But as we all know, one man’s rubbish is another man’s treasure. In this case, it’s Rick Norsigian’s treasure. Some 10 years ago he bought a bunch of photographic plates at a garage sale for $45…after haggling down from the $70 asking price. Turns out these plates are some of Ansel Adams’s thought-to-be long lost plates that perished in a fire that consumed the photographer’s darkroom in 1937. In total, Mr Norsigian has 65 plates, which have now been valued at $200 million. That’s not a typo.

See more photos from this stash in this CNN slideshow.

On the flip side, Ansel Adams’s grandson, Matthew Adams, doesn’t think they’re his grandfather’s photographs; neither does Bill Turnage, managing director of the Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust, who is seeking legal counsel and might sue Mr Norsigian for using a copyrighted name for commercial purposes. Read more here.

UPDATE 2010/07/30: KTVU in Oakland, California, say they’ve found the real photographer behind the mysterious plates: Uncle Earl. You just can’t make this stuff up, can you?

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Shot of the Space Shuttle taken from the ISS. Nikon D3s

From a recent Nikon press release, they are enjoying bragging about some wonderful images taken on the International Space Station (ISS). There are some great shots though, so do have a look at the Nikon Press release: D3s at ISS. Scroll down to see some of the images and click on them to enlarge.

If you’d like to explore more of this photography, have a look at NASA’s site here: NASA ISS Site.

Earth and the NASA Space Shuttle taken from the International Space Station (ISS)

Cheers and good shooting –Peter Zack

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Scott Kelby is again hosting his Worldwide Photowalk. It’s the 3^rd year for this event. This year’s Photo Walk will be held on Saturday, July 24, 2010 and it is free with some prizes for participants. The first year had a good following with 236 locations and 8,324 people. The second year was several times larger with over 900 Photo Walks and more than 32,000 people who participated around the world. I expect this year to be even bigger than before. Here you can see some of the results from last year with almost 12,000 images hosted on Flickr. Scott Kelby’s 2009 Photowalk. There’s some excellent and interesting work posted there, just ,ight take you a few hours to see them all!

Scott Kelby Photowalk 2010

If you haven’t heard of this event, it’s a great way to get out and meet photographers in your community. The idea is simple, someone in your community will set up as a leader and organize the walk. You just sign up and meet the other photographers at the appointed time and place. Then take photos in your community to share with the world. Photo walks are limited to 50 photographers in each group. If your community doesn’t have an organized walk or the current one is full, then you can start your own walk by signing up as a leader of a group.

There’s no cost to join as I mentioned but the walk does support a charity. There is an official T-shirt available for walkers to buy. 100% of the profits from the sale of any of these t-shirts will go to feeding the kids at the Springs of Hope, Kenya Orphanage.

It’s a great opportunity to meet new people in your area with cameras, learn from others and just an excuse to get out shooting. You can upload your images to share on the Flickr site or just keep them for yourself. Join up and get shooting!

Peter and Miserere both joined walks last year and will be doing so again this year.

One of Peter’s 2009 Photo Walk images	One of Miserere’s 2009 Photo Walk images

Cheers and good shooting. –Peter Zack

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The photos certainly speak for themselves. What I found intriguing with the photographer’s comments was his “discovery” of black and white, how converting his images gave the shots more interest and depth by removing the colour distractions.

Cheers and good shooting.
–Peter Zack

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Photograph taken by MP Liz Kendall inside the House of Lords during the Queen's speech.

When Liz Kendall (TweetPhoto and Twitter accounts), newly elected MP (Member of Parliament) for Leicester West in the UK, attended the Queen’s State Opening of Parliament speech on May 25^th at the House of Lords, she was taken aback by all the pomp and ceremony that accompany these occasions, and she did what most modern people would do nowadays: She snapped a photo with her iPhone and posted it on Twitter.

Big mistake.

It turns out photography is forbidden inside the chamber of the House of Lords and her tweet might have landed her in a spot of trouble with the Parliamentary authorities, who were informed of her actions even before the speech ended. In fact, the above photo was snapped and shared only 7 hours ago, so this is still breaking news. After the speech Ms Kendall visited the library, when she came out she was informed of her transgression and seemingly cheerfully tweeted Emerged from library & PLP to discover slight photo-related furore… She then returned to the chamber to attend the debate on the Queen’s speech, upon exiting a couple of hours later she tweeted Ok, just out of chamber, some quick observations before see if I’m in proper trouble about the pics….

