Friday Happy Hour: National Geographic Interviews Their Photographers & Asks What Drives Their Passion

As we transition into fall here on the U.S. East coast, the industry seems to be kicking into high gear with photo-fests, gallery openings, and more. In other news, here’s some insight from Nat Geo photographers.

National Geographic: The Photographers on Photography

National Geographic Senior Photo Editor Pamela Chen interviewed the 44 photographers who worked with the magazine over the past year and asked them (among other things), “What drives you to keep doing this work?”

The responses spanned a number of different details, but there were clear themes: a never-ending passion; the desire to inspire change; a need to show the similarities between cultures; the responsibility to demonstrate our close relationship to nature.

Photographers included David Alan Harvey, Paul Nicklen, Michael “Nick” Nichols, Tim Laman, Ed Kashi, Jim Richardson, and PhotoShelter member Amy Toensing.

National Geographic plans to release individual interviews, but in the meantime they’ve compiled a five-minute edit, which you can see here.

Four innovations that could revolutionize the photo industry

Andrew Griffith over at PetaPixel has an interesting take on the technologies that could change how we take photographs forever. Here’s his take on the top four:

• Liquid lenses: using water instead of glass, potentially reducing lenses 85% in size (no one has yet to make one big or sharp enough for use, but Olympus, Sony, Samsung, and Canon have all filed patents)
• Film-to-digital conversion: converting neglected film bodies into digital cameras
• Apps for snaps: camera companies release their private development tools so developers can build apps for digital cameras
• Super-high def video: the shift to creating stills from high definition video footage (potentially signaling the increase in video and decrease in still photography)

Read more details here.

Alamy CEO answers contributors questions

Alamy CEO James West co-founded the stock agency way back in 1999. Today there are tens of millions of images for sale, and photographers maintain a 50/50 split with the agency. Recently the agency sourced questions from its contributors and West sat down to answer the most common ones via video. He covers: commission percentages, keyword training, pricing strategy, Google Images SEO, and tons more. Check out part one below, and the full three part video here.

Burning images of California’s Rim Fire

Prime Collective photographer Max Whittaker covered the recent wildfires in California, which burned over 250,000 acres. “I found it interesting how so much of the coverage focused on it being a ‘tragedy,’ ‘devastating’ or any other number of negative adjectives,” Max wrote in a recent post on the Prime Blog. “Wildfires are a natural part of the forest environment in the West.” But over the years, the forests have become more dense and led to large fires that can potentially be dangerous. See a few images of the fast-moving fire below.

The DAM Book Guide to Multi-Catalog Workflow with Lightroom 5

PhotoShelter member and workflow expert Peter Krogh has recently released a multimedia ebook on multi-catalog workflow intended for intermediate and advanced Lightroom users who need to create a coherent and organized workflow. This book is sure to help photographers manage large photo collections, especially those who need multi-location workflow or who need to collaborate with others.

Get your copy here.

Photographing & preserving Miami’s street art

Andrew Kaufman has been working to preserve some of Miami’s best street part by photographing it before it’s removed or fades away. His work has now turned into a full-fledged personal project called I’m In Miami B*itch!, including a book that tells the story of what has become the Olympics of street art in the world. Andrew will also be exhibiting his work  at Frangipani in Wynwood, Florida. Check out more of his work and read exclusive interviews with street artists on his project’s blog.

Photographer captures incredible photos of planes in front of the moon & sun

French photographer Sebastien Lebrigand has captured some amazing photos of planes flying right in front of the moon and sun using his Canon 500D DSLR and a  special astrophotography lens near his home in Paris. Looks like these planes are on a space mission. (via PetaPixel)