Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day

If you fancy having a go at a bit of lo-fi photography, you’ll have the perfect excuse over the Easter weekend. The last Sunday in April has been World Pinhole Photography Day since 2001 (at least, it has been according to pinholeday.org) and this year, seeing as it’s the Easter weekend, they’re turning it into a bit more of an extravaganza than normal. You get a whole weekend of pinhole-wonderfulness.

The basic principle is take a photo between 23 April and 1 May 2011 using a pinhole camera, and upload it to the world pinhole photography gallery. There are no prizes, just the satisfaction of being part of a worldwide photography project, and maybe even learning something along the way.

But (this is a good ‘but’, I promise) there are also workshops and classes and pinhole-related events taking place all over the world. You can learn how to make your own pinhole camera, or take better pinhole photos, or join a barbeque where people will be taking pinhole pictures. You never know, you might even meet the love of your life whilst carrying around a cardboard box that makes photos.

Still not inspired? Take a look at the previous years’ galleries.

Inspired now? Ah, you don’t don’t have a pinhole camera and there isn’t a make-your-own-pinhole-camera class taking place near you. No worries, I’ll point you in the direction of the most excellent Teaching a cardboard box to be a camera by the most excellent Katie Cooke. There! Sorted.

Lots more information is available from the Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day website.

(Featured image: Ferentino, Piazza Matteotti by Antonio Corvaia.)

Photography and Affect - talks by the Photographers' Gallery

The Photographers’ Gallery, despite being closed, is still laying on events and next up are a series of talks that delve into the idea behind physical and emotional responses to photographs. Between 1 and 10 March, seven different people will explore the relationship between the visceral and the intellectual in photographs. Six of the talks are free whilst one will cost you the princely sum of £5 (or £3.50 for concessions).

The full schedule looks something like this:

• Images and Suffering, Paul Tebbs, Tuesday 1 March, 18.30
• The Image — Imploded Action, Contagion, Affect, Bridget Crone, Wednesday 2 March, 18.30
• The Flesh of the Image: Touch in Photography, Dr Weibke Leister and Esther Teichmann, Monday 7 March, 18.30
• Photophobia: Performing Documents, the Unimaginable and the Lure of Darkness, Dr Chantal Faust, Tuesday 8 March, 18.30
• The Photographic Stare: Re-thinking the Spectacle in Photography, Dr Jorella Andrews, Wednesday 9 March, 18.30
• Image, Gesture and Fiction, Jonathan Miles, Thursday 10 March, 18.30

These all take place at Downstairs at Yumchaa, 45 Berwick Street, London, W1F 8SF. They’re free, but booking is essential.

And the paid-for one: Affect and the Portrait by Prof Alexander Düttmann on Friday 11 March at 19.00, 7-9 William Road, London, NW1 3ER.

Tickets are available from http://shop.photonet.org.uk/

(Image by Esther Teichmann, from Mythologies, 2010.)

London Street Photography at the Museum of London

I’ve had a street photography-infused couple of days: Hoppé yesterday and at the Museum of London today. But then, 2011 has been dubbed the Year of Street Photography, so it isn’t all that surprising. The Museum of London is contributing to this with its exhibition of over 200 street photos shot in London, dating from 1860 to 2010, which opens tomorrow. Almost all of the pictures have come from the museum’s own archives, and they form an intriguing story for both the city of London and the evolution of street photography.

Admiralty Arch on the day before Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation, 1 June 1953, Bob Collins, © Estate of Bob Collins, courtesy Museum of London

I suppose that I would say that, though. In another life, before I found myself writing about all things photographic, I studied and taught history. Bring together history and photography and you have me in my element. Still, using objectivity was something that I got to practise lots back in my days immersed in Tacitus, so I’d best dust it off now.

