A woman has taken the grand prize at Red Bull Illume, a major international photography contest that celebrates adventure and action sports, for the first time in its 17-year history.

Krystle Wright, from Australia, was crowned the overall winner by a panel of more than 50 judges and also won the Innovation by MPB category.

She said: “This is incredible. I wanted to earn my place in this industry and my work to get recognised. Red Bull Illume is the only platform that truly recognises what we do.”

Wright’s shot showed the climber Angela VanWiemeersch illuminated in a crack deep within Long Canyon in the city of Moab, Utah.

“A heatwave had descended on to Moab, which meant we only had a few precious shaded

A festive photo taken in a back garden in Leicestershire has won an international bird photography competition.

Gianpiero Ferrari beat more than 1,750 pictures from all over the world to win the Society of International Nature and Wildlife Photographers’ Bird Photographer of the Year in aid of RSPB.

Some of the other finalists included penguins in Antarctica, a bee-eater in Botswana, owls in Canada and a stand-off between an eagle and fox in Spain.

Gianpiero had to lie down in the snow in order to get his winning shot of the fieldfare in his garden.

He said: “The shot is from my home garden. After a snowfall during the night, several fieldfare came in the garden to take advantage of the apple that I provided.

“This one was very aggressive and took over the entire garden chasing away all the other birds. I started to take some pictures from the house through a window, but I was not happy with the composition.

“I thought a ground level composition would have been much better. So first I had to build a pile of snow to use as a background and then lay on the ground under a camouflage blanket, waiting for the bird to return to eat the apples’’.

Runner-up was American engineer Robert Gloeckner, 37, with his pic of a crane chick snuggled up to its mother.

He said: “I watched this nest in Trinity, Florida for quiet some time when finally a Sandhill Crane Colt appeared, tucked in, feeling the warmth of its mother. It couldn’t be more than a day old.

“Even at such a young age, they leave the nest and explore the surroundings with their parents.

“I waited patiently on the side of the little pond where the nest was located. Upon their return to the nest, the colts were tired and disappeared in their mothers feathers, when suddenly one of them peeked out.

“This image perfectly shows the love between a parent and their offspring.

“Returning a couple days later the colts were gone and the parents were searching for them in the area. Nature can be cruel.”

Placed third was Kevin Rooney, 57, from near Cheltenham who captured an oxpecker on the nose of a buffalo in Africa.

The aerospace worker said: “The picture was taken in Naboisho Conservancy which is a private extension of the Masai Mara in Kenya.

“We were on safari and came across a large herd of buffalo so stopped to photograph them.

“I then zoomed in on the numerous oxpeckers. They follow the buffalo and eat the ticks and flys that land on them, so they can make quite good photos when they are pecking at the buffalo’s eyes, ears and nose for a meal.”

More seasonal was Vince Burton’s shot of a kingfisher in the frost which won him a judge’s choice prize.

Vince, 49, from Norfolk said: “The image was taken on a private pond on farm land that I visit regularly. I have been trying to photograph the Kingfishers there throughout the year, and show the different seasons.

“This image was taken during the first cold spell we had in the east of England.

“The combination of frost and mist made everything white, and I enjoyed the simplicity of the image with the blue and white of the image.

“The shot itself took several days to achieve, as despite the pond being the Kingfishers territory, it is still very large and I had to wait for the Kingfisher to land in the right area.”

Also keeping the cold theme going was this funny pic taken by Indian-born Canadian photographer Thomas Vijayan in Antarctica which got him a highly commended.

Thomas, 54, an architect from Ontario managed to get the curious Emperor Penguin looking down the lens of his camera whilst a chick looks on.

Food was a common theme and this swallow feeding its chicks in Australia was captured by Brian Jones who took up photography when he retired.

Speaking of the very highly commended shot, he said: “The photo was from a boardwalk at Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve, Canberra.

“The parents returned every few minutes with an insect or moth for the fledglings, who waited patiently.

“Each seemed to get its share. Some times the parent would land, other times it would pass the food while on the wing.