Ms Kendall must have a cheeky side to her because just 2 hours after the above tweet (a little over 1 hour ago) she tweeted another photo with the message Hopefully won’t get in trouble for this pic (see below). Hopefully she won’t suffer the same fate Sir Thomas More did, whose remembrance plaque she photographed.

Liz Kendall wields her iPhone camera once more.

Of course, when I say photography is forbidden in the chamber of the House of Lords, I’m referring to MPs. If you’re the official photographer(s) for the ceremony, then it’s OK. And the speech was being broadcast live on TV, so it’s not like Ms Kendall was revealing any secrets of state to her followers. This brush with delinquency simply highlights the ongoing clash between modern technology and old traditions. I welcome Ms Kendall’s innocent mistake and interpret it as the desire of a young MP to keep her constituents abreast of what she’s up to while working for them. It’s refreshing to think there is a politician out there who thinks this is a worthwhile thing to do. Tradition be dammed, I say. Tweet on, Liz; tweet on!

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When I reviewed the Olympus E-PL1 I didn’t pay much attention to its video capabilities, I only used it to make sure it worked. Yesterday my wife said I just saw a commercial on TV for an Olympus Pen, didn’t you just have one of those? I did a double take on her and said are you kidding me!? I went online to find this commercial, and not only did I find it, but it turns out it was actually shot with an E-PL1. How cool is that?

Olympus must be getting serious if they’re spending big bucks on TV commercials for their Digital Pen series. This might also be the first TV commercial for a micro 4/3 camera ever. It’s a cute commercial, too. Make sure you watch it in HD…what’s the point of it being shot in HD otherwise?

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Earth Image from the New York Times site promoting May 2^nd's Earth Photos

May 2^nd at 15:00 UTC, which is 11 o’clock EST on Sunday morning, will be a moment to get out and take a photo of your part of the world. The New York Times wants everyone to get out and take an image to share with the world on their sites: The Lens blog and NYTimes.com.

From their site, the following is an outline of the idea:

Wherever you are, we hope you’ll have a camera — or a camera phone — in hand. And we hope you’ll be taking a picture to send to Lens that will capture this singular instant in whatever way you think would add to a marvelous global mosaic; a Web-built image of one moment in time across the world.

Religion
Play
Nature and the Environment
Family
Work
Arts and Entertainment
Money and the Economy
Community
Social Issues

Submissions can be made here: New York Times link and that site will go live at the specified time. They are asking that submissions be made as close to that time as possible.

You can read the entire article here: A Timely Global Mosaic.

Get out and have a little fun sharing your part of the planet!

Cheers and good shooting. –Peter Zack

All content, photo(s) and information in this article was sourced from The New York Times site and is the property of that site.

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I have a Canadian friend who works in the Photography equipment business; he’s married to a good friend of mine from college, and while we’ve only met twice in person, we speak on the phone every now and again and exchange e-mails regularly. He frequently e-mails me news about upcoming products, but because he deals mostly with medium and large format photography, I don’t make use of this information because we’re not really concerned with that market on EtL. In any case, he’s generally been right about any predictions he’s made, which is why I did a double take when he sent me these photographs on yesterday.

About a week earlier he told me he’d heard comments through a German colleague that Leica were planning on releasing a new camera sometime in April. We both chuckled at the idea, but wondered if the R10 (the fabled Leica DSLR that never came) had finally been developed and was ready to launch. That’s not what these photos show, and not what my friend told me he’d found out through underground radio.

It seems Leica have struck a deal with a Japanese manufacturing company (Cosina came to my mind immediately) to have a line of cameras factory built, unlike current Leicas which are assembled by hand at one of their 3 facilities (in Canada, Portugal and Germany). He knows nothing about the specs for this new camera, but the fact that its called A9 would seem to link it to the M9, and externally they seem alike. What he does know is that Leica Canada has created a new product number and priced it at $3,000; this he heard from a Leica Canada contact of his who would reveal nothing else.

So that’s all we have to go on right now. My theory (and this is all pure speculation until we see an official announcement from Leica) is that Leica has come to the realisation that its current market model of high-priced cameras selling in small quantities is not going to get them through the global recession. Manufacturing cameras in series at Asian factories could lower production costs significantly, while keeping per-unit sales profit roughly the same; because the number of units sold would likely skyrocket, Leica’s total profit would be very generous. If the A9 really is just an M9 “made in Vietnam”, and they sell them for $3,000, even the best factory in the World won’t be able to build them fast enough. Even if the A9 is an APS-C version of the M9, it’s still a great price for a digital rangefinder and bound to be popular.

