You know Jonathan Greenwald? No? Nice chap, lives in Brooklyn... you must know him... tallented bloke, snaps pictures with a Canon 20D... runs a photoblog called Shrued... no? He is an IT Manager by day but still seems to find the time to upload a picture at 6AM everyday. Well, if you really don't know ol' Greenwald head on over to his photoblog and say I sent you.

Image from the blog shown here is Rowing For Life plenty of other images of note including Sunset over Metropolis, Circles and Lines and Next Train.

Graced today by a clear and startling image of a peacock Happy Designs is maintained by Webbie Bud. He describes himself not as a photographer but as a guy with a camera "There's a difference' he says. Going digital in 2003 Webbie has taken "tens of thousands of shots (enjoying the freedom of not paying and waiting for film processing) of life and stuff in and around Victoria, BC about as far west on the west coast of Canada as you can get without falling into the Pacific" but only has 100 images so far on his photo-blog.

Equipment is a Canon Powershot A95 with a 0.7 wide angle lens and a 1.75 teleconverter.

A great response to our request for readers photoblogs; enough inspiration to slate anyones photo-porn craving.

Selecting one of the submissions at random brings us to the work of Bryan William Jones and his JonesBlog.

The best images from citizen journalists have been announced at the Nokia Citizen Journalism Awards 2006.

The winning image is a shot of the No.30 bus in Tavistock Square, London taken just after the bomb explosion on 7th July 2005.

The winner has donated the prize (Nokia N90 cameraphone, a photo printer, and Flickr membership) to charity for auction and wishes to remain annoymous. David Otway was second for his shot of the Buncefield oil depot explosion taken from a plane, while third place went to Alexander Chadwick's cameraphone shot of people emerging after the Piccadilly line explosion.

The judges in the competition included Channel 4 news presenter, John Snow, BBC News Interactivity editor, Vicky Taylor, CNN.com Europe editor, Nick Wrenn, and Chairman of the Picture Editors Awards, Glyn Genin.

The awards were open to any non-journalist who shot an image or video clip that had been used in some form of publication in the last year.

Entries are now closed but you can download a voting form for the Garden Photographers' Association International Photographic Competition and view nearly 100 stunning images. Inspiration indeed.

Bristol, UK - between 11th and 13th August Canon will be attending The Discovery Channel Bristol Balloon Fiesta. It promises to be an amazing event full of photographic opportunities with 150 hot air balloons launched over the three days. Canon will be demonstrating how easy it is to print directly from a camera to one of their printers.

The closest you can get to a digital SLR without actually buying one - the eight-megapixel, 5.8x optical zoom Kodak P880. Reviewed on PC World.

A picture of nerve cells growing on the silk is one of the winning images in this year's Wellcome Trust Biomedical Image Awards. It is one of 26 images - many revealing objects invisible to the naked eye - captured from medical research programmes across Britain.

Example of using Photoshops gradient mask to remove an unwanted object from a photography. On Still Life With...

HP's PIXACO has announced a summer of online 'photo fun' with lowered prices in some European countries by up to 36 percent. Pixaco provides its customers with "high-quality prints and photo merchandise from quick, convenient home photo printing to customer-friendly online ordering"

Regular readers will know that I have a bit of a thing with food. Oh and wine. My reintroduction to photogaphy was via food. Myself and food blogger Sam (Pecks and Posh) run a little monthly challenge, foodography, on flickr that covers the food and drink sphere of still life photography. If you would like to join in the current theme is Wine Bottle and Glass.

A simple enough subject you would have thought. I rummaged through various back issues of photo and food magazines and found little; even the selection of wine websites - retailers and producers - that I looked at was under-whelmed with the lack of creativity in their images. Plenty of plain and boring full bottles with label in full view but no inspiring 'life style' images that really sold the wine to me. Hence the creation of this flickr group.

I do like this photo - vintage Americana. But I have some reservations - the crop is slightly off I feel. The top of the bottles is lost and the salt shaker is cut too. And are those white globe lights at the back distracting? Still very evocative. So well done to Daisy with Short Order Must Haves. But I have to slap her bum - no EXIF data.... very annoying. So a down grade from Digital Photo of the Day to a more humble 'What do you think of this pic?' post.

Editor's Note:
We have already featured some outstanding photography here on the Digital Photography Weblog and we are looking for more. Have a great shot? Then submit it for consideration to our Flickr Group.

