Life on Both Sides of the Camera

Marilyn Monroe and Alfred Eisenstaedt at Monroe's Beverly Hills home in 1953

The late Alfred Eisenstaedt was one of LIFE magazine's star photographers, best known for his photograph capturing the celebration of V-J Day. However his great photographic vision was not limited just to his subjects. In looking through Eisenstaedt's contact sheets, LIFE.com photo editor Liz Ronk discovered that the long-time LIFE photographer very often crowned his assignments with one last shot: creating captivating self-portraits, posing — and frequently clowning — with his subjects.

See them here: http://life.time.com/photographers/life-on-both-sides-of-the-camera-alfred-eisenstaedts-surprising-self-portraits/#ixzz1mTx8ssCt

Eric Kim, Street Photographer

Eric Kim - self portrait from his video

Street photographer Eric Kim created this video showing what it’s like to photograph passers-by on the sidewalks of Beverly Hills, CA for an ongoing project. He attached a GoPro camera to his Leica M6 so that you can see how he works the streets. He has toned down his in-your-face approach I've heard, but as you can see from this video, he shoots what he wants without fear or reservations.

http://erickimphotography.com/blog/2012/02/beverly-hills-street-photography-pov-video-with-leica-m6-and-gopro/

Interview with Kim on the Leica Blog :
http://blog.leica-camera.com/photographers/interviews/eric-kim-korean-street-photographer-from-los-angeles/

More New Features in Upcoming Photoshop

For a look at Adobe's upcoming new camera raw features, go to this earlier blog post :

http://www.camerawestblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/sneak-peek-at-new-camera-raw.html

And a post on speedy background saving and the liquify tool in the new Photoshop :

http://www.camerawestblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/adobe-photoshop-cs6-another-sneak-peek.html

Light Paint a Valentine

Check out this quick tutorial from photo.tutsplus.com to create a unique Valentine's Day photo while learning a few photography techniques.

http://photo.tutsplus.com/articles/shooting-articles/quick-tip-show-your-valentine-love-with-light-painting/

Good News from Nikon

An interesting article from bernama.com, a Malaysian National News Agency about the production capacity of the Nikon plant in Sendai, Japan.

"With the current 1,600 workers, the factory is producing one unit of camera per minute on a daytime shift with each unit of the D800 variant produced every four hours and the D4 variant every five hours."

Nikon is targeting to produce 30,000 D800 and 5,000 D4 cameras per month at it's Sendai, Japan factory, the same one that was destroyed in last year's 9.0 earthquake. They spent $100 million to repair the facility.

http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v6/newsbusiness.php?id=644921

Make Things Happen For You

'Leaning Photographer of Pisa' by Jay Maisel

Just saw this great quote from photographer Jay Maisel that I had to share :

"If you are out there shooting, things will happen for you. If you're not out there, you'll only hear about it." 

http://www.jaymaisel.com/

World Press Photo of the Year 2011

Samuel Aranda from Spain has won the World Press Photo of the Year 2011 for the above image of a woman holding a wounded relative in her arms. The photo was taken inside a mosque used as a field hospital by demonstrators against the rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, during clashes in Sanaa, Yemen on 15 October 2011.


Jurors said the photo captured multiple facets of the "Arab Spring" uprisings across the Middle East last year. It was taken at a field hospital inside a mosque in Sanaa on October 15.

The winning photo was selected from 101,254 images submitted by 5,247 photographers from 124 countries.

http://www.worldpressphoto.org/