The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has announced the recipients of their 2016 fellowship grants. Eleven photographer are among the 178 fellows who work in the humanities, creative arts, social sciences and natural sciences. The fellows were selected from a field of nearly 3,000 applicants. Guggenheim Fellows receive grants of varying but undisclosed amounts to pursue a proposed project.

The 2016 Guggenheim Fellows in photography are:
Dru Donovan
Hasan Elahi
McNair Evans
Lyle Ashton Harris
Matthew Jensen
Alex Majoli
Eileen Neff
Louie Palu
Robin Schwartz
Lida Suchy
Yvonne Venegas

Another photographer, Carlos Javier Ortiz, received a fellowship for a new video project.

The Fellowships are considered “midcareer” grants. They are awarded to artists and scholars who have “already demonstrated capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts,” according to the Foundation.

Related:
11 Photographers Win 2015 Guggenheim Fellowships
McNair Evans: Confessions for a Son
Stan Douglas Wins $118,000 Hasselblad Award for 2016
Mira Mexico: Louie Palu’s Conceptual Project About the War on Drugs

Longtime Los Angeles Times photographer Ricardo DeAratanha has been charged with a misdemeanor for allegedly refusing to cooperate with police during the funeral motorcade of former First Lady Nancy Reagan, according to a recent report in the Los Angeles Times.

DeAratanha, 65, was charged with one misdemeanor count of resisting, obstructing or delaying a peace officer, according to the Ventura County district attorney’s office.

The Los Angeles Times reports that DeAratanha was arrested on Wednesday, March 9, less than a mile from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, where a public viewing was being held for Nancy Reagan. DeAratanha was at the scene covering the funeral for the Times. When police approached him, he was sitting in his car, transmitting photos from his laptop. Simi Valley Police said at the time that officers were responding to a report of a suspicious vehicle near the viewing, and that DeAratanha was arrested because he refused the officers’ request to identify himself.

DeAratanha’s attorney, Mark Werksman, says the photographer provided multiple press credentials and gave the officers “no reason” to arrest him, according to the Los Angeles Times. DeAratanha has been a staff photographer at the paper since 1989.

Panasonic’s new Lumix GX85 interchangeable lens camera is a budget minded little brother of last year’s GX80 that still manages to deliver a few new tricks.

The camera features a 16-megapixel MOS sensor with no low pass filter, the first time the company has released a camera without one. With the low pass filter kicked to the curb, the camera enjoys a 10 percent improvement in resolving power compared to older models, Panasonic said. Moire suppression is handled by the camera’s processor.

As with all new Panasonic cameras, the GX85 boasts 4K video recording and several 4K Photo modes that help users isolate 8-megapixel still images from 4K clips. Also new is a Post Focus mode that takes a burst of 49 8-megapixel stills with different focus points across the camera’s 49 AF points. When reviewing the footage, users can select what part of the image they want in focus and choose that still–or, save the entire series of images.

The camera features a 4K Live Cropping mode that lets you record a 4K video and then pan or zoom across the footage Ken Burns-style in playback. The final video will be delivered in HD, not 4K.

The GX5 uses a dual optical image stabilization system that combines in-body and in-lens correction (on select Lumix G I.O.S. lenses). The result is up to 4 stops of image correction, per CIPA standards. According to Panasonic, the dual image stabilization delivers better results than simply using in-camera stabilization, particularly at the telephoto end.

Additional features include:

• A 3-inch tillable display – up 80 degree, down 45 degrees.
• 2.7 million dot resolution EVF
• 8 fps burst with AF locked on first frame or 6 fps with continuous AF
• Wi-Fi
• an electromagnetic shutter that reduces shutter shock by 10 percent to improve sharpness
• RAW shooting
• ISO range of 100-25,600

It’s due in May and will retail for $800 with a 12-32mm kit lens (there’s no body-only pricing option at this time).  It is available for pre-order now.

FATIMA’S DRAWINGS from Magnus Wennman on Vimeo.

