• “In college, take a year off and drive across the country, and camp along the way,” “Old Geezer” advises young photographers. “Do it with good friends that are smart; not dumbasses that just want to get high. Bring some books. Bring some audio books if you can’t read.”  Also: “Always order good catering. That’s all the client really cares about.” [Via]
• “This is a picture I did not take…”  On Unphotographable, Michael David Murphy describes the ones that got away. [Via]
• Befuddlr creates interactive puzzles from the contents of Flickr.  To get one of your images into the game, you can–according to the folks at Photojojo–“Upload your photo to the Photojojo Flickr group, go to Befuddlr and click “photojojo”, select your photo, and scramble it into an online puzzle game! The site will even time your unscrambling attempts, making for a perfect mid-day office-wide showdown.” [Via]
• Speaking of Flickr, Jason Kottke test-drives the Eye-Fi wireless memory card, which enables direct upload from your camera to Flickr–no cables required.  (This strikes me as cool tech, but I’d much rather have the perhaps impossible GPS-on-a-card.)  Elsewhere, Photopreneur.com offers up 36 Reasons Flickr is a Photographer’s Ultimate Tool.
• DIYPhotography shows a cool way to make heart-shaped bokeh (lens blur). [Via]  Hmm–maybe we should add hearts as a shape option for Photoshop’s bokeh-making Lens Blur filter (see related tutorial).  If doing stuff like this is up your alley, check out their other tutorials–e.g. “Cheapest ring light ever” [Via] and high-speed photography at home (champagne glasses, BB gun, and subsequent eye patches sold separately).
• Speaking of high speed photos, check out this beautiful collection of liquid art & droplet photography. [Via Dave Story]
• Ecocentric offers a foxy camera bag made from old belts. [Via]

• “In college, take a year off and drive across the country, and camp along the way,” “Old Geezer” advises young photographers. “Do it with good friends that are smart; not dumbasses that just want to get high. Bring some books. Bring some audio books if you can’t read.”  Also: “Always order good catering. That’s all the client really cares about.” [Via]
• “This is a picture I did not take…”  On Unphotographable, Michael David Murphy describes the ones that got away. [Via]
• Befuddlr creates interactive puzzles from the contents of Flickr.  To get one of your images into the game, you can–according to the folks at Photojojo–“Upload your photo to the Photojojo Flickr group, go to Befuddlr and click “photojojo”, select your photo, and scramble it into an online puzzle game! The site will even time your unscrambling attempts, making for a perfect mid-day office-wide showdown.” [Via]
• Speaking of Flickr, Jason Kottke test-drives the Eye-Fi wireless memory card, which enables direct upload from your camera to Flickr–no cables required.  (This strikes me as cool tech, but I’d much rather have the perhaps impossible GPS-on-a-card.)  Elsewhere, Photopreneur.com offers up 36 Reasons Flickr is a Photographer’s Ultimate Tool.
• DIYPhotography shows a cool way to make heart-shaped bokeh (lens blur). [Via]  Hmm–maybe we should add hearts as a shape option for Photoshop’s bokeh-making Lens Blur filter (see related tutorial).  If doing stuff like this is up your alley, check out their other tutorials–e.g. “Cheapest ring light ever” [Via] and high-speed photography at home (champagne glasses, BB gun, and subsequent eye patches sold separately).
• Speaking of high speed photos, check out this beautiful collection of liquid art & droplet photography. [Via Dave Story]
• Ecocentric offers a foxy camera bag made from old belts. [Via]

• MangoFalls is a rather fascinating collection of photos from film found in thrift store cameras (kind of a photo-specific version of Found Magazine).  [Via]
• Clayton James Cubitt’s Lagos Calling is “an anthropological study of African skinhead fashion from the early seventies.” [Via]
• The Morning News features Aaron Hobson’s Cinemascapes plus a short interview with the photographer. [Via Thorsten Wulff]
• Magnum Magnum celebrates the 60th anniversary of the famed photo agency.  I love the first two shots in this gallery.  [Via Marc Pawliger]
• People & their breakfasts surveys–well, just that. [Via]  I think this kind of navel-(orange) gazing may be part of Why They Hate Us.

