood on this tree dries and shrinks, it cracks to reveal the richly coloured, fresh wood beneath. It’s the sweeps and curves of the grain of the wood and the geometric cracking that create the visual intrigue though, an angular mandala.
Richard Fox
A simple scene of low, late winter sunlight striking across a misty tree clad hillside stands out because of the range of visual interest at play. The scene layers itself from open foreground to mist hidden far distance with rolling banks of trees hidding a disappearing as we move back in the frame. Each area holds something unique to linger on, from a small plantation to a partly seen farmhouse.
Mauro Tronto
This isolated patch of birch trees appears to have lost its leaves all at once, almost too many for that small group. Mauro has desaturated blues of the mist and background to enhance the autumnal colours but it’s the contrast of the intense yellow and black soil and rock that plays the main role.
Brian Pollock
If we wanted to be picky, there are a few ‘flaws’ in this composition; the band of hillside covers the mountains in the background; the foreground snow is ‘messy’; the main tree sits a bit too far to the right. This just proves that the whole is often more than its parts. This image just works, and works exceptionally well. The judges were entranced by the light on the main scots pine, intrigued by the glimpse of mountains beyond and drawn in by the natural balance of the composition.
Julien Parrot
A vast behemoth creeps out of the forest like an extra from Stranger Things. Julien’s photograph makes a rare representation of the rainforest, as can be noitced from the palm trees at the bottom right. The success of the image comes from that theatrical lighting illuminating the old growth tree in the center of the image. The front limb looks to be stepping forward, about to push the triple limbed sapling aside.
David Kingham
With a flat, grey sky, many photographers might relax for the day – putting the urgency aside for a possible evening light show. But there’s no such thing as bad light, even for the grand scenic genre. It does mean that your photo has to work even harder compositionally and that is what David’s has done here. The bracketing right had aspens on a curved grassy bank; the sweep of conifer blending into more aspen on the left and behind the closest aspen sits the start of a bank of mountain range, rendered in subtle tans and pinks
Veronica Arcelus
The intensely rich, golden light on the trees in the background and bleached white of the trunks in the foreground suggest some dramatic post processing steps but the raw shows that this is just a case of a bit of added contrast to set off the beautifully composed, remarkable subject set off by that majestic lighting. The layering of the background as it transitions from groups of trees to illuminated tree tops and finally to the hillside of fully illuminated golden trees draws the eye through the background.
Lukas Moesch
Icicles can be fascinating subjects to photograph but they mostly confirm to a small range of shapes. Lukas’ ice forms, folding and draping like cloth, intrigue us about their formation. The layer of hoar frost encasing them add to the textural richness. A mysterious and monochromatic still life image that keeps our interest.
Dorin Bofan
The variety of atmospheric optical phenomena make for a wide range of visually stunning apparations but they rarely make successful photographs. Dorin’s example certainly does though and it achieves this by being building a great photograph around the phenomenon first. The almost black tree clad cliffside acts as a strong vertical mirror to the intense subsun lower pillar, caused by the freezing fog. The dark wooded valley around the pillar makes a perfect frame.
The students wondered how the artist put together the images, especially the 3-D quality that makes it seem like the viewer is looking into a box the doll might come in.
Four photographs by Maple show the artist dressed as a different Disney princess, being active in a realistic, modern-day setting, from Sleeping Beauty performing surgery to the Little Mermaid leading a business meeting whose coworkers can’t look her in the eye.
As a marketing major, Proehl said she could relate to the latter photo.
“I’ve felt like this, like Ariel trying to act in charge,” she said of the fairy tale character who gives up her voice and life in the sea for a prince on land. The witty images “show how women are not seen in the workplace,” Proehl said. “But in these scenes, they’re making a commotion.”
“Disney princesses have such sexist stories,” MacArthur said. “They’re always being saved. But here, they’re in charge. Maple really gets that point across.”
“Remember when we wanted to be Disney princesses?” Proehl said to MacArthur. “Not anymore!” they said, laughing.