Among three finalists for the World Press Photo short form multimedia prize is Magnus Wennman’s outstanding 5-1/2 minute video called “Fatima’s Drawings.” His “Where the Children Sleep” project was widely published last year, and “Fatima’s Drawings” is a continuation of his work documenting the plight of refugee children from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. The video features a five-year-old Syrian refugee in Sweden, recounting (in a voiceover) the trauma and loss she experienced in Syria and while fleeing to Europe. It’s an example of spare, exquisite filmmaking, with care and attention to all the creative and technical details, from the storyboarding and shooting, to the sound recording and mixing, to the atmospheric hue of the lighting. It also includes animation: Wennman shows Fatima by the light of a window, making stick-figure drawings of scenes from her past. One shows her playing with the best friend she left behind in Idlib, Syria; another shows airplanes bombing her old neighborhood. The drawings suddenly come to life as the camera lingers overhead. Some purists might argue the technique strains the limits of journalism, but Wennman’s video adds up to more than the sum of its individual parts, and documentary storytelling doesn’t get much better than this.

Related:
Video Pick: “Denali,” Film about Photographer Ben Moon and His Dog, Goes Viral
Video Pick: Chris Jordan’s “Midway,” on Beauty in Environmental Activism

Comic Book Readers, NYC, 1947 | (C) 1981, Ruth Orkin

“I don’t believe one reads to escape reality. A person reads to confirm a reality he knows is there, but which he has not experienced.” ― Lawrence Durrell

What If a Year’s Worth of Instagram Posts Were on Film? – Atlas Obscura

5 Top Photo Editors on the Leading Images Today – Vantage

Art, for Journalism’s Sake – Nieman Storyboard

Why Mapplethrope Still Matters – NY Times

The Documentaries Al Jazeera America Left Behind – IndieWire

What It Takes to Launch Your Own Production Company – PDN

Tribeca Film Fest Sells Out to a Crackpot – LA Times

What Zack Snyder Can Teach You About Filmmaking – Film School Rejects

Why Photo Zines Are More Important Than Ever – Vice

Should Photographers Go It Alone or Become a Duo? – RF

Photographing Ikea, Some Assembly Required – Lens

Bonus Weekend Audio

A Q&A with National Press Photographer Association general counsel Mickey Osterreicher on the fight for photographer rights.

Note: An earlier version of this post contained an incorrect attribution on the image used above. It has since been fixed. We regret the error.

RR Auction

If you’ve got a few hundred thousand dollars lying around, why not consider investing it in a piece of photo history? RR Auction is auctioning off Dave Scott’s 500mm f/8 Zeiss lens which was on the Apollo 15 mission to the Moon in 1971

According to ARS Technica’s Eric Berger, RR Auction says the lens is one of the largest objects ever on the Moon to be auctioned off.

In a letter released by RR Auctions, Scott noted how the lens was an “integral part” of his 70mm Hasselblad Electric Data Camera.

“The camera with the 500mm lens was hand-held and was operated by pressing a single shutter button with automatic film advance,” Scott writes in a letter accompanying the auction. “However, without a view finder, a range finder, or a light meter, the astronaut had to point the camera, frame the scene, set the distance, and evaluate the lighting so as to manually set the f-stop, exposure time, and distance. Training for the mission required extensive practice in a spacesuit with pressurized gloves.”

Special tabs were fitted to the rotational segments in the center of the lens so it was easier to focus and change the aperture using pressured gloves. It’s nicked up, as you’d expect, and may also contain some lunar dust, RR Auction says.

The lens was used to record 293 high-resolution images from the Moon mission, which entailed three days on the lunar surface and two days in orbit. You can see images snapped with the lens from the moon below.

Scott was able to keep the lens after the mission as a memento. If you want it, however, expect to pay between $400,000 – $600,000. Bidding starts April 14.

Hat tip: ARS Technica

RR Auction

RR Auction

NASA

NASA

Earlier this month, we shared a brief video homage to photography icon Ansel Adams. If you watched it, you learned how Adams spent years of time and effort learning how to make the image he saw in his mind appear before him in the darkroom.

That kind of work isn’t for everyone. For one thing, it involves hiking.

Fortunately, this being the 21st century, you don’t have to work hard to achieve Adams-level results. You just need to know what buttons to click.

In this edition of Lightroom Coffee Break, Adobe’s Benjamin Ward shows you just how easy it is to turn even the most mundane image into an Adams-esque masterpiece. It’s a must-see.

And yes, this is a day early.

Bishnu Gurung (center) weeps as the body of her daughter, Rejina Gurung, 3, recovered from the rubble of her earthquake destroyed home, lays covered by cloth during her funeral on May 8, 2015 in the village of Gumda, Nepal. Photo © Daniel Berehulak.