• SI photographer John Zimmerman captured a crazy image of Dr. J shot using a slit camera to follow the movement of his hand.  Hard to believe it’s from 1972!
• Liquid sculpture: Photographer Martin Waugh (see previous) talks about how he combined high-speed photography with a bit of Photoshop to create the new Smirnoff ad campaign.
• William Hundley makes some eye-popping jumping sheet photographs.  See more of his work on Flickr. [Via]
• Sports Shooter hosts a cool gallery of indoor rodeo shots from Darryl Dyck. [Via]
• Telling a very different story occasioned by cowboy imagery, LA Times photog Luis Sinco talks about how his shot of the "Marlboro Marine" James Blake Miller in Iraq changed both of their lives. [Via]  The story is behind an irritating, albeit free, registration barrier.

Interesting recent photo finds:

• Wee cams:
  • Justin Quinnell uses a pinhole camera to take some slightly nasty photos from inside his mouth. [Via]
  • Is the government spying on you via an airborne ultralight camera platform? Wired’s got some interesting speculation & a video.
• Try and stop us:
  • Strictly No Photography sticks it to the Man with an entire site composed of photos taken exactly where they’re forbidden. [Via]
  • "Photo-bans at pop art shows — irony impairment, or Dadaism?" asks Cory Doctorow.  "I wasn’t even allowed to photograph the ‘No Photographs’ sign. A member of staff explained that the typography and layout of the signs was itself copyrighted."
• Darkness:
  • The NY Times has been covering some grim episodes in the history of humanity, as seen through photography:
    • The personal photos of Nazi death camp guards are a study in chilling banality.  See the accompanying slideshow.
    • Photographer Nhem En was made to photograph prisoners who had arrived to be tortured by the Khmer Rouge. “I had to clean, develop and dry the pictures on my own and take them to Duch by my own hand," he says.  "I couldn’t make a mistake. If one of the pictures was lost I would be killed."  On a related note, Khmer leader Pol Pot’s 1973 Mercedes limo is for sale on eBay.
    • The paper also features a multi-part essay from documentarian Errol Morris, charting his efforts to find the exact location of a famous photo from the Crimean war (the so-called Valley of the Shadow of Death).
  • Flickr hosts a small gallery of images from French nuclear tests. [Via]  In college one of these images adorned the basement wall of our hovel in South Bend, IN.

Renowned photographer Jay Maisel is offering a unique workshop in New York next month.  As a fair bit of this blog’s content concerns photography, I thought the details might be of interest.  From Jay:

This is an opportunity to take a workshop with Jay in his own environment, a historic landmark bank building in Lower Manhattan.

This is a workshop about seeing and expanding your capability.  It is not about performing or getting your ego stroked.  It is definitely not about technical things and absolutely not about Photoshop.  You will shoot, get critiques, look at Jay’s work and talk about photography all day long.

It will take place Mon. Dec. 17 to Fri. Dec. 21, from 9am to 10pm each day.  All meals are included.  The cost is $5000.  It will be filled on a first come, first served basis and will be limited to 9 participants.  Payment in full, in advance must be made in order to secure a spot.

The workshop is sponsored by SanDisk. Please call 212.431.5013 or email jay@jaymaisel.com for more information.

Despite having flown through the deeply punishing winds, doing a touch-and-go landing at Burbank and seeing the flames from the air, somehow until now I failed to grasp the scale of the Southern California fires.  The excellent LA Times photo gallery*, however, brings home the reality.  I’m reminded of the word "terriblisma"–or as we might say it now, “shock and awe.” [Via]

*Opening in a new window to avoid irritating auto-resize of one’s browser.