MacArthur and Proehl wrapped up their visit and walked down the stairs from the second-floor gallery, where “Power Play” occupies the main room until the winter break. As a troupe of middle schoolers and their teachers passed them on their way up to see the exhibit, Proehl said, “I’m glad these kids are getting exposed to this art.”
If you want the fastest phone, buy an iPhone 14 Pro. If you want the best camera and selfies? DxOLabs says it’s the iPhone 14 Pro. The brightest and most accurate phone screen? Also the iPhone 14 Pro. Now, leaks suggest that Apple’s unchecked dominance could be in jeopardy, as the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra could be the biggest threat the iPhone has faced in years.
We criticize Apple for its walled-garden approach, but that isn’t why people buy the best iPhones, especially not the high-end iPhone 14 Pro. It’s true that Apple services like iMessage, or its iCloud backup, keep users addicted to Apple and feeling unable to leave. If the phones weren’t great, folks would find a way.
Apple phones used to have the coolest design, but Samsung and Google caught up, and who doesn’t wrap their phone in a case anyway? It used to be that Apple phones were so much prettier and sleeker than the competition, anyone interested in style wouldn’t be caught in public carrying anything less. Those days are behind us.
Apple iPhone still has the best cameras, right?
Apple cameras are still the best, but Apple doesn’t pack all of the best cameras into its iPhone. You can snap the best wide and ultrawide shots with the iPhone 14 Pro, but you can’t shoot a 10X optical zoom photo like the Galaxy S22 Ultra, and you can’t make amazing, enhanced astrophotography photos like you can with Samsung’s flagship and the Google Pixel 7 Pro.
Recent leaks of the Galaxy S23 Ultra spec sheet show us that Apple could fall even further behind in the coming year. Samsung is taking no prisoners with its 200MP camera sensor, rumored to be the highlight of the next big phone, launching in February 2023.
Samsung Semiconductor has been making a 200MP sensor for a year, but Samsung Mobile Experience hasn’t included one in a Galaxy phone yet. Motorola sold the Edge 30 Ultra with Samsung’s big sensor, but we’re hearing from unusually enthusiastic leakers that the 200MP camera sensor in the Galaxy S23 Ultra will be a leap ahead of what current phones can produce.
Is the iPhone still the fastest phone you can buy?
Besides the new camera sensor, we already have a good idea how the upcoming Galaxy S23 family will perform. Qualcomm has been bluntly hinting that it will be the exclusive mobile platform for Samsung’s next phone worldwide, leaving behind the underperforming Samsung Exynos.
Some kind folks have benchmarked the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset that the Galaxy S23 Ultra will presumably use, and it performs admirably. Using benchmark tools that work on both iPhone and Android, the next Qualcomm platform comes closer than any previous Snapdragon to matching Apple’s current chipset.
It is not quite a win, and benchmarks are a measurement tool, not a complete picture. Still, the gap between Apple Bionic chips and the Android world was so distant in the past that it wasn’t even close.
This drew more developers to Apple. It ensured fewer complaints of dragging performance by iPhone owners. If Samsung phones run as fast as iPhones and don’t slow down, what will owners complain about? Not much.
What can Apple do to keep winning?
There won’t be one phone to scare Apple, but Apple should be scared. Its dominance in every way is crumbling. In the next year or so, we could see Samsung phones that beat Apple in performance, camera image quality, and who knows how many other new ways? Samsung phones already pack features like stylus support that the iPhone lacks.
We hear that Apple may launch a folding phone, or perhaps an iPad tablet that folds. This is a classic Apple move, especially in the face of a challenge from its biggest hardware competitor. When Samsung changed the market with its humongous Galaxy Note phones, Apple spent years lying in wait before catching up quickly with big phones of its own.
Still, what is the win for Apple in folding phones? Will its phones be the most foldable? How will Apple differentiate any of its new devices in the future, foldable or flat, as competitors finally close the gap on key features and benefits that before went unmatched?
Apple’s walled garden needs a hedge
The walls are crumbling for Apple from all sides. The iPhone is expected to lose its Lightning port in the next generation or so, which will mean the end of contemptibly proprietary accessories.