“We watched for half an hour from a nearby board walk, and they were still going when we left.”

A highly commended shot was this one of a bee-eater about to grab a dragonfly in Botswana.

It was taken by 71 year old Barbara Fleming from Colorado during a holiday.

The retired psychotherapist said: “I traveled by small boat up to the headwaters of the Okavango River.

“The banks were lined with very tall and thick, papyrus grasses several making it impossible to see anything but what was on the water’s edge.

“It took many hours of patient observation over each afternoon and evening over a week for these colorful birds to land on nearby branches to feed on bees and dragonflies with just the right light to make a beautiful image.

“Lots of patience and a very fast shutter speed was needed for this shot, one that tells a story of the type of life this species enjoys.”

Another shot that was very highly commended was this barn owl with a spot of lunch flying home.

Peter Woods, 65, from Norfolk said: “I was at Lady Fen which is part of WWT Welney in Norfolk to photograph owls that day and had already taken a few images when this owl came across the front of me with his lunch.

“I managed to get four images before the owl disappeared from view and into its roost where it stayed.”

One snapper, Christy Grinton from Vancouver Island, even managed to get two of her shots of owls in her native Canada commended in the competition.

Wildlife photographer Christy, 56, said of her picture of a pair of great grey owlets: “I was able to spend quiet moments watching the owls in their nest.

“The face on shot was just days before the larger owl fledged from the nest and walked across the grass to a near by oak tree.

“I loved how the owls looked like two kids in snow suits with just their eyes looking out. I also refer to them as Muppets.

“They are such beautiful Owls I was glad I could capture their wonderment and beauty.”

Her other commended shot was of a great horned owl peeking out from a hole in the tree.

She said: “This photo was taken near the road at the side of the nest. Mum was in the nest with the babies but if you walked to the side of the nest you could catch her looking at you.

“She was very protective of her babies especially since the crows and ravens would consistently go after the owlets.”

And this dramatic picture of a Bonelli’s eagle squaring off with an Iberian fox was also commended in the competition.

Taken by Kath Aggis, 76, from Suffolk whilst on a visit to Spain, she said: ” It was near Toledo and it was from a hide.

“Scraps are put out to encourage the raptors to come down and feed but foxes have caught on to this and challenged the eagle for his food.

“In this particular case the fox won and the eagle flew off hungry.”

SINWP spokesman Ben Jones said: “Now in its sixth year, The Society of International Nature and Wildlife Photographers are delighted to announce the winners of the SINWP Bird Photographer of the Year 2023 in aid of RSPB.

“Over 1,750 photographs were entered for this competition from around the globe.

“We have seen everything from bald eagles, owls, kingfishers, penguins, and everything in between, and the quality has been stunning.”

Produced in association with SWNS Talker

(New York Jewish Week) – The first Jewish woman ever appointed to the Supreme Court, the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was known for her trailblazing advocacy of gender equality, her impassioned dissenting opinions and for being a liberal icon. 

But the Brooklyn native, who served on the court for 27 years until her death at age 87, was also known for her fashion — particularly, the collars she wore on top of her black robes. Many of her collars were trimmed with lace, others intricately woven with beads and jewels; some were fashioned out of neckties and seashells, while others were crochet. Each helped Ginsburg embrace a subtle, feminine statement about causes she cared about. 

Now, three years after Ginsburg’s death on Erev Rosh Hashanah in 2020, photographs of 24 of the collars Ginsburg wore throughout her career are on display in a new exhibit, “RBG Collars: Photographs by Elinor Carucci,” that opened Friday at the Jewish Museum on the Upper East Side. The collars, photographed by Elinor Carucci, an Israeli photographer who has been living and working in New York since 1995, are a way of celebrating the trailblazing life and career of the Jewish justice, Carucci told the New York Jewish Week. 

“I’ve never done something like this,“ said Carucci, who typically photographs people — and not objects — for publications like The New Yorker, the New York Times and New York Magazine. “The whole thing was intense, but really wonderful. It was such an honor, especially for someone that I admire so greatly. It feels like I got to document a little prism into her life.”

