Friday Shout-Outs, Buzzer-Beaters, and Worthy Praise

Size definitely matters, especially when it comes to megapixels – and one photog is making the most of it during the baseball season. Size also matters when it comes to money, and funding a photo project – and a few photogs have found a solution. These this, and more, in Shout-Outs!

Shout-Outs are a regular Friday thing, and you can be part of it, too. Send us suggestions! If we think it’s worth shouting about, it will show up here in the blog on a Friday. To submit something, scroll to the bottom to see how.

MEGA MEGA-PIXELS
Here’s an example where one personal project can turn into a real paying gig. David Bergman, a New York-based photographer, has been able to turn his GigaPan knowledge into a pretty sweet assignment.

Bergman’s first GigaPan was created during the inauguration of Barack Obama. It was viewed 12 million times, and consisted of 220 individual images stitched together to form a 1,474 megapixel file.

Since then, he’s been working on perfecting various techniques for producing Gigapans at other live events, including for commercial clients like MLB.com and Bon Jovi.

“For the current round of baseball playoffs, I was commissioned to make GigaPans in every post-season city and have been traveling all over the country for the last few weeks,” he said. “My normal schedule involves flying into a city in the morning, covering the game that day, doing all the stitching and post-processing overnight, uploading the file, sleeping for 2 hours, then going back to the airport to fly to the next city.”

While he’s doing this, he also has to deal with all of the normal things that any photographer needs to deal with at a pro baseball game: Dealing with credentials, rental cars, parking, and photo positions.

“The post-processing takes most of the night to do because the file is often 5 gigabytes or more. Simply cropping the edges off of the photo takes 10 minutes to complete,” Bergman said.

“It’s a grueling gig, but has been quite a bit of fun. It’s also great to see so many of my photographer friends and colleagues at each of the ballparks.”

The resulting images show the crowd more than the game, and I must admit that I spent a bit of time the other day scouring the crowd for friends (and I actually found them – I could zoom right in, get up close and perfectly clear. Amazing.)

You can see all of the final photos on mlb.com, and can even tag yourself and your Facebook friends in the image. (This is a brilliant use of social networking to drive traffic to the site.)

Bergman says he will be posting more technical info about the making of these images on his blog after he’s been able to catch his breath when the World Series is over.

ENVIRONMENT VS. OIL
The ILCP, a group that creates documentary images of the environment, has released a new collection of images of the Great Bear Rainforest, in Northern British Columbia. The controversial oil-digging Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline project is a threat to the area and all of the natural wildlife that lives there.

GREAT BEAR RAINFOREST RAVE MEDIA GALLERY – Images by iLCP Collection

THIS AIN’T NO BULL
Natthawat Wongrat, a freelance photojournalist based in Bangkok, Thailand, has a series of images from the 139th Buffalo Racing Festival in Chonburi, Thailand.

Yes, you read the correctly, buffalo racing. Looks sorta fun, doesn’t it?

RAISING MONEY FOR PHOTO PROJECTS
If you’ve got a photo project that you’d love to do, but lack the funding needed to pull it off, you might want to do what several PhotoShelter members have already done – list your project with Kickstarter, a website that helps creative people raise money while keeping 100% ownership over their own work.

Logan Mock-Bunting is using the service to fund a very personal project – the story of his mother’s life before her death.

“I’ve decided to use some of the hundreds of images from my family’s journey, make them into a book that can be given to Hospices and Bereavement Centers,” Mock-Bunting said. “I hope that others suffering through a major loss might possibly benefit through seeing a shared experience.”

Learn more about his project at Kickstarter.

Gordon Stillman is raising money to publish a book of with a series of images from his Virginia Sustainable Agriculture Documentary Project, which he started shooting in 2009.

“I began the project because I was interested in local and organic food–and what it actually meant for food and agriculture to be sustainable,” Stillman said. “So I started looking at small local farms and community gardens because they produced the most visibly sustainable food. I then followed the food from the farm or garden to the market, restaurant, and families consuming the food.”

“The book will include 50 photographs and interviews with families and growers, including their views on sustainability, cost, and creating a new food economy,” he said.

Learn more about his project at Kickstarter.

Kristin Zabawa, a photographer and former zookeeper, is raising money to cover expenses for the printing, matting and framing of her long term project photographing a herd of ponies who are allowed to roam free at the Tidecreek Welsh farm, located at Deer Island, Oregon. The images will appear December 1st, 2010 through February, 2011 at the Sundance Resort during the Sundance Film Festival.

Learn more about her project at Kickstarter.

YOUR PORTFOLIO COULD PROBABLY USE THIS

Foto Week DC is happening November 6 – 13, 2010 in Washington, DC. It features exhibitions and viewings, projections, lectures and workshops, portfolio reviews, and special events.

If you’re looking for feedback on your portfolio from some very big names in the photo biz, this would be a great place to find it. Take a look at the impressive list of reviewers, and I think you’ll agree with me.

The event has something for photojournalists, fine art photographers, and emerging artists, and promises to create a dynamic, evocative, engaging environment.

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I am always looking for things to include here in our Friday Shout-Outs – so if you have anything you think is worthy, let me know. One great way to do that is to post a note to Twitter with my name in it (@heygrover) and that way I won’t forget it later. Don’t have Twitter? Email me, grover-at-photoshelter-dot-com.