• “Memorize This!” Popular Photography lists 12 essential photographic facts, formulas, and rules of thumb. [Via]
• Design Meltdown has aggregated a slick selection of photo blogs.  Though Design Meltdown’s focus tends to be on cool Web design and technique–plenty of which is in evidence–the photography’s plenty good, too.  There’s almost too much to choose from, but I’ll call out Alberto Oviedo‘s funky palettes & foxy Flash skin in particular.  In any event, remind me not to compare pets with this lady.
• Red Bull adorned its F1 race car with more than 30,000 images submitted by folks who helped raise over $1million for charity.  Brilliant.
• Jonathan Mannion specializes in the world of hip hop & celebrity.  His work spans Busta Rhymes cutting his dreads to the little man from Twin Peaks. [Via Dean Stelfox]
• In the realm of doing it yourself:
  • Make your own pinhole panoramic camera.
  • Make your own light snoot. [Via]
  • Make your own smoke photography. [Via]
• Terry White talks about GPS + Lightroom using a Sony device.

I’m delighted to see that author Jack Davis & the folks at onOne Software have teamed up to release more than 100 presets designed to work in Adobe Camera Raw. Available previously for Lightroom, the set of presets has been expanded and refined for Camera Raw.  According to the site,

PhotoPresets with One-Click WOW! tackle only one development parameter at a time allowing you to optimize your image at each step to create the look you really want without sacrificing any one quality. You start with adjusting your images color and tone and then add effects like black and white conversions, tinting, split-toning and vignetting.

Scroll to the bottom of the page for video training, or just download the presets’ installer and start going to town. [Via]

Magnum photographer Thomas Dworzak has posted a fascinating 7-minute look at the Taliban & photography.  Their religious beliefs led them to deface any human or animal representation (from ancient statues to bottles of shampoo), yet numerous young men posed for images that make them look "like gay icons."  Western reactions say something about our times, too.

Elsewhere in photography:

• Dave Hirmes has created captivating macro ice photography.  [Via]  (Ah, but how about taking those image while using a lens made out of ice?)
• Adobe Bridge engineering manager Arno Gourdol has been doing some cool wide-angle HDR imaging.
• The blind camera contains no optical parts. Instead, "The camera memorizes only the time and starts to continuously search on the net for other photos that have been taken in the very same moment."  That is, it takes other people’s photos.
• Roadside bloomery is calling for great images of America’s "unplanted gardens." [Via Craig Schamp & Bryan O’Neil Hughes]
• ShootSmarter.com features a guide to monitors for professional photography usage.
• Watchismo features a Victorian spy camera disguised as a pocket watch. [Via]

• Douglas Gayeton mixes photos and hand lettering into a unique kind of storytelling. [Via]
• Martin Evening has created an 11-minute video tutorial on creating great black & white images using Lightroom.  (Although the interfaces are a bit different, much of the info carries over to Camera Raw in Photoshop CS3 as well.)
• Coming to the defense of digital SLRs, veteran photographer Rob Reiter talks digital B&W.  He combines multiple exposures into an HDR file, then converts it to B&W using Photoshop.
• In Popular Photography Debbie Grossman discusses ways to use Photoshop together with traditional photographic filters.  The accompanying gallery contains a beautiful image created by combining multiple exposures in Photoshop.
• Annie Leibovitz has created the Gap’s latest campaign. (John Mayer is now a muse?  Yeesh.)
• Helga Steppan creates interesting monochromatic compositions entirely in situ–no manipulation after the fact.  [Via]

Like tears in the rain:

• Ah, if only this were a Photoshop job… The Online Photographer features an image of a boat plunging to its destruction.  Note the unlucky dude in the upper-right corner of the photo (back of the boat).  Mad Mariner has the backstory.
• Novak’s Blog has an interesting collection of moments frozen in time. [Via Bob Regan, who muttered “It’s a little ‘Hang In There‘…”  Touché.]
• Slate’s Magnum series features images in motion .  I really dig the fourth one, taken in Osaka.  And #7 reminds me of time spent in Death Valley… (no further comment).
• "Oh, the Beemanity!!"  Speaking of dudes being… dudes, remember this formula: Flying insects + flying gasoline + an SLR: great photographic storytelling.  (Note: The copywriting is a carnival of profanity, but pretty damn funny.  Just thought you should be forewarned.) [Via Tom Moran]

Few people push Photoshop harder than the crew at the Gigapxl Project, creators of ultra-high resolution digital images and prints.  Now their work, including a shot of the Adobe HQ in San Jose, appears inside Google Earth.  You can zoom in from space onto individual images, then zoom way into each one.  Here’s a screenshot.