Ginsburg’s history with the decorative collars dates to 1993, when she  was first appointed to the Supreme Court by President Bill Clinton. Alongside her colleague, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, they began wearing a version of a jabot — a lace ruffle fastened around the neck — showcasing subtle femininity to set themselves apart. Judge’s robes, after all, were designed for men, and allowed for a shirt collar and tie to peek through at the neck. As the story goes, the collars also kept them from looking washed out by their robes. 

Over the years, however, Ginsburg explored options beyond the lace ruffle, and she utilized the subtlety of her collars to make statements about causes and people she cared about. One collar is made out of Hawaiian shells, gifted to Ginsburg by a third-year law student at the University of Hawai’i when Ginsburg was a justice-in-residence in 2017. Another is made out of four layers of jacquard fabric — one for each member of Ginsburg’s family, which included her late husband, Martin Ginsburg, who died in 2010, and their children Jane and James — with the words “It’s not sacrifice, it’s family,” stitched into the neckline. The phrase was one Marty Ginsburg told the New York Times when asked why he gave up his law career to move to Washington to support his wife. 

A collar made out of shells and another made out of jacquard. The first was gifted to Ginsburg by a law student at the University of Hawai’i in 2017 and the second by her clerks in 2018. (Elinor Carucci)

Ginsburg often wore a black and gold jeweled collar, shining and armorlike, when she announced dissenting opinions. Similarly, she wore a yellow beaded and rose scalloped collar when she announced majority opinions. 

As New York Times’ chief fashion critic Vanessa Friedman wrote in 2020 upon Ginsburg’s death, her collars “served as both semiology and semaphore: They signaled her positions before she even opened her mouth, and they represented her unique role as the second woman on the country’s highest court.” 

“The idea was to claim what was a traditionally male uniform and unapologetically feminize it,” Friedman wrote. “That may seem innocuous, but it was in fact radical.”

Photographs of two of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s most iconic collars, “Majority” and “Dissent,” which she wore when announcing each respective opinion. (Elinor Carucci)

The idea to photograph the collars began as an assignment for Time Magazine, Carucci said. 

In 2020, just one month after Ginsburg died, Carucci was sent to the Supreme Court, where the collars were being rolled out of Ginsburg’s chambers — which, as it happens, were no longer empty, as it was also Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s first day on the job. Today, some of the collars and other RGB memorabilia belong to a permanent exhibition in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

Carrucci said she only had only six minutes to photograph each collar. “When I saw them, I started crying,” she told the New York Jewish Week. “I was already so emotional about her passing and what it meant. My husband was like, ‘Stop crying, we only have three minutes left.’” 

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The original article was so well received, it inspired Carucci to put together a book of her photographs, alongside a brief history or anecdote of each collar. She enlisted writer and researcher Sara Bader (no relation) to work with her; the 222-page book, “The Collars of RBG: A Portrait of Justice” was released last month. 

Carucci said one of the most surprising aspects of the project was how relatable and universal the collars are, despite belonging to one of the most recognizable women in the country. “Firstly, I appreciate that it’s not about the body,” she said. “Many times, as women, we feel that we can send messages by how we present ourselves. A lot of the time, it’s related to our bodies and our body types and it gets complicated. With these, they’re not related to the body.”

“Also, what I like is that almost every woman could wear these,” she added. “They are very ‘of the people.’ They’re accessible. The lace looks like something my grandma used to wear. They are the collection of a woman — something we could all have.”

At the Jewish Museum, the photographs of the collars are displayed alongside Judaica, amulets, necklaces and pendants in the museum’s collection. Although the collars themselves aren’t particularly Jewish, by interspersing the photographs with jewelry over the centuries, curator Shira Backer aims to showcase how Ginsburg’s accessories are part of a long tradition of Jewish tradition and adornment. 

Ginsburg, according to a press release about the exhibit, “understood how adornment — particularly jewelry, given its close association with the body and its ability to express individuality in settings where possibilities for self-expression are limited — can communicate beauty and power, joy and defiance, optimism and resolve.”

