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Rick Norsigian’s hobby of picking through piles of unwanted items at garage sales in search of antiques has paid off for the Fresno, California, painter. Two small boxes he bought 10 years ago for $45 — negotiated down from $70 — are now estimated to be worth at least $200 million, according to a Beverly Hills art appraiser.

Those boxes contained 65 glass negatives created by famed nature photographer Ansel Adams in the early period of his career. Experts believed the negatives were destroyed in a 1937 darkroom fire that destroyed 5,000 plates. “It truly is a missing link of Ansel Adams and history and his career,” said David W. Streets, the appraiser and art dealer who is hosting an unveiling of the photographs at his Beverly Hills, California, gallery.

The photographs apparently were taken between 1919 and the early 1930s, well before Adams — who is known as the father of American photography — became nationally recognized in the 1940s, Streets said. “This is going to show the world the evolution of his eye, of his talent, of his skill, his gift, but also his legacy,” Streets said. “And it’s a portion that we thought had been destroyed in the studio fire.”
How these 6.5 x 8.5 inch glass plate negatives of famous Yosemite landscapes and San Francisco landmarks — some of them with fire damage — made their way from Adams collection 70 years ago to a Southern California garage sale in 2000 can only be guessed.

The person who sold them to Norsigian at the garage sale told him he bought them in the 1940s at a warehouse salvage in Los Angeles.
Photography expert Patrick Alt, who helped confirm the authenticity of the negatives, suspects Adams carried them to use in a photography class he was teaching in Pasadena, California, in the early 1940s.
“It is my belief that he brought these negatives with him for teaching purposes and to show students how to not let their negatives be engulfed in a fire,” Alt said. “I think this clearly explains the range of work in these negatives, from very early pictorialist boat pictures, to images not as successful, to images of the highest level of his work during this time period.” Alt said it is impossible to know why Adams would store them in Pasadena and never reclaim them.

The plates were individually wrapped in newspaper inside deteriorating manila envelopes. Notations on each envelope appeared to have been made by Virginia Adams, the photographer’s wife, according to handwriting experts Michael Nattenberg and Marcel Matley. They compared them to samples provided by the Adams’ grandson.

Moeller said that after six months of study, he concluded “with a high degree of probability, that the images under consideration were produced by Ansel Adams.
Silver tarnishing on the negatives also helped date the plates to around the 1920s, Alt said.

Norsigian, who has spent the last decade trying to prove the worth of his discovery, is now ready to cash in — by selling original prints of the photographs to museums and collectors.
“I have estimated that his $45 investment easily could be worth up to $200 million,” Streets said.

Twaalf jaar lang iedere dag een foto van jezelf maken. Dat is wat een kunstenaar uit New York heeft gedaan. Hij maakt dus letterlijk een ‘face book’.

Jonathan Keller kocht twaalf jaar geleden een digitale camera en maakte een foto van zichzelf. Zijn vriendin vroeg hem toen spottend of hij nu iedere dag zichzelf zou fotograferen. Keller antwoorde dat hij dat inderdaad ging doen en zo ontstond zijn nieuwe project met de naam “The Adaption to My Generation”.

Keller heeft nu zo’n 3400 foto’s van zichzelf in dezelfde pose waarin goed te zien is hoe hij door de jaren heen veranderd is. Er ontbreken slechts een aantal foto’s omdat hij een paar weken in Antartica zat. Hij is van plan om de rest van zijn leven elke dag voor de camera te staan. Elk puistje of kapsel in de afgelopen twaalf jaar staat vastgelegd op camera.

De 34-jarige Keller heeft een filmpje gemaakt met zijn foto’s van 1998 tot 2006 die snel achter elkaar gezet zijn zodat je de veranderingen in zijn gezicht kunt zien. Het filmpje is inmiddels miljoenen keren bekeken op YouTube.

(Bron: NOS.nl)

(Foto: Peter Schols)

Iedereen had het gemist. Alle TV-stations moesten het doen met een herhaling en de meeste fotografen waren aan het balen dat ze dat éne moment van het WK-voetbal 2006 niet op de gevoelige plaat hadden gelegd. Één fotograaf had het moment wel. De kopstoot van Zidane is de foto die Peter Schols in een klap wereldberoemd maakte. In meer dan 1100 kranten was zijn foto op de voorpagina te zien en hij won er ook nog eens een World Press Photo prijs mee.