When you look at the exhibition as a history of the evolution of photography, you get to see images taken on tripod-mounted glass plate cameras through to mobile phone snaps, via everything from the first hand-held cameras to stereoscopes. So not only do you get to see how photographic styles have changed over the years – you start with Victorian pictorialism and move through modernism in all its forms, the influence of cinema and of European immigrants, and even touch on photojournalism – but you get to see how technology has an influence on what gets photographed and how.

Westminster Bridge Road, c. 1962, Anon, © Museum of London

Those glass plate long-exposures couldn’t capture cleanly anything that was moving; so you either have someone definitely posed, or a haze of ghostly motion, and often a bit of both. When smaller, hand-held cameras became available there was an explosion in candid, concealed shots: photographers hid their kit in brown paper bags! You get to see how artificial light changed the look and the subject of photos, and how smaller, lighter cameras have made street photography that bit more spontaneous.

At the very core of this exhibition, though, are London’s inhabitants; young and old, rich and poor, native and immigrant. You get to see the relationship between the city and the people who live in it, and how both have changed.

Of course, people are what street photography is all about. You get to see them when a camera was a curiosity right through to now, when so often it feels as if a camera is something to be feared. In fact, it’s sad to see how few children feature in the later images. Their increasing absence is documentary evidence of the altering attitudes to photography and privacy.

Oxford Street, 1998, Richard Bram, © Richard Bram/ Courtesy Museum of London

Historians and photographers alike are going to get something out of this exhibition, but somehow I think that the biggest winner could be photography itself. The exhibition conveys just how important photos are to documenting our lives and our history.

The next time that I hear that tiresome refrain: ‘You can’t take photos here!’ I’d really like to pack off the myopic shrieker to take a look at this exhibition. Maybe, just maybe, they’d pick up just how much of today will be lost to tomorrow without the help of the camera and the skill of the photographer.

London Street Photography runs from 18 February to 4 September 2011 at the Museum of London, 150 London Wall, London, EC2Y 5HN.

(Featured image: Bishops Court, City of London 1882, Arthur Eason, © Museum of London.)

Instagram hits 2 million users

Late last summer, we wrote about what we considered to be the 10 best iPhone apps for photography. Instagram didn’t feature on that list, for one very good reason. It hadn’t yet seen the light of day. Doubtless it was a bit more than a twinkle in its developers’ eyes, but the general public had yet to welcome its picture-sharing prowess onto their operating systems with open arms. Now they’ve had the chance, there’s no stopping them: it took three months to reach 1 million users; and six weeks (yes six weeks) after that, it has a decent-sized city of users at 2 million.

When you consider that Instagram is available only on iOS – not Android, not Blackberry, not anything else – that’s, well, astonishing. So now the question is, will they be releasing an Android-or-anything-else version?

PicPlz has been making in-roads into the Android instant-photo-sharing market. Are we set for a explosive battle for dominance, or a growling detente with a division of the spoils?

(Headsup to TechCrunch.)

Heading Back to the Future with your portraits

Take an old portrait and recreate it: same people, same place, same look. Sounds like fun, if a bit of a challenge, no? It’s the sort of thing that would complement ‘Dear Me’ (writing to your 16 year old self) or tweeting your 16 year old self, perfectly. It’s also what Argentinian photographer Irina Werning has been up to recently. It’s her project, Back to the Future.

As she says, she loves old photos and she’s a nosey photographer. So this is the hybrid: ‘…it’s imagining how people would look and feel if they were to re-enact them [old portraits] today.’ Well, I’m charmed and rather inspired by the quirky results.

Flor, Male, and Sil in 1983 and 2010, by Irina Werning

In fact, I know precisely which photo of me I’d like to try to recreate. I’m seven years old and I’m standing on the bonnet of a car, halfway up the road leading to the summit of Monte Corona, taking a photograph. It was the holiday when my father taught me how to use an SLR. Perfect!

Take a look at the rest of the Back to the Future project gallery on Werning’s website.