To check it out, download the latest version of the software.  Under "Layers" on left side, open the "featured content" folder, check the box for "Gigapxl Photos," and then look for the icons of a picture with a camera.  More details are in the Google Earth documentation.

• Documentarian Errol Morris uses an image of the Lusitania to muse on truth, falsehood, and more in photography. [Via Paul Ferguson]
• The NFL is requiring photo journalists to wear red vests that feature Canon and Reebok logos, and the journalists aren’t too pleased.  The Online Photographer has some fun taking the idea to extremes.
• The Guardian considers the commodification of photography, saying "We all helped to speed the demise of professional photographers."  In a similar vein, the Washington Times remarks on the ubiquity of retouching: "The kind of photo touch-up that once required a lab with chemical baths and pricey equipment can be done in a few minutes by a bright adolescent. Entry costs are low: a computer, an Internet connection and pirated software." (Gah!) [Via]

and wonderfully i fell through the green groove
of twilight striking into many a piece.  –ee cummings

I think the country of Ireland deserves its own color space: the famous “Forty Shades of Green” are a malachite manhandling of your optic nerves that can’t be done justice using the puny ProPhoto or anything else.  We need iRGB*–Irish RGB–with the capacity to describe hilariously green tones found nowhere else in nature.

In the meantime, here are my photos from Ireland.  Once you’ve clicked the gallery for the first time, you can move through the images using left and right arrow keys.  A few notes/thoughts:

• Upside of asking a pro photographer friend for shooting/gear advice before a trip like this: He’ll offer good suggestions, such as bringing a graduated ND filter (which I wish I’d done).  Downside: He’ll show you images he took in the same spots, making you slap your forehead in dismay.  (Thanks a lot, Steve, ;-))
• I continue to wish that Flash respected color profiles.  Because it doesn’t, the colors in the gallery are totally washed out**, at least on a Mac.  (Right-click/Cmd-click any one of them to see the difference, at least in Safari.)  We’ll keep working towards a solution.
• I hate disrupting a scene using a flash, so I’m itching to replace my 17-85mm f4 lens with something comparable but faster.  The surprising thing (to me, anyway) is that Canon’s higher-end glass (e.g. the 24-70mm f2.8) doesn’t offer image stabilization.  I’m not sure why that is, or whether losing it would hurt images relative to my current lens.
• Speaking of green grooves, we referred to various roadways as “green bobsled” tracks–emerald walls whipping by in disturbingly close proximity to one’s head.  Coming around a bend to find a Ford Focus leaning at a 45-degree angle, two wheels firmly up on a stone fence, was a useful cautionary moment.  In describing the trip to her folks, I overheard my wife say, “They drive like the English.” “No,” I interjected, “they drive like Evel Knievel.”  Sadly I couldn’t get any of this on film (er, sensor?).
• Someday I’d love to try shooting “The Clash of the Ash,” hurling–“the world’s fastest field team sport.”  Unlike soccer/football, this is a game Americans could dig–not the kind of thing about which Stephen Colbert could quip, “I’ll help you tell the boring scoreless matches from the riveting scoreless matches.)

* Thanks to Outback Photo for the color space graphic.
** Here’s a screenshot from a new iPhoto gallery, comparing the identical images shown via Safari (above) to those shown via a Flash gallery (below).