“The Jewish Museum’s collection is wonderfully eclectic — it encompasses both Judaica, historical and contemporary, and a really wide range of art,” Backer said in an email to the New York Jewish Week. “This exhibition is a playful way for these two sides of the collection to talk to one another. With Ruth Bader Ginsburg, you had the sense that a necklace or a collar was often something a little bit more than decorative.”

“RBG Collars: Photographs by Elinor Carucci” will be on view at the Jewish Museum through May 2024. The photographs are also on display at the Edwynn Houk Gallery, which has represented Carucci’s work for the last two decades, through Feb. 10. 

Editor’s note: This story originally appeared in the winter 2023 issue of Washington Coast Magazine, a publication produced by The Daily World.

Jade Black wants to promote healing through art, which made the last official day of summer less than ideal.

Black and her husband Junior met with Washington Coast Magazine on Sept. 22 to show how Black — a fine art self-portrait photographer — creates. But the weather that evening in Ocean Shores got in the way.

A blue sky with sparse clouds and the temperature in the high-60s caused a delay in Black’s process. Given more dramatic weather — rain, gray skies, a chill in the air, you know, Grays Harbor — is part of her intended art, she had to adjust. So instead, she chose a row of bushes that provided shade from the sun. Along with the wall of bushes, there were two trees positioned in front of the bushes that worked as a frame.

Black, donning a purple dress, explained why her art’s purpose is promoting healing through art.

“I use my emotions to give me inspiration for my art and in-turn, people look at my art and heal. It’s a healing process for me and for others, but my main inspiration can come from anywhere,” Black said. “This dress is today’s inspiration, so it really just depends. Like if you were walking around and you smelled a cinnamon roll? All of a sudden you’re inspired to get a cinnamon roll. It’s sort of like that. You find inspiration everywhere, if you’re looking for it, if you’re open to it.”

Black said her purpose of healing people stems from growing up in foster care.

“I was a foster child my whole life and that comes with a lot of stuff,” Black said. “It’s probably a lifetime of healing just there, especially since I was in a home that was not very kind. It was very difficult to grow up there, but I made it. And I know there are other children and other adults who are currently or have been in a similar situation, so being a survivor I feel my purpose is to not only heal for myself but to show others they can do it as well. And also for people who have gone through completely different circumstances and aren’t artistically inclined, they can still use art to heal, whether it’s a coloring book or doodling.”

Black grew up as an artist

“Ever since I can remember I’ve been drawing,” Black said. “Learning shading in second grade, that was really exciting. “And then I started learning painting and then graphic design. I was sort of uninspired by those (forms) so I jumped into photography about 10 years ago. I was shooting weddings and graduation pictures and things like that, but it wasn’t doing anything for me. It was sort of a job at that point. I wanted something deeper, a deeper connection to what I was creating and putting out in the world.”

While Black still shoots photographs for her art, she doesn’t need the perfect lighting, doesn’t need to align the f-stop, aperture and the shutter speed the way the technical side of photography does. She called those qualities the math side of photography and she finds it boring. What she shoots now, she finds it anything but boring.

“Anything that doesn’t light my fire, I don’t want to participate in,” Black said.

One event in particular that lit her fire in the last few years was her move up from the Southern California desert up to Washington state in 2019.

“I wake up every day really inspired,” Black said. “I have so many ideas it’s hard for me to pick one, focus on it and create it. I’m just overwhelmed by excitement and inspiration all the time.”

She said the sun drains her. That’s not good when she said she was used to seeing probably 350 sunny days per year.

“When it’s moody, I feel alive,” Black said about Grays Harbor’s gray skies, rain and wind.

“Previous to that I was shooting self-portraits but they weren’t nearly as, I don’t know what to call it, yummy as they are now.” Black said. “They were kind of mediocre. I created them, they were fine, but it’s the environment. I needed to be inspired by my environment. I was in the desert, which is not inspiring. So now that I’m here, I’m always inspired.”