Fisher Price's new kid-proof camera

That I’m pretty much evangelical about kids using cameras is no secret. I’m always on the look out for cameras that I think are suitable for them and ideas that I think will get them hooked on photography. But, I’m not so enamoured by the idea of cameras designed specifically for children, much the same way that children’s menus in restaurants make me cringe. However, when I read about the new Kid-Tough See Yourself camera from Fisher Price, I was intrigued.

My interest definitely wasn’t piqued by its either garish (black and white) or insipid (pink and lilac) colour schemes, more because it has a rotating lens that allows kiddies to take pictures of themselves easily. Not that I want to encourage narcissism, but it seemed pretty nifty. Think about it this way: it might be the perfect solution when you want pictures of you and your friends on a messy, drunken night out: it’s tough, it’s durable, and you’ll be able to get everyone in the shot.

If you’re wondering about the camera’s spec, it has a 1.2 megapixel sensor, a 4x zoom, an SD card slot, and runs on four AA batteries. All for around $70.

(Headsup to Engadget, who have all the groovy pictures, too.)

48 hour film project: Behind the scenes

Hollywood-star Martin Freeman starred in our 48-hour film project

One big name actor. 12 crew. 48 hours. One award-winning movie.

When I was approached by my good friend Joe (the guy who filmed and edited all the Nokia Photo School videos I did for Nokia in connection with the launch of the Nokia N8), saying that he was going to be involved with a 48 hour film project, I declared him insane. My next phrase, I believe, was "How can I help".

One film, 48 hours

It turns out that they needed a stills photographer, both to document the ongoings, as a memory, and to get some shots for the film itself.

Now, if you have never been part of a film production before, you should know that 48 hours isn't enough to make a film. It's completely insane, in fact - and that's partially why it's so much fun. The pressure was up doubly, of course, because we had managed to enlist a Hollywood celebrity to star in our movie. If you've never heard of Martin Freeman before (which sounds pretty unlikely, really - check him out on IMDB, you've almost certainly seen one or more of the films he has been in), you certainly will when The Hobbit comes out in 2012; Martin plays Bilbo Baggins.

For this project, we were shooting with dSLR cameras (Canon 5D mk II's, if I don't recall wrongly), and the results look nothing short of awesome.

At the London 48 hour film festival screening, the film picked up a handful of awards, including Best Film, Best Acting, Best Script, and the Audience Award... And in March, it's off to Miami for the international 48 hour film festival Filmapalooza - where it hopefully will pick up a few more prizes.

Behind the scenes

The unneccessarily talented Sam Sapin was there as well, and shot a behind-the-scenes video documentary, which surfaced on the web a few days ago - it gives some lovely insights about the ordeal of trying to create a movie in less than two days, including some of the laughs and some of the frustration, too.

Behind The Scenes: The Girl is Mime from Sam Sapin on Vimeo.

More production stills

If you fancy looking at some of my production stills as well, they're available over on Flickr, in the The Girl is Mime production stills gallery. I took all my shots with two lenses: My trusty Sigma 70-200 f/2.8 lens, and my Canon 50mm f/1.4.

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© Kamps Consulting Ltd. This article is licenced for use on Pixiq only. Please do not reproduce wholly or in part without a license. More info.

ClusterShot saved

Towards the end of January we reported that the photo-dealing website ClusterShot had suspended new account creation and was closing its doors, unless someone stepped forward to buy it, that was. As it happened, over 20 parties took an interest and put forward bids for it. When the hammer fell, it was Dominic Ang who walked away with the lot.

The new owner, who’s not letting on just how much he paid for the business, is keeping it open and seems to be rather excited about the venture. Whilst all the technical handover takes place new account creation and photo uploading is still suspended, though. It’s probably easier than risking stuff being lost in the aether.

Good luck to the new ClusterShot team; let’s hope that they can make it work this time around. I think that the idea is a fine one.