The focus is food on Still Life With... last months theme of black and white brought out some interesting images where texture and shading appear to work best on individual ingredients rather than complete dishes. But judge for yourself at flickr.

July has broken so a new theme - Sugar. I am thinking sugar cubes, bowls of sugar, sugar cane even perhaps fancy sugar work. "You can do with this what you like, but sugar should be what your viewer thinks when they see the photo..."

Lara reguests that if you do participate in the group that you have a look at the other submissons and leave some comments. "We're all looking for feedback, and I think each of us has our own perspective on what makes a good photo... we want to hear your opinion!"

Strong lines, dramatic colour makes for a powerful image. What do you think?

Conform by Goma's View.

Camera: Olympus u30D,S410D,u410

Exposure: 0.003 sec (1/320)

Aperture: f/3.1

Focal Length: 5.8 mm

ISO Speed: 64

Exposure Bias: 0/10 EV

Editor's Note:
We have already featured some outstanding photography here on the Digital Photograhy Weblog and we are looking for more. Have a great shot? Then submit it for consideration to our Flickr Group.

I am not good at black and white images. It might be because it is colour that first attracted me to photography in the first place - I think and see in colour and not in terms of tone and shade. Of course I can fully appreciate those that have more success.

I was interested, therefore, in Still Life With... 's latest flickr theme. Some of the images so far submitted to the group are stunning. I love the reflections on Sam's picture of a knife and cheese and the pears by stieglitz. (Any thoughts on my efforts?)

Still Life With... is all about food photography. Everyday we see glorious images of food in full colour. Do they work in black and white as well?

1. During the months of July and August anyone visiting the the London Eye will also have the opportunity to look at the winning entries from the 2005 International Travel Photographer of the Year competition.
2. Google is currently testing a new version of its photo-management app Picasa in private beta that will let users post photo albums on the web via an integrated, Google-hosted service. You can learn some more about the service or put yourself on the beta waiting list at the Picasa Web site. See DownLoad Squad for details.
3. Wired News is running an interesting piece about Flickr's policy which excludes images from being displayed in public areas of the site or global search results if more than half of the uploader's images are "non-photographic images." The rationale seems to be that when people come to Flickr they're looking for photos, not screenshots or other images. (also via Download Squad)
4. Flock is now in beta mode. Lots of new features for photo management, feed-reading, search, favorites, and blogging. Take a look at the Flock blog for lots of juicy details, or hit the download site to grab Flock for Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux.
5. Superb stop-motion tour of the Pyrimids over on Yakkr.com. (found via Gadling)
6. Don't know quite why you would want to but the Digital Photography School shows how to get your images to look like Lomo photos. A Lomo is a Russian manufactured camera. It is poorly made and known for its less than perfect image quality.

Picture from the Digital Photograhy Flickr Group Electirc Scream by CyberGus.

There will be over 40 of the most significant photographs capturing 'the essence' of the Beatles and their role in the history of music at the National Portrait Gallery in July.

I realise they are not going to be 'digital' but the photographs of such luminaries as Harry Goodwin, Dezo Hoffmann, Linda McCartney, Terry O'Neill, Robert Whitaker, David Bailey, Philip Townsend, are sure to be inspiring and fascinating. All these photographers helped define the iconic pop group; many are previously 'unseen'.

The show runs from July 5th through to October 22nd 2006

The last few days I have been in Italy - touring vineyards north of Venice, tasting fresh and creamy Prosecco, eating a selection of deliciously good food and being enraptured by the stunning countryside. The highlight of the trip was a helicopter ride over the vineyards put on by one of the top producers of the Prosecco region Bisol.

Plenty of exclusive photographic opportunities you would have thought; and you wouldn't be wrong. Here are a few tips though. Firstly make sure you have a spare Compact Flash card so half way through the flight you don't run out of space. Secondly check the white balance is set for the conditions and don't assume the setting you have is overridden by the auto settings of the camera. Helicopters are noisy beasts and you have to have headphones clasped around your noggin to hear directions and commentary. This means of course that you can't hear the click of the camera or the whirl of the auto focus.

You are excited of course and clicking away like some possessed mad man (well I might never have another go at this so make the most of it!) and forget all these simple and obvious tips.. and end up deleting half the shots you took as they are blurred or suffer from burn out. Half the pictures you managed to take before the 'card full' message flashes on the screen....