• Chuck Kimmerle makes masterful black and white imagery.  His Deadwoods series is particularly striking. [Via]
• Speaking of striking (oh tortured segues, you’re the best!), here’s some brilliant ad placement: a rugby jersey promoting facial reconstructive surgery .  On another rugby-related note, check out this 1928 image from Martin Munkácsi.
• Joergen Geerds lights up the Big Apple in Luminous New York.
• A Chris Walken in a blimp is nowhere to be seen, but I still enjoy these views from the top of the Bay Bridge.  Dizzlying heights are one thing, but I dig the control room (not to mention the frank graffiti). [Via]
• Christopher Scholl has made a list of the 10 best Firefox extensions for photographers, enabling everything from slideshows to uploading to geotagging.
• The Photoshop Blog features some very cool (d’oh) images of deep blue ice.  For more iced goodness, see Jeff Schewe’s Antarctica gallery.
• Catch Superman challenges you to play photojournalist & capture the little guy in action. [Via]

• Chuck Kimmerle makes masterful black and white imagery.  His Deadwoods series is particularly striking. [Via]
• Speaking of striking (oh tortured segues, you’re the best!), here’s some brilliant ad placement: a rugby jersey promoting facial reconstructive surgery .  On another rugby-related note, check out this 1928 image from Martin Munkácsi.
• Joergen Geerds lights up the Big Apple in Luminous New York.
• A Chris Walken in a blimp is nowhere to be seen, but I still enjoy these views from the top of the Bay Bridge.  Dizzlying heights are one thing, but I dig the control room (not to mention the frank graffiti). [Via]
• Christopher Scholl has made a list of the 10 best Firefox extensions for photographers, enabling everything from slideshows to uploading to geotagging.
• The Photoshop Blog features some very cool (d’oh) images of deep blue ice.  For more iced goodness, see Jeff Schewe’s Antarctica gallery.
• Catch Superman challenges you to play photojournalist & capture the little guy in action. [Via]

…at least if you’re planning to commit crimes.  The British Times Online reports that the EXIF metadata embedded in digital camera images could be used to track down whoever photographed each page of the final Harry Potter novel & uploaded it prior to the book’s release:

The information, known as Exchangeable Image File Format (Exif) data, has already revealed that the camera used was a Canon Rebel 350. Because the model is three years old, the device would likely have been serviced at least once since it was purchased, in which case the owner’s name would be known. [Via]

The reality in this case, I think, is that identifying and prosecuting the shooter would be difficult.  The camera owner would have had to have registered the camera and have had it serviced, and even with a name authorities would have to demonstrate that the person then used the camera to photograph the pages and upload the results.

Still, it’s another interesting example of digital devices recording more fingerprints than most people expect.  As devices get smarter, they’ll leave a longer trail of breadcrumbs–for better and for worse.  (How much info must be contained in an image from a GPS-enabled cellphone camera, for example?)

Adobe often ends up in a tug of war: some people really want to make metadata secure, while others want easy ways to strip it away.  Photographers seem most sensitive in this regard, wanting to ensure that their copyright info is preserved, while optionally stripping out revealing details of how, when, and where an image was captured.  On other occasions I’ve heard law enforcement folks wish aloud that Photoshop automatically inserted some trackable info into each file based on serial number.  (Don’t worry: that’s been met with an immediate, “Um yeeeah, noooo…”)

In any case, I think there’s some low-hanging fruit here.  We should offer a simple script that would let Bridge remove metadata from images, trusting that most people would use it for good & not for evil.  If you have other suggestions, please let us know.