When heads and cameras don't mix

In November, David wrote about Wafaa Bilal, the New York University lecturer who had a thumbnail-sized camera surgically installed into the back of his head. The idea was that it would snap one picture every minute for an entire year and the feed would be displayed in the Museum of Modern Art in Qatar. Except that Bilal’s body wasn’t too impressed by the foreign body stuck in his skull and rejected it.

Whatever the cocktail of steroids and anti-biotics that Bilal was taking, it couldn’t stop the implant from becoming unbearably painful. So out it came. Still, Bilal is planning on continuing with his experiment. He’s going to strap a camera to the back of his neck, instead.

I know that there’s this weird idea of suffering for art, but wouldn’t that have been the more sensible option in the first place?

(Headsup to Engadget.)

Samsung adds to the mobile phone megapixel monster

Whether or not the megapixel race has cooled down, or at least reached a simmer, in point-and-shoot cameras remains to be seen, but it seems to be hotting up in mobile phones. Last autumn Sony unveiled a 16mp sensor; now it’s Samsung’s turn, with 8mp and 12mp imagers for use in a smartphone. Because we all obviously need that much resolution in a device with the photographic control of an earth-bound asteroid.

The catchily named S5K3H2 is the 8mp sensor. It has back side illuminated technology, which will go some way to helping get a picture that is actually of something, especially in low-light conditions, as well as the ability to capture 1080p full HD video images at up to 30fps.

The S5K3L1 (now I feel as if the Samsung engineers are misplaced megalomanic chemists with naming conventions like these) is the 12mp sensor, which improves on the 8mp sensor with an optional RGB-white colour filter and a video capability of 1080p HD video at 60fps and 720p at 90fps.

They’ll be rocking and rolling later this year. I think I can probably contain myself until then.

World Press Photo of the Year announced

The winner of the 2010 World Press Photo Contest has just been announced as South African Jodi Bieber. Her winning image is of Bibi Aisha, an 18 year old Afghani woman whose face was mutilated by her husband and brother-in-law after she fled their violent treatment but was subsequently tracked down by the Taliban. The picture featured on the 1 August edition of Time magazine.

According to David Burnett, who chaired the judging panel: ‘This could become one of those pictures – and we have maybe just ten in our lifetime – where if somebody says “you know, that picture of a girl…”, you know exactly which one they’re talking about.’

Bibi Aisha, by Jodi Bieber (Institute for Artist Management for Time magazine)

It’s an astonishingly dignified portrait of something entirely horrid. As judge Aidan Sullivan put it: ‘…this photo makes people ask “What on earth…?” “What’s going on…?” “What has happened…?”‘

Bieber’s image took the prize in the portrait category of the awards, as well as the overall award. She’s only the second South African to take the top prize, but she’s won eight other World Press Photo awards before now. And no, she’s not related to Justin!

As for Bibi Aisha; she fled again after her nose and ears were sliced off, spent time in a women’s refuge in Kabul before moving to the US, where she’s undergone reconstructive surgery.

Take a look at the World Press Photo website for some of the other entries.

(Photo: Jodi Bieber, Institute for Artist Management/Goodman Gallery for Time magazine.)

Lightroom from the inside

When I reviewed Lightroom 3 back last year (such a hard life, I know), I realised that I was amassing a bundle of questions for the people who developed it. Everything from ‘What was the starting point?’ to ‘Which camera do you use?’ Adobe very kindly agreed to let me loose on one of their developers, and I was even allowed to put some of your questions to him, too. This is what Tom Hogarty had to say about Lightroom.

Tom has worked for Adobe for almost six years and he’s the Principal Product Manager for Lightroom, the Camera Raw plug-in, and the DNG file format. Before then, he worked in New York with commercial and fashion photographers, helping them to transfer from film to digital workflow. Ever get the feeling someone knows more about your workflow than you do?

The best photo-editing package available?