If your iPhone accessories work just as well with any Samsung or Google phone, you might not feel like you’re stuck with Apple the next time you need a new phone. Losing Lighting in favor of USB-C is great for consumers, and also great for competitors. Apple should be afraid, as another garden wall falls down.
Google is making strides with RCS messaging and other text message adaptations that foil Apple’s iMessage advantage. Even prehistoric features, like phone calls, are seeing improvements on Google Pixel phones that Apple won’t match. Google just launched clear calling AI features on its Google Pixel 7 phones, enabled exclusively by the Tensor G2 chip.
We haven’t seen similar exclusive features enabled by the Apple A16 Bionic chip, just raw performance. Apple has felt comfortable leading the smartphone pack with the fastest phones, the best cameras, and the coolest designs. As those advantages fade, Apple should be worried about remaining stagnant while the competition races ahead.
Before the world shifts on its axis and Apple is suddenly threatened by Samsung, you might want to take a look at some of the best phones of the year, which includes models from, naturally, Apple and Samsung.
New technology allows for venues with pre-existing 360° photography of their space to upload it to the metaverse in minutes for social meets
RendezVerse, the first Metaverse-as-a-Service (MaaS) platform designed specifically for hospitality venues, today launches RV360, which transforms 360° assets into explorable social spaces within the metaverse.
RV360 is a low-cost and straightforward way for hotels and hospitality venues to enter the metaverse in photorealistic environments and offer new ways for customers to explore their space in advance of booking.
The new technology makes use of 360° photography, which many venues already offer on their websites through providers such as Matterport, a RendezVerse developer partner.
RV360’s algorithm processes the existing assets and builds a metaverse-ready version of the space, which can not only be viewed and navigated when wearing a VR headset or flatscreens, but used as a social space to meet with others.
Customers can explore the space in advance of booking, and venue representatives can join them in the metaverse space since the area is on the RendezVerse platform, allowing multiple people to meet using avatars and audio chat.
Peter Gould, CEO, RendezVerse, comments:
“We want to support hotels and events venues in offering the very best experience for their customers and make venue booking, site inspections, and events management much more effortless, less time-intensive, and more profitable.
“The metaverse is a clear solution for this, and RV360 drastically reduces the resources venues need to get started in this virtual world. Since most venues are equipped with 360° photography already, they can now create a VR tour which is low-cost and ready within minutes.”
Mark Brown, COO, RendezVerse, adds:
“The technology needed for people to experience RV360, and for venues to upload their space, is more accessible than ever, with the proliferation of 360° imagery of venues and consumer VR headsets or mobile adaptors.
“This makes RV360 is a real game-changer, providing a totally immersive and social metaverse with such a low barrier to entry. Furthermore, it will save hospitality businesses time, money, and even CO2 with reduced travel for site inspections.”
The launch of RV360 follows RendezVerse’s recent event in Amsterdam, in which hospitality industry professionals explored the opportunities of the metaverse to the sector.
Nature comes in all shapes and forms. It’s in huge national parks and landscapes filled with mountains and forests; it’s also in underwater seascapes and concrete metropolises. Anywhere where there’s plants and animals, there’s nature.
The annual Nature Photographer of the Year awards demonstrate just how diverse nature really is. Run by photography festival Nature Talks, the NPOTYs celebrate all kinds of nature, from mammals and birds to plants, fungi and landscapes.
The NPOTYs always have some of the most epic shots of the year (see the 2021 edition’s winners here) – and 2022 is no different. The spectacular aerial snap above, which was taken by photographer Tamani Cédric and features an ‘airport’ for flamingos, was only a runner-up!
You can take a peek at all the NPOTY 2022 winners on the official website here but, in the meantime, below are a few of our favourites.
