Fiji boasts some of the finest scuba diving in the world and one of its premiere dive destinations is Beqa (pronounced Mbengga or Benga) Lagoon where you’ll find some of the most beautiful soft corals anywhere on the planet. You’ll also find some of the world’s friendliest people in Fiji. No wonder it’s one of my favorite diving destinations. So I thought you might enjoy an “above water” photo taken on Beqa Island in 1993…

I haven’t yet driven downtown this morning to check out the gathering demonstrators, many illegal aliens, demanding amnesty and socialism. Most expect a smaller turnout than the ones launched in major cities last year. If I get any good pictures, I’ll post them. Meanwhile, here are six images from last year’s, uh, “event.”

Dawn and I took a photography tour of the southwest’s Four Corners area in 1998. One of the highlights was visiting and photographing the beautiful slot canyons of Antelope Canyon. Here’s an image taken in the upper canyon - the lower canyon was closed at the time by the Navajo Nation to allow the spirits of the eleven hikers who died in the canyon during a flash flood to find their way home.

Arguably, the best time to photograph the canyons is during summer, around noon, when the sun’s rays penetrate the canyon’s upper crevices and beam uninterrupted to the ground, highlighting the walls with soft, reflected light off the sandy floor. The effect is mesmerizing, making Antelope Canyon one of the most photogenic canyons in the world.

I took this image while visiting the Masai Mara… Okay, not really. It was taken at Chicago’s Brookfield Zoo last year. Although the leopard exhibit is staged behind a thick Plexiglas viewing wall, this magnificent animal ignored our presence, appearing deep in thought as I grabbed the shot from just a few feet away.

Kerry Skarbakka makes images that allow him to “let himself go.” In his series The Struggle to Right Oneself, he harnesses himself to ropes and pulleys that prevent him from actually hitting the ground, then photographs himself as he hurls his body off of buildings and cliffs. To make the images appear to be accidents in progress, he then digitally erases the safety devices.

About his work, he notes “Heidegger described human existence as a process of perpetual falling, and it is the responsibility of each individual to “catch ourselves” from our own uncertainty… The images stand as reminders that we are all vulnerable to losing our footing and grasp.”

He is currently showing his inventive work at the North Carolina Museum of Art in an exhibition called The Big Picture.  You’ll find more information about Kerry and can view his images on his Website.

Cloud Gate, on Chicago’s AT&T Plaza, is British artist Anish Kapoor’s first public outdoor work installed in the United States. The 110-ton elliptical sculpture is forged of a seamless series of highly polished stainless steel plates, which reflect the city’s famous skyline and the clouds above. A 12-foot-high arch provides a “gate” to the concave chamber beneath the sculpture, inviting visitors to touch its mirror-like surface and see their image reflected back from a variety of perspectives.

                          Taken hand-held during the bewitching hour, September 2006.

Cloud Gate taken from the concave chamber beneath the sculpture looking across AT&T Plaza toward the Jay Pritzker Pavilion.

From the sides, Cloud Gate resembles a giant bean. In fact, many people refer to it as the “Millennium Park Bean.” It is one of Chicago’s most photographed sculptures due to the interesting effects visitors achieve when photographing themselves in its reflection.

An unusual perspective, straight up into the concave chamber beneath the sculpture. If you look very closely, you can just make me out taking the image.

A former chemistry teacher turned freelance photographer, Barry Lewis has produced an incredible body of photographic work. In 1981, along with seven others, he founded Network Photographers which acted as an agency for their work, an archive of over 1 million images and a critical forum for image making. In the process, he won several awards, the most important being the World Press Oscar Barnak Award for a photo-essay on Romania after the revolution.

Barry’s work has become more diverse In recent years, exploring different styles of portraiture and working extensively for corporate clients using reportage for work in the field as well as social projects for clients such as BG and Unilever. In addition, he has become involved in more controlled work, involving models, to promote brand images for clients such as Guinness.

For the past three years he’s been working on a personal project called Visual Noise, photographing  the streets of London (primarily), France, Italy and the U.S. with an aim towards producing a coherent body of work for a series of exhibitions and a book. A Featured Photographer on this site, his work is powerful and diverse. Enjoy this sampling of 16 images and, for more information about Barry, visit his website.

Shannon sent this image of my youngest grandson, Connor, taken during their recent visit to a nursery in Loomis to enjoy our wonderful spring weather. She says it’s the nicest nursery she’s ever seen. Connor really enjoyed it, too!