Super fly:

• Flickr user "Dimsumranch" has created a set of HDR (?) shots from an airplane graveyard. [Via Adam Pratt]
• Superuse is an online community "where recycling meets design." Check out this beautiful recycled plane-wing desk. [Via] If that’s up your alley, see also Giancarlo de Astis’s Il Primo Wing Desk (made with the help of a former Flying Boxcar), as well as this "Apple wing" setup. [Via]  Superuse also points out a DC9-turned-truck.
• "The skin of the earth can wrinkle like a horse throwing off flies."  NPR features a profile of doctor/aerial photographer Michael Collier, and on their site you can find 3 minutes of his images with narration.  Plenty of high-res versions of his work live in the Earth Science World Image Bank.
• NYC’s Financial District features a rooftop biplane [Via] "Its sole purpose is to amuse the inhabitants of surrounding buildings and scyscrapers."
• The NYT features a number of killer aviation prints for sale.  I dig this guy in particular, and this shot of the christening of the airship USS Akron.
• For more aviation-related goodness, see previous entry.

• First, some Southern-fried action:
  • MSNBC hosts David Turnley’s Gallery of the South. Note that in a few cases, additional images are hidden behind the "Play" buttons. [Via]
  • "Loud, colorful, and proud": Chris Ramirez captures people who love endless left turns in his NASCAR slideshow.
  • Deadman busking: James Heil documents a hobo band, the Deadman Street Orchestra. [Via]
• Going way out west, Ben Willmore has been doing some creative HDR work: I particularly like this Kingman, AZ motel; Needles to Calico; Grill; and Regulator.
• Going east, PingMag gives an overview of emerging photography in China.
• Headed way south, German-born Michael Poliza does incredible work around Africa. [Via Adobe South Africa’s Mohammed Jogie]
• And finally, closer to my home, Photobooth.net lists the (disappearing) locations of photo booths around the USA. [Via]

• In honor of George Eastman‘s 153rd birthday (today), Slate features an interesting Magnum photo essay on the history of consumer picture-taking.
• If Eastman were still with us, he’d make a great model for Mark Story’s Living in Three Centuries: The Face of Age. [Via]
• Spanning 35 years to the day, Nick Ut brought the world a girl burned by napalm & a girl burned by herself.
• Peter Kaplan shoots from great heights, including some eye-watering shots from atop World Trade Center. [Via]
• Elsewhere in the air, in Me and My Human Vincent Laforet has captured a striking image from above the ice rink in Central Park.
• Wired hosts selections from Edward Burtynsky‘s documentary about China’s superhuman rise & the human consequences thereof.  [Via David Harradine]

• In honor of George Eastman‘s 153rd birthday (today), Slate features an interesting Magnum photo essay on the history of consumer picture-taking.
• If Eastman were still with us, he’d make a great model for Mark Story’s Living in Three Centuries: The Face of Age. [Via]
• Spanning 35 years to the day, Nick Ut brought the world a girl burned by napalm & a girl burned by herself.
• Peter Kaplan shoots from great heights, including some eye-watering shots from atop World Trade Center. [Via]
• Elsewhere in the air, in Me and My Human Vincent Laforet has captured a striking image from above the ice rink in Central Park.
• Wired hosts selections from Edward Burtynsky‘s documentary about China’s superhuman rise & the human consequences thereof.  [Via David Harradine]

I’ve recently come across some round-ups of great photos:

• The Smithsonian is hosting a gallery of terrific nature photography–the kind of thing that makes me want to pretty much cash in my chips behind the lens.  My wife remarked (a la Say Anything), "Finches, man–finches." [Via]
• The PDN Photo Annual 2007  is chock full of arresting images.  The Photo Books section alone has sent me on a dozen fruitful tangents across the Web.
• The Press Photographer’s Year highlights some of the most impactful images captured over the last 12 months. [Via]
• American Photo’s Images of the Year contest has issued a call for entries.  While those are filtering in, you can browse the 2006 gallery. [Via]

• Juan Pons’ Aphlog (short for "A Photography Log) offers a one-stop way to track numerous photography-related Web feeds (DPReview, PhotoshopNews, etc.), including this one.  Groovy.
• The NYT features an interesting little slideshow in which photog Vincent Laforet talks about using a tilt-shift lens to put a new spin on sports photography.
• If that’s up your alley, CreativePro features info on how to build your own tilt-shift lens on the cheap.   You can also simulate the effect inside Photoshop using the Lens Blur filter.
• In the vein of rolling your own solutions, I came across a tutorial on creating a do-it-yourself string tripod.  "HWMS?" ("How Would MacGyver Shoot?") [Via]
• When it comes to black & white photography, Ted Masumura & others argue that high ISO is your friend.  Why?  They find that it brings back the grainy feel of high-speed film.