At some point this month we hope to find out the truth. For now, here are the two photos he sent me yesterday.

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Charles Moore was the only one to capture the arrest of
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Charles Moore, who may be best known for his photographs taken during Martin Luther King Jr.’s civil rights struggles, passed away on March 11th in Florida at the age of 79. Born in 1931 in Hackleburg, Alabama, he rose to fame after taking the only photo of 2 police officers arresting Martin Luther King in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1958. The photos of the incident were carried by The Associated Press, and LIFE magazine published one of them.

Andy Warhol Red Race Riot screen print

Andy Warhol’s screen prints were inspired by Moore’s photos of police dogs attacking demonstrators in Birmingham, Ala., in 1963; probably the most recognized photos of Moore’s long career. U.S. Senator Jacob Javits and the historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., said that Moore’s pictures “helped to spur passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964″. [1]

One of his shots was chosen as one of LIFE magazine’s 100 Photographs That Changed the World [2]. It has been said that he helped bring the 1960′s civil rights movement to the rest of the world and hastened change in some respect.

After high school and three years service in the Marines, Moore completed his formal photography training at the Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, Calif. He was known for taking chances by using short lenses much of the time and getting in close to the events around him. He often appeared in the pictures of other photographers who were standing back. [3]

Birmingham 1963

 

Moore also covered events during the Dominican Republic civil war, uprisings in Venezuela and Haiti, and Vietnam for LIFE magazine, Fortune Magazine and The Saturday Evening Post. Moore published a book of civil rights photography called Powerful Days, recently reprinted in 2007.

–Peter Zack

[1] Wikipedia
[2] A Tribute to Charles Moore
[3] New York Times

Note: Links in this article might be to one of our affiliate stores. Purchases made from our affiliates through these links will benefit Enticing the Light at no extra cost to you.

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In the USA there are a number of TV programs showing mock trials hosted by real judges. I say “mock” because they are not legally binding, but they are conducted in much the same way a real small-claims court case would. Of course, the judges have a personality that’s appropriate for TV—nobody wants to see a boring judge hosting one of these programs! Here I’m bringing you a small selection of cases involving photographers. I hope you enjoy them…and find them as educational as I did.

Judge Brown: Wedding Photographer Sued for Bad Pictures

This photographer showed up at a wedding with a Canon Digital Rebel and kit lens. It turns out flash photography was not allowed during the ceremony, held in a dark church, so perhaps unsurprisingly, the photos didn’t look that great and the bride is suing. The photographer thinks she has a chance to win this, but doesn’t count on Judge Brown’s knowledge of Photography.

Judge Judy: A Bride and Her Mother Sue Photographer over Engagement Pictures

Apparently, the Bride wasn’t happy with her engagement pictures being shot in a cemetery. But the photographer redid the shoot and upheld her contract, so who’s to blame?

Judge Milian: Bride Sues Photographer for Not Showing Up at Wedding

When the photographer doesn’t show up at her wedding, the bride sues. But there are signed contracts…and maybe all is not what it seems.

Judge Judy: Wedding Photographer Sued over Groom’s Family Missing in Pictures

The bride is unhappy with her husband’s family not being in the formal photographs, while the photographer claims the groom’s family never assembled when she was taking the formals. The bride’s father further claims he was assaulted by the photographer when he tried to pick up the proofs. This is a good one

Judge Milian: Bride & Groom Sue Photographer for Not Delivering Wedding Photos

This wedding photographer is refusing to hand over the photos he took. But wait, it turns out he wasn’t the photographer the couple had hired and paid to shoot their wedding! So what’s going on here…? Can he keep the photos until he gets paid? Who should pay him? Let’s find out

Conclusion

I think this is a concise sample of the type of problems that wedding/portrait photographers can run into. Bearing in mind this is the type of work most amateurs start doing when they want to get paid, it behoves you (if you’re in that position) to take note and learn from the lessons contained herein. To wit:

• If you’re charging money for your services, you’re by definition a pro—act like one.
• Don’t use equipment that’s not up to the task, and always have backups for everything.
• Don’t take on jobs if you don’t have the knowledge or skills to tackle them successfully and to the client’s quality level. Know your limitations.
• Always, always, always have a contract in writing stating what your duties are and what/when the client owes you for them.
• Have liability insurance to cover your back if you run into trouble…or into the client from hell.
• Professional photography is not child’s play and you should treat it with respect. Just because you take pretty pictures of flowers and sunsets doesn’t mean you can photograph a wedding (or a concert or a convention or…). Professional photography is a lot more than just taking pictures.

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