Team Small Aperture are all Lightroom users, and right now we can’t see us trying anything else. When we asked Tom if Lightroom’s founding principle was to be the best photo-editing package out there, he was very modest about it and reminded us that Mark Hamburg was responsible for the concept behind Lightroom.

But, he did say that he and his team are committed to creating a product that’s easy to use and maintains the highest image quality possible. Whilst Photoshop has a rich history of serving the photographic community, it also caters to a diverse set of customers ranging from pre-press professionals and graphic designers to medical imaging experts. Lightroom, on the other hand, focuses solely on the photographic experience.

And it isn’t just for professionals, either. It might be engineered to meet and exceed a pro’s expectations, but it is meant to be approachable for anyone who’s interested in photography. That degree of professionalism is of course reflected in its price. There are a heap of other editing suites available, at all different prices, but Tom rightly points out that photography is an industry that is full of choice. (In the first six weeks of 2011, over 100 new cameras have been launched.) Lightroom’s another choice, and one that the team believes offers value commensurate with its price.

Editing that pushes creativity

I was really interested to hear Tom’s response to the charge that editing packages are the spawn of the devil and the clamour that they’re detrimental to the art of photography because people are so reliant on software rather than their own skill. He said that in the film days, people might have said the same about roll film, automated film processing, darkroom densitometers, and the introduction of robust in-camera metering systems.

For Tom, it’s all about the expansion of the art form as technology supports creativity and experimentation, and that’s a good thing. And he’s fortunate to work with a bunch of incredibly talented engineers who seem to have no limit to their imagination to push editing software as far as they can.

Consumers, cameras, and snack-foods

Seeing as Lightroom is about the user experience, I wanted to know how much of the alteration from Lightroom 2 to Lightroom 3 came from consumer feedback, as well as the team’s own experience of using it. It turns out that a whole heap of different sources contribute to each iteration of Lightroom, from quantitative customer satisfaction research, customer visits, public beta releases, discussions with industry leaders, internal engineering efforts to discover where technology can take the product, and of course the team’s own daily use of Lightroom.

If you’re wondering what camera Tom uses so that he can test out his own work, he has access to the photographic lab at his office and he can, and does, swap equipment quite regularly. (Are you going green yet?) He’s biased towards anything that captures in RAW and has HD video, but most importantly, seeing as he has two small children, it’s about having a camera at all, so that might be his phone. But that doesn’t stop him from picking up a film-based medium format rangefinder every now and again!

So, with all these cameras at his disposal, where would he most like to go in the world to take photos? (Don’t ask me this question. I still don’t know the answer.) Well, actually he’d really like to be able to open his eyes wider and see the images that are all around him. He’s been lucky enough to go all over the world shooting people and places, but is still amazed by the ability of his colleague Kelly Castro to find more compelling images on his way to lunch in San Jose, than he can find in a year!

And finally, I rather flippantly asked what snack-foods sustained Tom when he was up against a deadline. He admitted that he’s a chocolate fiend, and there’s a jar in the kitchen at the office. As well as a fridge of Diet Coke. So now we know that Lightroom runs on sugar. I’d always thought it was hamster-powered.

Your questions

Tom very kindly agreed to answer some technical questions from Small Aperture and Photocritic readers, too. He couldn’t manage all of them, so here’s a selection.

Jacob asked: ‘What makes Lightroom 3 better than Aperture 3?’
Tom: I prefer not comment specifically on other products. But I do know that Lightroom’s focus on image quality, application performance and community interaction has made it a favourite of the professional community. You can read more on that here.

Jonathan Bourke asked about the future availability of some features. Tom replied he prefers not to speculate on future feature direction. But, he could point him in the direction of some solutions to some of the points:

• Export to FTP (not the web module) – This is provided as part of our SDK and has been productised here
• Export to WordPress – A WordPress plug-in is available here

Sorry, looks as if you’ll have to wait to find about face recognition and the ability to customise keyboard shortcuts!