Luckily many I did take turned out fine.

1. Engadget reviews the 7.2 megapixel Sony DSV-T30 [link]
2. Download Squad looks at AllYouCanUpload a new image hosting site from CNet [link]
3. The staff photographer for the Baltimore Sun runs a lighting blog. Strobist has some interesting tips. [website]
4. Food blogger DessertFirst relates her experiences at a professional food photo shoot workshop [website]
5. A new image format is to be part of Windows Vista - Windows Media Photo. It is expected to offer better quality at half the size when compared to the JPEG format. It may also be released as an add-on for Windows XP. [details]
6. Improve your workflow and increase your creativity by attending the Phase One RoadShow seminar. See how Capture One software creates outstanding Photoshop-ready files. June 14, 2006 Park Royal Studios, London NW10 7AE [website]
    
   
   

The first winning image in this year's Digital Camera Photographer of the Year contest is Mustakim's 'Poverty', a beautifully lit shot which met the category brief - Powerful Portraits - perfectly. It was taken with a Canon EOS 20D (Focal length: 75mm Shutter speed: 1/160mm).

This is the first section in the Digital Camera Photographer of the Year contest. To come are rounds on Landscapes, Animal and nature, Action and Movement, Travel and Black and White.

I am unsure as to the name of this effect but it is a fascinating never finishing 'delve' into images. Choose a point on the photograph and you move from one idea and colour through into another in a never-ending chain. Does it actually have a name?

The website needs Shockwave to render.

[From Googleblogoscoped]

The third outing for photo-london the capitals international photography fair.

This year the event is taking place at the Royal Academy of Arts' Burlington Gardens from the 18th to the 21st May. Entrance is £12 (available on the door or pre-booked) which includes entry to selected talks.

There is a 'special exhibition' where Christopher Bailey, Creative Director of Burberry has compiled a 'photographic portrait of London, past and present'. He has picked images to revel London's many facets - from John Deakin's iconic images of 1950s Soho bohemia at The Colony Club, to Hedi Slimane's contemporary view of London hedonism.  

Among other photographers whose work will be part of the exhibition are Sam Taylor-Wood, Tim Walker, Mary McCartney Donald, Johnny Shand Kydd, Mick Rock, Daniel Farson, Roger Maine and Robert Whitaker. A full list of exhibitors is here.

The image here is from the exhibition - (C) Ellen Kooi Alphen a/d. Rijn - Waterkant, 2002/2003

It should be a treasure trove of photographic opportunities -  It is the biggest Bengali bash outside Bangladesh and it is happening this Sunday in London's Brick Lane the heart of Banglatown. The Baishaki Mela is the Bangla New Year Festival.

The event kicks off at 11am with a spectacular procession of Musicians, Dancers, Peacock boat, a Bridal Ride with Palki (Palanquin) and Rickshaws, a metal Elephant as well as children dressed in colourful traditional clothes and masks setting out from Allen Gardens and taking to the streets to share the warmth of 'Shubho Nobo Borsho' (Happy New Year). The procession will arrive at the main stage on weaver's fields (vallence road E1) just before 12 midday to mark the beginning of the Mela.

For the rest of day, the main stage will host everything from traditional folk, Baul and Bollywood to Bengali rock, bhangra and contemporary east/west fusion and Brick Lane will be pedestrianised for the whole day and is going to be transformed into a market place with over 45 curry houses spilling out on to the pavement offering curry alfresco. Other stalls will sell Bangladeshi fashion goods and traditional handicrafts.

If the weather continues on this weeks beautiful Spring path this event should be superb. Sadly the images here, taken form the Brick Lane site, are crap, and in no way reflect the vibrancy of the event...

It doesn't matter how hard you try playing around with photoshop - if you do not start with a decent image to start with you will never end up with a decent image. This is the crux of a post by Aaron Hockly on this DogCaught blog.

He writes "In the computer field, there's a term called GIGO, meaning "Garbage in, garbage out". Applying this to photography, the meaning is that if one starts with a poor photo, digital processing won't be able to turn it into a great shot. It is far better to begin with a properly exposed and technically correct photo than it is to start out needing to "fix" things just to make the photo usable."

After reading the rest of his thoughts have a look at his photo gallery. Who could fail to be inspired living where he does? Coupled with the stunning scenery there is also a little railway...