Black knows her reason for moving to Western Washington — the rain — doesn’t make a lot of sense to a lot of other people. She’s fine with it.

“At first it was, people couldn’t understand that,” Black said. “I think people know me well enough now that they just accept me for it. But when I do talk to new people about it I just explain I spent the first 31 years of my life in a place it never rained, didn’t have green anywhere, and it was dead and gross. I think people can sort of get onboard with that. But yeah, they were very perplexed at first. But I match it, you know? Just as they match the dry. People match their environments.”

Her right-hand man

While Jade has the eye for what works and she comes up with the ideas, she couldn’t execute her art without her husband Junior, whom she met and befriended when she first moved to Grays Harbor. He’s on set with her anytime he can be.

“He’s my behind-the-scenes guy,” Black said. “So while I’m shooting, he gets video and picture so I can put together my behind-the-scenes-content, which is super-duper important. I need that.”

Junior also hauls equipment and stands where she wants to shoot, to make sure the focus is right. Think of an actor standing on his mark.

“I shoot with a baby lens, which is manual-focus only. It only has one single pinpoint of focus, the rest is blurry,” Black said. “With self-portraits, usually I would just go to my spot and hit the shutter half-way down and it would automatically focus. But since I use a manual lens, I have to focus it manually. But I can’t focus the lens and be in my spot at the same time, so he very kindly stands where I want him to. I set my focus and then he makes an X in the ground. I need that, so he is huge in my process.”

In addition to having her husband by her side, having the needed equipment and having the openness to drive all over to find the right setting, Black also draws kind of a storyboard that you might see in film or television.

“When I see the picture in my head, say for example this dress, I haven’t done this yet because I wanted to do it now,” Black said. “I see this dress and I’m like ‘oh my gosh, I just got inspiration for that dress.’ So I always make my pictures in square format because to me it seems like more of a piece of art. It’s not a snapshot, not just a photograph.”

Black plans it out with a rough sketch so she can get it out of her head.

“This dress is really cool, I love the shimmering of it,” Black said. “What I want to do is I want to just stand there in a pose. I want to take just a simple portrait. And then in Photoshop, I’m going to sample the same color purple and I’m going to start making my dress into smoke. So then, all right, smoke, purple, I’ll do forest, just anything that will help me figure out everything that I’m doing.”

Black said the late summer portrait was a simple shoot.

What happens in a complex shoot

“There have been other photoshoots where I need like five different shots specifically,” Black said. “I would have to plan it out so I don’t forget anything. It’s really simple to do, especially when it’s cold and you’re freezing. You know your brain function slows down, so I’ve gone out and I’ve missed things because I was so cold and I didn’t have it planned out. Whereas if everything is written down and it’s planned out, like ‘OK, I need this shot with this shot, with this shot,’ then I go through the checklist, basically. And also, if something’s not going to work I can pretty much figure it out during this phase if it’s gonna work or not.”

And then she finds a location. When she scouts, she’s “always observant,” she takes note of a certain spot she finds interesting and then she mentally files it.

“For example, this is awesome,” Black said about the bushes with the trees as a frame. “On a sunny day I can come here because it’s in the shade, except in the morning time, but I don’t typically shoot in the morning time anyways.”

Black also lists her needed props and other equipment she needs for shoots. Her shoots can take her hours away.

One of her first times shooting in the Pacific Northwest was near the Quinault Rainforest.

“I had this great idea to get a bucket of red paint and have him dump it over my head while I was sitting in the forest. Sounds like a great idea right?” Black said sarcastically. “Don’t pour latex paint all over your body and your hair, it’s awful. We just drove around until I saw a spot in the forest that I wanted to go to. We pulled over on the side of the road. We went not too far from the road, we could still see it, still see the vehicle. Luckily I brought a large, plastic sheet with me to put down on the forest floor because I didn’t want to leave a mess. Sure enough, he was pouring the paint over me and I was covered in red paint. It was freezing. This was in the wintertime, it was very, very cold with very cold, red paint. After we shot I was covered in red paint. He gets me to the vehicle. Because I was covered in paint, I had to be in the back. It was an SUV with no tinted windows. So he put down the plastic sheeting and me on top. I was sort of curled into a fetal position sort of. He went back and was cleaning up. It looked bloody. It looked like a murder scene had happened. While we were shooting, a police officer drove by. He just slowed down and kind of like watched for a little, and then left.”

