Photography Roundup - 5/8

Weekly-ish News and Photography Updates

By K David in Columns on May 8, 2015

Picture of the Week Theme Image | ramsbuckeye

May is here and with it has come opportunities for dramatic, exciting, and heartbreaking photos all over the world. In Nepal, photos of the Mt. Everest earthquake show a level of destruction not seen since the Haiti earthwuake in 2010 and Japan tsunami of 2011. In Baltimore, the U.S. is showing that the lessons of the 1960s went unlearned or have been forgotten. This month has started as a boom for serious photojournalists who can use their cameras to capture the drama of catastrophe and the strength people show in these times.

Featured Deals

April saw a number of deals from Pentax. With the K-3 II shipping in late May, this month, too, may be an exciting month. Right now, though, Sigma is picking up the deal slack with a number of really exiting offers and the price of the Pentax K-50 is continuing to drop.

• Pentax K-50 with extras for $329
• Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4 for $399
• Pentax DA* 16-50mm for $749
• Sigma Lens Deals in May

Pentax Forums Roundup

Official Monthly Contest Update

Official Monthly Contest #104 ("fill the frame") wrapped up last week. Check the contest gallery to cast your nominations.

Serenity Theme Sample Image

Official Monthly Contest #105 also started this week. The theme is Serenity. Not the Serenity of the Firefly television series, but serenity like calm, peacefulness, and contentment. Find your best image that sooths chaotic minds and enter it for a chance to win great prizes!

Point and Shoot Competition #90

Port of Martiques | gt6plus

Point and Shoot Competition #89 just wrapped with gt6plus taking the weekly prize (hosting the next challenge) for his shot of the Port of Martigues.

Point and Shoot #90 Content Image | gt6plus

Point and Shoot Competition #90 is now live. This week the theme is Nature. So dust off those neglected and unused non-Pentax cameras and give the Point and Shoot theme a go!

Picture of the Week #361

Matt 2 | K David

Picture of the Week Thread #361 for April 27 to May 10, 2015, is up and running. Submit the photos you've taken or are editing this week. And yes, even if you took it back in 1989 but just now got it online to edit, it still counts as a picture of the week.

Gear News

The full K-3 II specifications are now in our camera comparison tool. And it's a safe bet that it will be a race to see who can write the first review of what promises to be another 'best APS-C DSLR on the market' body from Pentax.

Pentax Forums T-shirts Shipped Today. I received an e-mail confirming that my Pentax Forum T-shirt shipped today. I picked the lens mount design. Which one did you pick? Let us know in the comments. 

If you missed the shirt sale, a second one will be starting up later this month.

Photography News

When Imitation Stops Being Flattering

The Internet has a lot of great benefits. Protection of intellectual property is not one of them. Photographer Joel Robinson recently found two separate cases of plagiarism involving his work in a short period. In one case, the intellectual content thief copied his work plat-for-play making images too errily similar and of too great a frequency for it to be coincidence. In another, the intellectual property thief used photo editing software to remove Robinson from the images and then paste himself in. Unfortunately, intellectual property thieves are protected by their own country's copyright laws, or lack thereof, and all that we can typically do is ask for images to be removed and hope for the best. Read more

Meet the Afghan Photographers Telling Their Country's Stories

Historically, totalitarian regimes have and art have mixed like nitric acid and glycerin. In Afghanistan, the Taliban was no different. Thanks to the Taliban, an entire photographic tradition in Afghanistan was almost lost. Street photographers using kamra-e-faoree took photos in the street for money. The cameras were complex box cameras taking photos onto photo paper and then taking macros of the paper negative to create a positive. The development was done in the field inside the camera by the photographer.

Time, this week, featured a documentary about four Afghan photographers working to reclaim their country's photographic legacy. Photography in Afghanistan is still prohibited by the Taliban. No braver photographers exist than those who work to fulfill a mission under the threat of a totalitarian regime with no regard for human life. This is a documentary worth watching about a country that has struggled to recover from numerous wars spanning almost two generations. Read more

Before and After Photos from Kathmandu

This is one of those times where the images convey everything that anyone can say. These are almost as dramatic as the before and after images from the Haiti earthquake and Japan tsunami. Read more

Featured Online Photography Resource 

This week's featured online resource is Google+ Communities. Google+ has an active, thriving, and vibrant photographic scene. Every day Google+ photographers can deliver a steady supply of amazing photography to your news feed.

A part of Google+, the communities are places designed for knowledge and image sharing. In a lot of ways, the Google+ communities are like specialized versions of Pentax Forums. These are a good place to participate in niche photography discussions and image sharing. That said, the communities are not like Pentax Forums in that there is not as streamlined a means of dialogue, a key benefit of Pentax Forums over many other photography resources.

Here are some of my favorite Google+ Communities:

• Pentaxians United
• Film and Analogue Photography
• Creative Portraiture
• Night Photography
• Architecture & Architectural Photography

Also, don't miss the Pentax Forums Google+ page.

Featured Photography Journal

The 37th Frame is a home for some of the best photojournalism photography on the Internet. Consisting of links to high-quality material as well as submissions directly sent to The 37th Frame, the journal provides an uncommon diversity of photographic vision and high-quality images. Presenting honest, poignant, and captivating work, The 37th Frame is a doorway to worldwide photojournalism that will change your views on humanity and our world.

Specializes in: Photojournalism

Publication Frequency: Often but unstated

Submission Fee: Free