Series of por­traits from the peo­ple of then Russian Empire. Sharp and well com­posed, but the slightly taller for­mat would have made com­po­si­tion tricky; won­der what kind of cam­era it was shot on.

Good ques­tion:

My first ques­tion to Bono’s pub­li­cist: “What are the chances I’ll get to pho­to­graph him with­out his sun­glasses?” Her response: “Hmmm. Probably zero. No chance. I don’t see it hap­pen­ing.” So began my date with Bono.

(via LA Times Photography)

© Béatrice de Géa for NY Times

Lovely por­trait by Béa de Géa of Sting. Check out her web­site for more por­trait good­ies.

(the article’s nice too, by the way.)

Good news for land­scape & archi­tec­ture pho­tog­ra­pher. Out this month for just $2000.

Excellent word­craft from press releases of an optics-expert com­pany, Carl Zeiss:

Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 2/28: The Expert for Half-light

The break­ing dawn is a spe­cial time for pho­tog­ra­phers. When the early-morning sun reluc­tantly chases away the still-glistening dew on the trees, this del­i­cate tran­si­tion between night and day cre­ates moments of calm and antic­i­pa­tion. But with­out a tri­pod at hand, these shots will only suc­ceed with a lens that can han­dle intense light.

Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 2/35: A New Lens Takes Center Stage

A squir­rel nim­bly scam­pers along a moss-covered tree trunk. It has made a promis­ing dis­cov­ery amongst the fallen leaves of an oak tree. A deer emerges from the half dark­ness of the woods. A pho­tog­ra­pher doc­u­ments the win­ter prepa­ra­tions of var­i­ous wood­land crea­tures. This requires a ver­sa­tile, high-speed, easy to con­fig­ure lens that pro­duces razor-sharp images of the details and the entire scenery.

Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 2,8/21: Perfect Lighting For Dramatic Perspectives

Dusk is falling in Manhattan, and a swarm of com­muters on their way home is hur­riedly cross­ing the street toward Grand Central Station. Behind them, the sky­scrap­ers reflect the golden light of the set­ting sun. To cap­ture this unique atmos­phere, pho­tog­ra­phers need a fast wide-angle lens.

I could do this all day, so let’s wrap it up before I get sued, but allow me to share this final clas­sic bit 120 Years of Lenses from Carl Zeiss:

They’ve been to space; they’re Hollywood favorites; and they’ve been the con­stant com­pan­ions of demand­ing pho­tog­ra­phers around the globe for 120 years.

The release lists Nicole Balle of Camera and Cine Lenses as the edi­to­r­ial con­tact, it may, or may not be that some­one is work­ing with her, who­ever it is — thank you and kudos for mak­ing the press releases human again.

© Marian Bantjes

She is an angel descend­ing to earth shar­ing the divin­ity of beauty. TED picked it up, and here’s what she has to say about her work:

I’m very inter­ested in won­der, in design as an impe­tus to inquir­ing. To say I won­der is to say I ques­tion, I ask. And to expe­ri­ence won­der is to expe­ri­ence awe. […] But I really believe that a fully oper­at­ing, rich soci­ety needs these seeds com­ing from all direc­tions and all dis­ci­plines in order to keep the gears of inspi­ra­tion and imag­i­na­tion flow­ing and cycling and grow­ing. So that’s why I do what I do, and why I spend so much time and effort on it, and why I work in the com­mer­cial, pub­lic sphere, as opposed to the iso­lated, pri­vate sphere of fine art. Because I want as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble to see my work, notice it, be drawn into it, and be able to take some­thing from it. And I actu­ally really feel that it’s worth­while to spend my valu­able and lim­ited time on this earth in this way. And I thank you for allow­ing me to show it to you.

She call her­self a Graphic Artist, but she’s mostly a thinker, philoso­pher & phil­an­thropist play­ing the roles of a poet, a writer, a designer, a painter, an artist and more pre­cisely an agent of inspiration.

It’s one of the best talk on TED I’ve seen just yet, down­load the high-res MP4; and have a look at her web­site for her wide-range of medi­ums & multi-discipline of prac­tice she is able to cre­ate from.

© Kevin Frayer/AP Photo

Best 7.5 minute I spent today.

© Jodi Bieber/TIME

I can’t even imag­ine the pain and suf­fer­ing Aisha must have gone through, but her will­ing­ness for her story to be told to the world is a coura­geous and extremely noble act. Jodi Bieber tells more about the pho­to­shoot for TIME’s cover story.

© Aditya Mandayam

This, prac­ti­cally would make your iPhone, iPad, or any LCD screens your truly dig­i­tal neg­a­tive. Aditya Mandayam:

For the past few years I made prints like this: shoot-develop-scan film, print dig­i­tally. The Laptopogram is an inverse. […] Laptopograms are images made by press­ing pho­to­sen­si­tive paper onto a lap­top screen and flash­ing an image in a man­ner not unlike con­tact print­ing or pho­tograms. […] ‘Laptopogram’ is a mis­nomer — I reckon they can be made with pretty much any mon­i­tor. Perhaps ‘Luminous Screen Emulsion Transfers’ is a better.

Brilliantly authen­tic. Excuse me, I got some dust­ing to do.

(Via Photojojo)

© Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Clever cap­tures, bril­liant edit­ing at Boston.com’s The Big Picture.

I have yet to jump ship to the cross cam­era lens mix-matching, but Novoflex has given one rea­son to, they just launch a new adapter for Nikon lenses to Canon EOS bod­ies that is able to main­tain elec­tronic meter­ing func­tion, the catch? It costs $300:

The new adapter is made to very pre­cise and high stan­dards to ensure exact infin­ity focus on the Canon cam­era. With the EOS/NIK-NT adapter auto­matic expo­sure meter­ing via stop-down meter­ing is pos­si­ble as is aper­ture pri­or­ity auto expo­sure. The new adapter fea­tures a lever on the side of the adapter to let users con­trol the aper­ture on G series lenses. For users of non-G series Nikon lenses Novoflex also offers their orig­i­nal Nikon to Canon adapter, the EOS/NIK.

Keep in mind, though, using a lens adapter means loos­ing light, and it requires some addi­tional invest­ments, like your time (prac­tice) and acces­sories like a split-image focus­ing screen for the auto focus­ing func­tion that you loose.