What is street photography? Let’s define it by it’s intentions: to capture a sense of contemporary life, usually in cities. Within this broad context, “contemporary life” includes people and whatever they have created, from skyscrapers to smashed soda cans. It reflects how we live, how we feel, what we think. It’s not about the street itself or the tools used to create it. And its intent is “non-commercial,” meaning it is not intended to sell a product or generate profit from someone else’s endeavors.

One of my favorite street photographers is Joe Holmes whose site, joe’s nyc, I regularly visit. Joe is a walk-around photographer. His unique perspective allows him to capture wonderful images of people and things in and around New York City that most never “see.” But you don’t need a big city in order to capture great street shots. They’re everywhere; you just have to look for them. With practice, you can develop an “eye” for the things that work for you. The thumbnail images I’ve included in this article (click to enlarge) are from a collection on Flickr taken by various street photographers and represent excellent  examples of street photography.

So how does it differ, if at all, from documentary or journalistic photography? Well, the line is blurry but, in street photography, the photographer tries to combine subjects and situations in ways that capture elements we might not otherwise notice, often evoking humor or raw emotion in the process. In that respect, the street photograph is as much a portrait of the photographer as his subject.

For example, a telephoto image of a baseball player hitting a series-winning home run aims to document that moment in time. However, a fortuitous shot of the hotdog vendor dropping his tray, with hotdogs scattering in every direction just as the ball is hit and the fans leap to their feet, would constitute street photography.

However, an image taken “in the street” isn’t necessarily a street photograph. Advertising images are routinely taken in the street as are countless vacation snapshots. Generally, neither qualify as “street.” Rather, the street photographer is more a hunter utilizing an element of stealth in order to capture his “prey,” a unique vision of something only he sees. In addition, the street photographer doesn’t expect to get rich in the pursuit. If financial gain were his motive, he’d likely choose fashion or wildlife or landscape or any number of alternative avenues of photography.

Today’s street photographs will likely become more important in years to come, not because of the events or notable people in them but because the images will show “us” in the context of things we enjoyed, things that made us laugh and, perhaps more importantly, they will reflect the vision of the photographer who created them.

I admit that I don’t approach photography like a seasoned street photographer. I’ve concentrated on wildlife, landscape and, more recently, dabbled in portraiture. I’m afraid I’ve suffered both from laziness - I don’t want to pack a lot of gear as I walk around town - and a certain apprehension about photographing people I don’t know without their permission. But I suspect I’ll give it a try, perhaps after I get a more compact long lens, the better for hunting…

But by all means, if you have a camera and a little creative desire, give street photography a try. Be the hunter. Be alert and have your camera ready. Remember stealth. And above all, have fun! You might just discover a part of your creative self you didn’t realize was there.

Digital shutterbugs will find this in depth review of Adobe’s recently released Photoshop Lightroom of interest. Since the success of Apple’s Aperture, professional shooters have been eagerly awaiting Lightroom’s release and, after extensive beta testing, the wait is over. Having put the application through its paces on a MacBook Pro CoreDuo 2.0 and a Dual G5 2.0, both running OSX 10.4.8, the reviewers at ars technica  give us their first hand impressions.

I  won’t be a spoiler and tell you their conclusions; those of you interested in pro-quality raw post production will want to read the entire review and decide for yourselves. Suffice it to say that Bibble, Apperture and Lightroom all have pros and cons but, at least for Windows users, Lightroom looks like a no-brainer.

Good friends Michael and Sisko’s son, Noah,  is a budding photographer. Having recently acquired a Nikon D80 shooter and taken up the hobby, he’s already showing a natural eye for it. I’ve selected a few of his images and posted them for your consideration. I’ll post more as he makes them available. I think you’ll agree he has the makings of a fine photographer. Click here or on the image below to view them all. (11 images)

Phil Sidran is a Miami optometrist and fellow kayak paddler with a good eye for photography (pun intended.) I especially appreciate his images because many were taken while paddling near where I grew up — in and around Miami and the Florida Everglades — and are of quite notable quality. And based on your enthusiastic comments, you like them, too! So here’s another group of Phil’s fine bird imagery taken January 13. Click here or on the image below to view them all.

You can view more examples of Phil’s excellent work in the Featured Photographers section of this site. Phil can be contacted directly at psidran@bellsouth.net .

Our family gathered last Saturday night for some holiday cheer. The party was delightful, but the highlight was when we took a walk to see neighborhood holiday decorations. My daughter and son-in-law’s neighbor, Maria, goes all out decorating her yard and the surprise was seeing how she incorporates photos of  neighborhood children into her creation. She graciously invited our entire clan into her home and allowed me to photograph her work. She’s truly a gifted artist! I’ve posted some of the images; click here or on the image below to view them.