‘House of Bears’ by Dmitry Kokh
Photograph: Dmitry Kokh / NPOTY 2022
‘Iberian Lynx Family Portrait’ by Alessandro Beconi
Photograph: Alessandro Beconi / NPOTY 2022
‘Lightning up the Grand Canyon’ by Raul Mostoslavsky
Photograph: Raul Mostoslavsky / NPOTY 2022
‘My City Whale’ by Jomtup Charoenlapnumchai
Photograph: Jomtup Charoenlapnumchai / NPOTY 2022
‘Observer’ by Jens Cullman
Photograph: Jens Cullman / NPOTY 2022
‘Resilient Tree’ by Gianluca Gianferrari
Photograph: Gianluca Gianferrari / NPOTY 2022
‘Sunrise at Brunssummerheide’ by Brenda Heyvaert
Photograph: Brenda Heyvaert / NPOTY 2022
‘The Rain I’ve Been Waiting For’ by Kazushige Horiguchi
Photograph: Kazushige Horiguchi / NPOTY 2022
‘Twisted Freeze’ by Juan Garcia Lucas
Photograph: Juan Garcia Lucas / NPOTY 2022
‘Wings on Fire’ by Nitin Sonawane
Photograph: Nitin Sonawane / NPOTY 2022
Did you see that this hilarious snap took the crown at the Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards?
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Don Krumpos navigates making a living while making art
On a recent weekday morning, Don Krumpos was rearranging things at Yonder, the Algoma gallery that describes itself as a creative space run by artists.
Krumpos was coming off hosting his First Friday event, which featured 16 guest artists participating in an auction that raised $1,025 for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin and $138 for the Transgender Law Center. The evening also included music by Morgan Piontek and drew more than 100 comments on Yonder’s Facebook page.
The gallery is a display space, work space and event space on Steele Street, which is Algoma’s cultural center. Next door is Yardstick, a well-stocked independent bookstore. Across the street is Ruse, a fairly new bar in a 1905 building. And down the block are Clay on Steele – featuring ceramic arts – and LadyBug Glass, which shows glass plus abstract photography and astrophotography.
Art by Krumpos. Photo by Rachel Lukas.
Krumpos is primarily a printer whose favorite work is etchings on copper plates.
“I really enjoy the process, the iterative process,” he said. “You are always changing. You print one, and you make changes on it, and then you print it again and see how it looks. I also like wood-block printmaking and screen printing, which I finally have set up, so now we’re doing our own T-shirts and things like that.”
Krumpos and his spouse, Erin LaBonte, who’s also an artist, collaborate on public murals such as the one on Bayside Bargains in Sturgeon Bay and another that will hang from Sturgeon Bay’s City Hall. Many Algoma building facades also feature displays of their work, and they have established a reputation as mural creators – work that now pays reasonably well.
“I like to create an art space that people can walk into,” Krumpos said of Yonder. The gallery – with its prints, puppets and assemblages, as well as a three-quarter-scale covered wagon – creates some of that.
“It has a narrative to it. We’re building an idea. Just come in and look. We’re always working on it, creating a place [where] you can come in and see that it’s a little different than anywhere else. It’s not going to be a Gap.”
Yonder’s storefront. Photo by Rachel Lukas.
Krumpos lived in Minneapolis from 2009 until 2013, working as a graphic designer and web designer for companies such as Under Armour, Best Buy, 3M, Medtronic, United Health Care and several other medical tech and insurance firms – work he continues to do from Algoma. He moved back to Wisconsin to teach at UW-Green Bay for a year to fill in for a professor on sabbatical, and then he continued to work as an adjunct for several years.
LaBonte taught art full time at Silver Lake College in Manitowoc for eight years until the school closed in 2020 because of the pandemic. She then taught as an adjunct at UW-Green Bay, and this year, she started teaching art at Kewaunee High School.
The two are working out how to create art, contribute to the community, raise their two-year-old son and build financial security. It’s a mix that requires flexibility and improvisation.
Full-time university teaching posts are notoriously scarce, and adjunct positions are notoriously poorly paid. Although Krumpos has enjoyed working for nonprofits and teaching as an adjunct, he recognizes that that sort of work will never pay enough.
Art by Krumpos. Photo by Rachel Lukas.
“You feel good about it, but you’re never getting over that bump,” he said, speaking frankly about money and balancing the need to earn with the desire to create art. “It’s just, that’s the way it goes. Like I would love the transition to this,” he said, referring to his printmaking, assemblages and puppets. “It’s still rewarding. A hobby.”