Audiofragment (Bron: L1.nl)

Van 27 mei tot 30 augustus beleeft Den Haag de wereldpremière van Wild Wonders of Europe, een gratis openluchttentoonstelling op de Lange Vijverberg met ruim honderd levensgrote natuurfoto’s van 62 topfotografen, gemaakt in 45 Europese landen.

Wild Wonders of Europe is about sharing the amazing natural wonders of our continent with 700 million Europeans and the World! Our aim is so that we can all better reconnect to this wonderful heritage, enjoy it more and take care of it more wisely for the future.

Wild Wonders of Europe wants to show that Europe really is not about just highways and cities. But today, many seem to know more about nature in Africa or in America, than in Europe, because that is what’s on TV. The European natural wonders are still very little known to the World. We want to change that.

Wild Wonders of Europe also wants to celebrate the conservation measures taken and to strongly support taking these further. We want to bring you the good news that a lot of wildlife in Europe is actually coming back! That when we humans take the right decisions, nature quickly appreciates it and comes back.

Silent Images is a non-profit organization that tells the stories of hope in the midst of persecution, poverty, or oppression through journalistic photography, videography, and writing. There are inspiring people doing amazing things around the world, but who is telling the stories? Most of the media seems to be consumed with Hollywood gossip and stories of tragedy. Isn’t there more going on in our world? What about the mother in Africa who heroically runs through the desert of Darfur to keep her baby safe? What about the young homeless child in North Carolina who sleeps in an abandoned car but still manages to make it to school on time every day? What about the 12 year old girl who escaped from a sex-trafficking ring in Cambodia and is now back in school earning the highest marks in her class? These stories need to be told. The world needs to hear these stories in order to raise awareness of the injustice, but more importantly, to inspire others to want to get involved and take action.

What exactly does Silent Images Do?

1. We act as a central hub for any photographer, videographer or writer who has an inspiring story to tell. Sometimes we commission the stories to be told, and at other times the artists contacts us and we publicize their stories.
2. We serve other non-profit organizations or churches by offering them our services at low cost or for free when necessary.
3. We use our website, books and galleries to give a face of hope in the midst of domestic and international injustice. We use the profits from this work to give back to the people documented. All of our work is shared with the goal to educate hundreds so thousands will be served.

SilentImages.org

The journey of a father and his son
From Beijing to Paris by train

This is the story of a promise given by a father to his son. Words the son would never forget. A dream he would keep alive, a plan he knew would someday be fulfilled.

It is the story of a boy who cried whenever his father, a renown photojournalist, would leave on one of his trips to distant places. Once, hoping that he could join him on his travels, the boy hid in his father’s suitcases.

One day his father said, “When you turn fifteen, we will leave together, just the two of us. We will travel far and explore the lives and cultures of other lands and their people. And we will seek to understand them, and to share with them.”

A Childhood Promise @ National Geographic Channel

Magnum Photos has released an iPhone application built in association with Reporters Without Borders, which wil show more than 100 photo stories shot by its celebrated photographers.

The application is launched on World Press Freedom day (03 May), which, each year, sees the release of a special edition photobook. This year’s album contains 101 pictures shot by Magnum’s photographers including Robert Capa and Martin Parr.

The iPhone application, which is available in French and English, features the 101 images, but also includes a full report on each photographer that shot the images, as well a biography and historical context.

While the application will be available for €2.99, each week new reportages will be available for download priced at €0.79.

The launch comes after Magnum announced, earlier this year, it was looking at new distribution models to face off the decline in commissions from the print media.

For more information, visit magnumphotos.com/iphone.

At times war photographer Robert King resembles a heroic misfit straight out of the pages of Scoop, thrown into the heart of battle, struggling to adapt to the brutal environment he finds himself in. Occasionally comic, often touching, more often dark, Shooting Robert King, the tale of Robert King, is a unique and personal journey, a film which follows him over 15 years and through three wars.

His journey starts in Sarajevo in 1993, a 23-year-old fresh out of Art College and prepared to dodge bullets on the front line dreaming of a Pulitzer Prize. His dream proves elusive. Fired by his photo agency and struggling to make ends meet, any swashbuckling allusions Robert holds for the career he has chosen quickly evaporate: as he realises this is one of the toughest professions in the world.

Despite himself, Robert stays in the game, over time establishing himself as a respected professional, his work making the front covers of global media titles. Over 15 years Shooting Robert King records Robert’s life from boy to man, to husband and father. It is a biography, which leads from reckless naivety to maturity hardened by war and softened by family. It is a story, which forces Robert to inevitably question why he chose a profession, which involves an endless trail of death and destruction.