• I find most photogs’ Web sites pretty underwhelming (hey, you can’t be good at everything), but Philip Toledano scores: beautiful HTML complements a hell of a portfolio. Mr. Toledano Will See You Now.  And I can see those fighter planes… [Via]
• Crestock is hosting a gallery of terrific speed shots (with just a couple of duds). [Via]
• In "LIFE: A Journey Through Time," photographer Frans Lanting depicts the evolution of Earth & its life forms.  [Via]
• CNET is hosting concept art that depicts a spinning tower in Dubai.  Interesting that the concept artist snuck that famous Joan Martin Munkacsi photo into the design.
• Mark Brautigam finds beauty in the everyday in his On Wisconsin project. [Via]   The portfolio makes me think of the Sufjan Stevens record Illinoise I’ve been spinning lately, and of this photo of him from Joe Lencioni.  Represent for the Mid’Wess…
• UCLA has digitized more than 5,000 images from LA newspapers archives, 1920-1990. Boing Boing links to a number of interesting finds.  Viva shag carpeted vans.

• Magnum photographer Philip Jones Griffiths knows war.  He reflects on violence & its tools in this Guns and Kids photo essay presented by Slate.  The piece brings to mind these ladies–and these.
• The subjects of It’s All Good couldn’t be less so–junkies, crackheads, gangsters and their families in NYC, "where escape is one rock, one shot, one Glock away."  Gallery. [Via]
• PingMag interviews Edward Burtynsky, whose Manufactured Landscapes images chronicle humanity’s impact on the earth.  (Not long ago I kind of harshed on one of Burtynsky’s photos.  It certainly has more impact in the context of his larger efforts.)
• Chris Jordan (mentioned recently) is using the synthetic world of Second Life to present his "Running the Numbers"–depicting the scale of human consumption.
• The miniature City of Salt comes from Nicholas Kahn and Richard Selesnick–the photographers behind the similarly amazing Apollo Prophecies.
• In Salt Dreams, Jimmy and Dena Katz chronicle the racers, rocketeers, and pink flamingos of the great Salt Flats.  More info is here. [Via]

As you may have seen already, Adobe has announced Camera Raw 4.1, due to be available shortly via Adobe.com.  (The communication got out a little ahead of the actual plug-in, which should be posted in the next 24 hours or so.)

Camera Raw 4.1 adds support for 13 new digital cameras and backs, including the Canon EOS-1D Mark III, Fujifilm FinePix S5 Pro, Nikon D40x, Olympus E-410, Olympus SP-550 UZ, Sigma SD14, Phase One H 20, Phase One H 25, Phase One P 20, Phase One P 21, Phase One P 25, Phase One P 30 and Phase One P 45.

In addition, Camera Raw includes some very cool enhancements to sharpening & noise reduction.  I’ll share more details on these shortly; in the meantime, here’s a teaser screenshot.  (By the way, all the same controls will be coming to Lightroom soon, too.)

• In Dr. Strangelove Dr. Strangelove, Canadian Kristan Horton recreates shots from the film using everyday objects: "Silverware become an airplane, plastic and coffee grounds become the sky." Fantastic. [Via]
• In a slightly related vein, Edward Zwakman produces large-scale photographs by painstakingly reconstructing objects and landscapes from memory. A bit more info is in his Tales from the Grid, but I’d like to know more.
• Chris Jordan attempts to make staggering numbers comprehensible in his Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait.  By assembling thousands of photographs into large, intricately detailed prints, he depicts "a slow-motion apocalypse in progress."  See also the fascinating images of his earlier Intolerable Beauty. [Via]
• Artist Amanda Vandermeer and photographer Paul O’Grady have collaborated to create Sustainable Jewellery, using flora & fauna to decorate the human form.  (Weirdly, there’s no permalink on the blog where the images appear, so you’ll need to scroll down to the relevant section.)  It might be interesting to see this work juxtaposed with Chrisopher Conte’s sculptures, such as this biomech arm or this stainless steel spider.