Edgar Malle asked: ‘What is the purpose of the extra checkbox “Enable Auto Import”. Why not just auto-import it?’
Tom: Through our testing and customer feedback we realised this functionality needed an on/off switch.

Many thanks to Tom for taking the time to respond to us. If you’d like to follow what he and the Lightroom team are up to, check out the Lightroom blog and Tom’s Twitter feed.

10 Amazing Stories Told in a Single Photo

A great photo can work on many levels, and though it needs no words to tell its story, it can inspire volumes. A good picture, in other words, tells a story. But a great picture tells many. Each of us is given a pair of cameras when we're born, and each of us, willing or not, houses a great gallery.

Our selections bring about emotions of fear and joy, of deep sorrow and free refills of laughter. The best photographers understand this. They know about how fireworks make day at night and how Porches accelerate through our dreams. They know what images do to us.

#1

Porsche 365 by Mr Analog

Passers-by gaze at the fusion of post-war engineering and timeless art, trying to remember the days when Berlin was still divided and no one knew which way the wall would fall.

The car has survived much. It doesn't mind the rain.

#2

Untitled by Junichiro AOYAMA

In the ashes and rust of abandoned Soviet Factories, in the long shadows of ruined concentration camps, in the yellowed, moth-eaten edges of forgotten prospects, hope is stubborn.

Like a dandelion whose seed lays long dormant in a tomb of soil, hope will return.

#3

Running ahead of oneself by Dan Foy

Trust comes easy at the outset, when all things are soft and green and cool.

Then the thorns and stones appear, and we wonder if it is worth going back to our safeguards, or if we should just let the adversity thicken our skin.

#4

Back At Ya by Mel Stoutsenberger

His gloves are strictly for grip. Cold and dirt and inconvenience are long forgotten, caught back to shore on tides of winter grass and adrenaline.

The single piston hammers out a rough anthem of exhilaration.

#5

The Flick Family by Kimberly Woods

"Do you remember how new everything was?"

"Not really. I wish I could."

"It scares me sometimes, just the size of it all."

"I still get that. Don't worry, though. I'll be right here."

#6

Fireworks (ts) by Kimberly Woods

The whole town assembled once a year and turn their faces toward the unreachable sky.

A glorious vision filled the zenith, and they remembered the hot shrapnel and dirt geysers as if they'd been there.

The ones who had been there drained their tears and smiled.

#7

Untitled by Kimberly Woods

Spring tugs our eyes from our screens and drags us outside toward a healing that all the world's genius and productivity could never offer.

We set down our things so we can pick up the beauty.

#8

Friends by Jason Whiteley

Many sharp situations draw us together, though we differ so sharply.

And at the end of the road, the simple and cunning, the peaceful and bellicose, the classic foes of all the ages, unite under death.

#9

Rocket Jet View by Jason Whiteley

I'm still ready to go. Gravity's coming on, I can feel it. But wake me and I'll show you everything. Years, years since I've felt the plugs firing in my gut.

The oxidized cancer spreads. But I'm still ready to go.

#10

Reflected Reflection by Troybert 2007

The reflection in the pool seems so much cleaner, so much simpler than the deep and visceral world we breathe.

But the present is a work in process. The air will be cleaner, the hearts wide open on that day.

Epilogue

The images in this post are used under 'criticism and review' of Fair Dealing, and are reproduced in small versions in this article. Please click on the lins to see them in high resolution.

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© Kamps Consulting Ltd. This article is licenced for use on Pixiq only. Please do not reproduce wholly or in part without a license. More info.

World Photography Festival, London

The shortlist for the Sony World Photography Awards was announced earlier this week. With over 105,000 entries coming from professional and amateur photographers in 162, the judges have certainly had their work cut out. The winners will be unveiled at a posh-frock do at the Odeon, Leicester Square, on 27 April 2011. But, there’s a whole lot more to the champagne-fuelled awards ceremony going on that week.