Then he paused and reconsidered.
“I’m reluctant to call it a hobby because I feel like being an artist is a frame of mind. You’ve just got to go to work sometimes, and support the things you do want. Then it gives you the freedom to just do what you want and not ask if someone would buy it. You can just do it because you have been bankrolling yourself.”
Krumpos has concluded that with commercial jobs, the rate of pay is inverse to the degree of interest in the work, but he questions how many people can make a living from art.
“This idea of making art and selling it – making a good living off of it – it’s very difficult. I gave up the dream of thinking [that] somebody can be just an artist. It’s very, very difficult. … I think about that stuff all the time, but now I’m taking the pressure off myself a little bit – off any kind of expectation because I really just enjoy my life. I don’t need to show in other galleries because we have our own.”
IF you’re into photography, be it with a smartphone or camera, and want to win some cash prizes (worth up to RM19,500), come join the #travelution photography contest, organised by KLiK, Media Prima and Tourism Malaysia.
The contest, which is held in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of Tourism Malaysia, is held on Instagram with a theme of Malaysian Scene – Place and Venue.
The concept of the contest is Then & Now.
Visit KLiK Instagram @klik.nstp for more details.
Here’s how you can enter:
1. What participants need to do is to take a photo of an interesting or historical place or venue in Malaysia (for Now), and pair it with the photo of the same place or venue taken years before (for Then).
2. The two photos of the same place or venue (Then & Now) need to be submitted in one Instagram posting.
3. Two categories: Camera category and Smartphone category, and each participant can only participate in one category.
4. This online contest will be held from Dec 10, 2022 to Dec 31, 2022 (unless otherwise changed by the organiser at its sole and absolute discretion)
5. Each submission must have two (2) photos (i.e. Then & Now). For the THEN segment, photos can be sourced from www.klik.com.my or your own collection while for the NOW segment, photos must be taken between Dec 10 and 31, 2022. The photo must be taken at about the same spot with the “Then” photo.
6. Participants should use their creativity in taking the photographs to reflect the theme of this contest. Minimal adjustment (brightness, cropping, white balance) of the photographs is allowed.
7. Photoshopped photographs are not allowed and will be disqualified.
8. Participants can submit up to three (3) entries only. Any additional entries will be disqualified.
9. A panel of professional judges (as appointed by the organiser) will shortlist fifteen (15) entries from each category for the prizes.
10. The shortlisted entries photographs will be displayed at a photo exhibition during Tourism Malaysia 50th Golden Jubilee celebration event on 9 January 9, 2023.
11. The copyright of all the entries belong to the participants.
12. The organiser NSTP reserves the right to use the winning photographs and all photographs submitted for the purpose of this contest.
13. All shortlisted participants will have to submit high resolution photos (min 2MB) to [email protected].
14. Set your instagram account to public.
15. Follow @klik.nstp Instagram.
16. Post your entry photos on your Instagram account with the following hashtags:
17. Camera category: #kliktravelution #tourismmalaysia #galeriprima
Grace has been a member of the Exploratory and Pre-Professional Advising Center since 2014. With a M.S. degree in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from Saint Mary’s College, CA, Grace has been advising for the past 25 years, with service in the following:
The National Association of Advisors for the Health Professions (NAAHP) on the Professional Development & Training Committee and the Assessment Subcommittee.
The Western Association of Advisors for the Health Professions (WAAHP).
The Pre-Law Advisors National Council (PLANC) and Western Association of Pre-Law Advisors (WAPLA).
The National Academic Advising Association (NACADA).
The University of Nevada, Reno Undergraduate Advising Committee Chair for the PD&L Subcommittee.
The University of Nevada, Reno First-Gen Committee.
The University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine MMI Interview Team.
Course instruction for ACE 101.
As a recipient of the 2020 Regents Undergraduate Academic Advisor Award, Grace places a high value on creating supportive environments to help students achieve their personal and professional goals. In her spare time, Grace enjoys nature photography, travel, health & wellness topics and spending time with family in the Bay Area.