The National Press Photographer’s Association (NPPA) has named Australian photographer Daniel Berehulak the Photojournalist of the Year (Large Markets) and Scott McIntyre, a Kentucky native, as the Photojournalist of the Year (Small Markets).

Berehulak, who has been shooting since 2000 and was named Photographer of the Year by POYi last year, is based in New Delhi though he has worked in Nepal, Liberia, Antarctica, and was more recently on assignment in Brussels to cover the aftermath of the terrorist bombings. “I feel very privileged to have had the opportunity to connect with people and to share their stories to the world,” Berehulak told News Photographer magazine.

McIntyre has been working in Naples, Florida since 2011 and credits the variety of the stories in his portfolio for his win. “This year’s portfolio was a very ‘Florida’ portfolio, different than the ones I’ve entered before,” he told News Photographer. “It’s got Florida’s colors, its beaches, its characters and senior citizen love… it’s unique compared to my portfolios of the past.”

Photojournalist of the Year (Large Markets) runners up were Marcus Yam of the Los Angeles Times, and  Christoffer Hjalmarsson of Expressen. Runners up for Photojournalist of the Year (Small Markets) were Rachel Mummey of The Herald in Dubois County, Indiana, and Gerry Melendez of The State in Columbia, South Carolina.

In other categories, Al Bello of Getty Images has won 2016 Sports Photojournalist of the Year. Photographers from Getty Images swept the category, with Patrick Smith taking second, and Matthias Hangst taking third place.

Mary F. Calvert of ZUMA Press won Cliff Edom’s “New America Award” for her long-term documentary project “Missing In Action: Homeless Women Veterans.” Runners up were Brian Cassella of the Chicago Tribune (whose work was recently covered in PDN), and Jim Lo Scalzo of European Pressphoto Agency.

A full list of winners has been posted by the NPPA and can be found here.

Judges for the competition were  NPPA past president Clyde Mueller; Harry E. Walker, visuals director of Florida’s Naples Daily News; John Agnone, a former senior editor for National Geographic; and Brooke LaValley, a staff photojournalist for the Columbus Dispatch.

Olga Riano wipes tears from her eyes as she and her fellow newly naturalized American citizens sing along to the song, “Proud To Be An American,” by Lee Greenwood during a Naturalization Ceremony for 51 people from 20 different countries at Hodges University in Naples on Thursday, November 12, 2015. Photo © Scott McIntyre.

With a vocal segment of its user base still smarting over changes to its feed, Instagram announced a new feature update that should be a bit more welcome: longer videos.

Coming “soon” Instagram will support videos up to 60 seconds in length. For iOS users, Instagram is also restoring the ability to make videos out of multiple clips from your camera roll. (Here’s how.)

The iOS update with multi-clip functionality is available now. Longer videos are available for some accounts today and will be gradually rolled out to every user in the coming months.

Read More:

How Many Hashtags Should You Use on Instagram?

Using This Instagram App? Delete It

How Photographers With Huge Followings Grew Their Social Networks

This Is the Most Liked Photo on Instagram

The Colors Prized By Instagram’s Top Photographers

Photographer Eli Durst has won the 2016 Aperture Portfolio Prize for his series “In Asmara.” The prize, which includes $3,000 and an exhibition at Aperture Gallery in New York, is intended to identify trends in contemporary photography and highlight artists whose work deserves greater recognition, according to Aperture. Past winners include LaToya Ruby Frazier, Michal Chelbin, and Bryan Schutmaat.

From Eli Durst’s series, “In Asmara.” Photo © Eli Durst.

“In Asmara” documents Durst’s time visiting the capital city of East African country Eritrea. The city is renowned for its large collection of intact modernist buildings, however, Durst’s series documents the life going on around the buildings—a trash dump, a table set for dinner, the backseat of a car.

Runners up for this year’s prize are Bill Durgin, Sean Thomas Foulkes and RaMell Ross. Their work will be featured on Aperture’s website. They will also have the opportunity to participate in the Aperture Foundation limited-edition print program.

Durst grew up in Texas and graduated from Wesleyan University in 2011. After college he assisted photographer Joel Meyerowitz and worked at the fine-art printing studio Griffin Editions. He is currently pursuing an MFA in photography at the Yale School of Art.