26 April to 1 May is the World Photography Festival. For six days there will be a glut of photographic activity happening in London. Exhibitions, naturally; seminars, but of course; workshops, you betcha. And not forgetting the awards ceremony, either.

Serra da Laba, Angola, © Kostadin Luchansky courtesy of Sony World Photography Awards 2011

You can have your portfolio critiqued by a pro; if you’re a student there’s advice on how to start out in the big, bad world of professional photography; you can even leap on a guerilla photoshoot, in studio or on location around London. Exhibitions will feature the images from the Sony World Photography Awards, as well as those from the Student Focus Awards, the university showcase, and the Save the Children project.

The Kitchest Bear, © Antoine Beyeler courtesy of Sony World Photography Awards 2011

And finally, if you fancy attending a fancy do, there are a few tickets available for the public to attend the awards ceremony. Prices start at £22 and go on sale on 4 February 2011. Want more details? Go here.

World Photography Festival, London: lots more information from the website.

Shy, © Arup Ghosh courtesy of Sony World Photography Awards 2011

(All images are shortlisted images from the 2011 Sony World Photography Awards Open Category. Open category winners will be announced on 22 March. For further information see www.worldphoto.org.)

Focus on Imaging 2011

The NEC, Birmingham. 6 to 9 March 2011. Just about anyone who’s anyone when it comes to cameras, kit, and pictures will be there, from manufacturers to printers, from software companies to publishing houses. There will also be talks and workshops taking place, too. It’s Focus on Imaging 2011. It’s Europe’s largest imaging show.

Last year over 37,000 people tramped through the exhibition. That’s, well, the population of a medium-sized town. (Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk springs to mind.) With over 200 stands this year, all those people, and so much shininess (including, I believe, the Fuji Finepix X100) there’ll be plenty to hold your attention.

Trade admission is free, but you need to register before you go. If you’re not trade, it’s £8 if you book in advance. Many, many more details (and booking facilities) on the Focus on Imaging website.

Oh Gap, get it together!

Imagine how surprised you might feel if you were to walk into a multi-national clothing store and find that a picture you took is being used as the base for a design on one of their garments. I’m guessing my surprise levels would register at ‘Astonished’. They’d probably be followed by anger at rating ‘Livid’. Well, Chris Devers has just found out that the Gap has reproduced his photo of a rather lovely Jaguar E-type on some kiddies’ clothes. (Yes, it’s pretty obvious the design came from his photo.) All credit to him, he seems remarkably calm. Given the circumstances.

Chris has set out just how you can determine that it was his picture that is the base design for that used on a Gap ‘thermal body double’ vest. They’ve used it on a baby-grow, too.

Sheesh Gap! Yes, it was licensed under Creative Commons, but it was non-commercial and with no derivatives. I’m pretty convinced that you’ve managed to violate both of those terms by selling a derivative of the image on your clothes. Would a phone call, or an email, be too much trouble? Perhaps they’re just too big, and too busy, and too important to worry about the rest of us?

Chris is waiting for a response from Gap. And biting his tongue in the process. I’ll let you know when I hear any more.

(Obviously the image is Chris Devers’. And a headsup goes to A Photo Editor.)

January photo competition winner!

‘Crimeney – awesome stuff – it’s great to see that people are posting such fantastic images! I’m very impressed indeed.’ That was Haje’s reaction when we sat down to judge the January competition entries. So before I announce the winner, and invite you all to have a drink (alcoholic or otherwise, depending on your timezone and personal preferences) and a slice of cake to celebrate, to everyone who entered: thank you and well done. You made our lives difficult in the best way.

We delighted to unveil the winner of our monochrome photo challenge:

Mix, by Geoff Ridenour

Many congratulations! Please drop me an email, Geoff, and I’ll arrange a prize to wing its way to you.

Check out all the entries on our Flickr pool page. They really were phenomenal and everyone deserves credit. We’re looking forward to another great set of entries for February’s competition. Details will be going up soon.