Then Junior drove Black home as she was curled up in the fetal position, covered in red paint in the back of an SUV with no tinted windows.

“It looked like I was a corpse,” Black said. “That was probably the most interesting photoshoot.”

Black also recalled a second trip where they went to the Capitol State Forest. She had him tie her to a tree.

“I was nude, with a red ribbon,” Black said. “We heard gunshots in the background. We realized it was hunting season. We were imagining what that would look like if someone was looking through a scope and saw this female being tied to a tree. Luckily I got the shot and we packed up and we left. That was another very, completely Jade Black photoshoot right there.”

Junior said he was “probably more nervous than anything,” during that shoot.

Black said she wanted to thank Brooke Shaden, who mentored Black.

“She sort of normalized darkness for me,” Black said. “A lot of people are normally so afraid of it. I was never afraid to create darkness in my art. But she made me feel like it was OK to express things that aren’t comfortable for other people. I’m not here to make people comfortable. I want them to be very uncomfortable so they can face themselves and figure out why they’re uncomfortable. Hopefully they can identify that and heal from it. If I make light and bright, sunny, you’re just going to be like ‘oh, what a pretty picture,’ and then you’re going to walk away. There’s nothing memorable about that. But if you see something that’s dark and sort of stops you in your tracks and makes you feel uncomfortable, you have no choice but to figure out ‘why does this make me feel weird? I don’t like it.’ If you don’t like it, perfect. That’s what I want from you. I want you to figure out why. My art is not just for me. It’s for you too.”

How art helps

Black’s art is kind of like the difference between hearing a light, pop song versus hearing a song that makes you feel emotions because it’s not rainbows and sunshine, there’s depth to it.

“It’s the understanding,” Black said. “I want people to know that I’ve been there, I know how you feel and you can make it through. I promise. And I will be here with you. If people don’t feel like they’re understood, they’re probably not going to heal. They’re gonna be depressed and they’re gonna shut themselves out. If I can provide any sort of solace for anybody, that’s perfect.”

Matthew N. Wells / The Daily World
Jade Black’s husband, Junior, is an essential part to much of her work. While Junior can’t be at every shoot, he’s at as many as he can be. Junior is standing there so Jade can figure out if it’s the right spot for her next photograph. Jade uses a camera that has a single point focus, so she’s trying to make sure when she stands there and poses, the shot works. Junior is also using an iPhone to stream Jade’s photoshoot to her Instagram followers.

Jade Black, a fine art self-portrait photographer, poses in a marked spot during the last summer day in Ocean Shores. Black uses a camera with a single-point focus lens so she has to set everything up before she poses. This shoot was to show her Instagram followers part of her process. The finished product should look much more dramatic. (Matthew N. Wells / The Daily World)

Jade Black
One of Jade Black’s portraits she shared depicts her surviving through awful conditions. “She’d seen many things, oh so many,” she states in an Instagram post about this piece. “Carcasses of memories past still haunted her in her dreams. Sludge and muck oozed and clung threatening her very survival. But on she soared separate from the rest of the world. Her walls would not crumble nor a rock would she swing but alas she’d journey on until the sky meets the edge of the sea.”

Matthew N. Wells / The Daily World
Jade Black, a self-portrait photographer, explains what goes into her art. This photo shows Black wearing part of a tree and a nest at Damon Point. “I got this branch and I put it on my head,” Black said. “And then in Photoshop I went ahead and took the nest that I photographed and I put it on my head as well to make it look like I’m sort of a tree with a nest on my head.” Search online for “www.jade-black.com” to find more of Black’s work.