I’m just back from the desert, and boy are my arms sandy… We gave our friend/my fellow Photoshop PM Bryan O’Neil Hughes a solid send-off to his single days, I think. Word to the wise : RV+sand = elephant+tar pit; oi vey. Sadly, I didn’t manage to see a real live Adobe Photo Shop [Via].  I did, however, find a great deal on California real estate in Trona.  (Hope you like sulfur… and breaking your windows just to cut your wrists.)  Ballarat Bob was MIA, but we caught up with our friend, the Mayor of Ballarat, along with his even more grizzled (!) dad–keepers of Charlie Manson’s truck & black helicopters; here’s a small gallery. 

Their one-room building (famous for $2 cans of Milwaukee’s Best–which will taste good to you when it gets hot enough) also features a photo I really love.  I don’t know a thing about its subject or its history, and I always choose not to ask.  Sometimes it’s good to savor a little mystery.

In a photographic vein, and starting with Death Valley:

• Author & photog Ben Long is just back from the park as well, and he’s posted a gallery of terrific shots.
• If the boys of Ballarat were ever to go digital, they might like the Kodak 1881: a digital camera as vintage locket. [Via]
• "You just had to run": TOP relays an anecdote from Steven Spielberg on catching the dawn for Empire of the Sun.
• Author Will Self has documented his writing room, festooned with Post-It notes.  (I feel like he’s got a physical version of my copy of Contribute, from which I write this blog.  It’s a warren of ideas and links, jotted in blurbs, competing for too little time.) [Via]

I’m a real lightweight when it comes to insects (for example, I could never name my Flash rival after one ;-)), but they do inspire creative photography & more:

• Buzz illustrates "The Intimate Bond Between Humans and Insects" via some amazing microscopic photography. See inside. [Via]
• Student photographer Lawraa shares a shot of a praying mantis apparently listening to Snoop ("Throw your prehensile appendages in the ai-ir…") [Via]
• Der Spiegel had a great gallery of shattered bugs, but now I’ve waited too long and it’s returning a 404 error.  Dang–maybe it’ll turn up elsewhere, as the images were worth seeing. The best the site will now give me is a pregnant cow scaring chubby cyclists.
• Make any treat more mouthwatering with the help of sugar that looks like ants. [Via]
• In a similar vein, an ad campaign uses ants–"the most credible ambassadors for sweetness*"– to show off sugar-free eats.
• [For more bug life, see previous.]

*Snuggle the fabric softener bear was apparently unavailable

• Armed America photographs some of those who own the nation’s ~200 million firearms, sharing bits of their perspectives.
• Armed Appalachians appear in Shelby Lee Adams’s Napier Family series.
• Slate features Gitmo in Black and White, a Magnum photographers’ slideshow documenting the prisoner detention center at Guantanamo Bay.  (If there’s a more surreal location for a Starbucks, I’ve yet to hear it.)
• Juxtaposing wealth & war, this image from Lebanon was named "Photo of the Year 2006" by World Press Photo.  There’s more info in this NPR story (which for whatever reason won’t play on my Mac). [Via]
• Unflinching war photographer James Nachtwey has been honored at the TED Conference.  They’ve created a video discussing his & others’ work, and Nachtwey is covered in the documentary War Photographer (3-minute excerpt). [Via]
• Hoping for a more peaceful world, Retired Weapons depicts another future for military hardware.  (I hoped for a bit more from this one, but maybe it’s deeper than I’m seeing.) [Via]
• Lastly, a reason to go bigger than Shuffle: this iPod saved a soldier’s life.