Our February photo competition

Hot on the heels of the amazing January photo competition with its collection of awesome photos comes February’s turn. This month we thought that we’d challenge you to show us how much you love your camera equipment, what with Valentine’s Day coming up and all. Yep, we want photos of your camera equipment. It doesn’t matter how or what: maybe a macro of your macro; perhaps a portrait of self with camera; even a study of your tripod. Get creative with your kit in more ways than one!

The even better news is that the lovely guys over at Fracture have agreed to sponsor the competition and they’ll be providing a 12″ fracture for the winner. Muchly awesome.

You’ve from today (Wednesday 2 February) until Wednesday 23 February to submit your entries (one per person) to our Flickr pool.

The Rules haven’t changed since last time, but they’re at the bottom, for your reference. Any questions? You know where to find me. Otherwise: go forth and take beautiful pictures!

The Rules

• If you decide to enter, you agree to The Rules.
• You can’t have written for Small Aperture or be related to either me or Haje to enter.
• One entry per person – so choose your best!
• Entries need to be submitted to the right place, which is the Small Aperture Flickr group.
• There’s a closing date for entries, so make sure you’ve submitted before then.
• You have to own the copyright to your entry and be at liberty to submit it to a competition. Using other people’s photos is most uncool.
• It probably goes without saying, but entries do need to be photographs. It’d be a bit of strange photo competition otherwise.
• Don’t do anything icky – you know, be obscene or defame someone or sell your granny to get the photo.
• We (that being me and Haje) get to choose the winner and we’ll do our best to do so within a week of the competition closing.
• You get to keep all the rights to your images. We just want to be able to show off the winners (and maybe some honourable mentions) here on Small Aperture.
• Entry is at your own risk. I can’t see us eating you or anything, but we can’t be responsible for anything that happens to you because you submit a photo to our competition.
• We are allowed to change The Rules, or even suspend or end the competition, if we want or need to. Obviously we’ll try not to, but just so that you know.

One day, one camera, lots of pictures: Bristol Photomarathon

For all you lovelies in and around the Bristol area, or perhaps if you fancy a day out taking pictures in one of my favourite cities, a one-day photomarathon is being organised as part of the Bristol Festival of Photography. On Saturday 5 March you’ll have seven hours and one disposable camera to capture a series of images from a specific list. Running is not compulsory.

I have to say, I rather like the idea of providing everyone with a disposable camera for the day. Not only does it level the playing field, but it gives anyone, whatever her or his photographic experience, an opportunity to have a go at photography. And there’s no running involved.

Whether or not you manage to capture all the images on your list, your pictures will still be exhibited online, and the organisers, Second Look, are trying to arrange a giant projector display, too. That sounds rather groovy. If you book your place in advance, it’ll cost £7; turn up on the day and it’s £10.

Interested? More details are available here. And remember, this is Bristol. In March. Take your waterproofs.

iPhone: now for movies

We’ve seen the fashion shoot on the iPhone and the short film shot on a Nokia N8 mobile phone. It wasn’t going to be long until there was a film made on an iPhone, was it? It’s being released today. It’s called Paranmanjang, which translates literally as Ups and Downs but seems to be going under the English-language title of Night Fishing, and was made by Park Chan-wook. This dude has won prizes at Cannes, so it’s hardly a tin-pot production, either.

iPhone’s South Korean distributor shelled out $130,000 to fund the project, a 30 minute film that tells the story of a fisherman who trawls up the body of a woman. Park used eight iPhone 4s to film it, and it’s mostly in black and white. I get the feeling its moody and menacing, then.

I’d love to give you a full review, but it has been released in Seoul, and the Small Aperture travel budget doesn’t extend quite that far this year. But it just goes to show what you can do with an iPhone. As Park told the Los Angeles Times, ‘Find a location. You don’t even need sophisticated lighting. Just go out and make movies.’