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If you’re considering trying out pinhole photography, the Ilford Obscura 4×5 might pique your interest. This camera offers a unique shooting experience and can produce images with distinctive character.

Coming to you from Kyle McDougall, this insightful video dives into using the Ilford Obscura 4×5 pinhole camera for the first time. McDougall takes it out to Tintern, a village in South Wales, to get a feel for the camera before heading to North Wales for a project. The goal is to see what this pinhole camera can do and understand its strengths and limitations. 

The Ilford Obscura is straightforward: it’s a box with magnets holding it together. You load a sheet of film, open the flap to expose the pinhole, and close it to stop the exposure. However, it doesn’t use a sheet film holder, meaning you need a dark bag to load and unload film between shots. McDougall acknowledges this inconvenience but appreciates the simplicity of the design. If you’re hiking or on the move, this setup can be cumbersome, which is a key consideration.

He starts by metering the scene using his phone. The exposure calculation is straightforward but involves using a conversion chart and a reciprocity timer app to adjust for the long exposure times typical of pinhole photography. Despite the complexity, McDougall embraces the process and the unpredictability of the results. After a few shots, McDougall discusses the challenges and joys of using the camera. He mentions the long exposure times, which can lead to interesting effects, such as movement in the scene. The framing is a bit of a guessing game, but that’s part of the charm. He points out that this method forces you to slow down and be deliberate, which can be a refreshing change from the fast-paced nature of digital photography.

Back in the office, McDougall develops the film and shares his initial impressions. The images have a soft, almost dreamy quality with a lot of character. He appreciates the imperfections and the aged look they convey. This is precisely the effect he was aiming for in his project, making the camera a successful choice for his creative vision. However, he’s already considering finding a pinhole camera that uses a film holder for added convenience. Check out the video above for the full rundown from McDougall.

JAMES ISLAND, S.C. (WCSC/Gray News) – A man was surprised to find an alligator underneath his vehicle.

Stephen Faulk said his neighbors alerted him to the alligator and he grabbed his camera and rushed outside to take photos.

Faulk, a self-described wildlife photographer, got within a few feet of the alligator.

“In my free time I love to get out and do a lot of hiking and amateur wildlife photography,” he said. “I was just at Caw Caw Interpretive Center the other day looking for alligators to photograph and I couldn’t find any so it’s kind of hilarious that one just shows up almost at my doorstep.”

A Charleston County Public Works employee spotted the alligator, followed it into the parking lot and alerted animal control workers.

“Everybody was joking about it. They’re like, ‘Of course, this would happen to you,’” Faulk said.

He shot footage of animal control officers wrangling the gator from beneath the vehicle.

“He was getting pretty scuffed up. He got a little bloody, you know. They got to tire them out before they can actually get them into the truck bed,” Faulk said. “So when they thrash around a lot, they use up a lot of energy and it tires them out.”

Faulk said that the most important thing when interacting with wildlife is to respect their space.

Copyright 2024 WCSC via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

New York, NY, May 26, 2024 –(PR.com)– For half a century, the International Photographic Council (IPC) has been focused on a single mission – Peace Through Photography, The Universal Language. At the organization’s recent IPC Professional Photographer Awards Luncheon in New York City, attendees were treated to a program that showcased legends, icons and prodigies that have and continue to bring this mission to life. The IPC Professional Photographer Awards Luncheon took place during International Photography Month in the Delegates Dining Room at the United Nations in New York City.

Melissa Fleming, Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications at the United Nations opened the ceremony with moving words about the organization and the honorees.

“Our 50th anniversary program was marked by tremendous energy,” says Andy Marcus, President of IPC. “Under-Secretary-General Fleming’s opening remarks set the mood for a moving event. The program was a strong mix of photographers. We will continue our mission to promote Peace through Photography, the Universal Language through our programs and events like these. Congratulations to all the honorees.”

The following were honored at the 2024 IPC Professional Photographer Awards Luncheon:

Douglas Kirkland, IPC Special Lifetime Achievement Award: The award was presented posthumously to Francoise Kirkland who served as the keynote. Together they published several books and showcased numerous exhibitions. Douglas Kirkland remains one of the world’s most influential photographers, capturing the faces of Marilyn Monroe, Andy Warhol, Leonardo DiCaprio, Coco Chanel, Mikhail Baryshnikov and more. His portrait of Charlie Chaplin hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in London. In 1998, Kirkland’s picture book, Titanic, rose to No. 1 on The New York Times Best Seller List. A retrospective exhibition of Kirkland’s work entitled, A Life in Pictures, was recently on display at Fahey/Klein Gallery in Los Angeles, California. Francoise continues to look after her husband ‘s legacy and vast archive.

In her moving keynote Francoise Kirkland thanked IPC for honoring her late husband who touched beings of all walks of life and made everyone that he came in contact with feel like they mattered.

Benjamin Von Wong, IPC Environmental Photographer Award: Benjamin Von Wong is a multidisciplinary visual artist and photographer who uses recycled and reclaimed materials to create striking installations and images. His work has generated over 100 million views on social media focusing on various causes including plastics, fast fashion and electronic waste.

Lindsay Adler, IPC Professional Photographer Achievement Award, Professional Photographers of America Nominee: Specializing in beauty and fashion photography, Lindsay Adler is an award-winning photographer/director and world-renowned photographic educator. Based in New York City, she has traveled the world shooting for iconic beauty brands and high-end editorial publications. Lindsay is known for her signature clean, bold, and graphic style. She has worked for brands ranging from NBC to Ogilvy to Vogue and everything in between. She is an author of 5 books, Canon Explorer of Light and one of the most sought-after photo educators internationally.

Peter Hurley, IPC Professional Photographer Achievement Award, WPPI Nominee: Peter Hurley is a world-renowned photographer who for the past 20 years has been fixated on the faces that fill his frame. He spends his days in studio unpacking the relationship between how his clients’ internal thought processes affect their outer appearances. He’s a TEDx speaker on the subject, author of The Headshot, a Canon Explorer of Light, and founder of the Headshot Crew, which comprises the largest group of headshot specialists globally.

David McLain, IPC Professional Photographer Achievement Award, SONY Artisan Nominee: David McLain is a Maine-based photographer and filmmaker whose work explores big questions through intimate stories. Over his career, he has shot seven feature-length assignments for National Geographic, coproduced and shot Bounce, a feature documentary that premiered at SXSW, and worked around the world for commercial clients including Sony and Apple. For the past 20 years, David has been photographing The Blue Zones, places on earth where people live the longest healthiest lives. He recently shot the New York Times best-selling Blue Zones Kitchen which has sold over 400,000 copies. His current work is focused on longevity, healing, and health. David is proud to be a founding member of the Sony Artisan Program and lives with his wife and two children in a 220-year-old farmhouse in Maine.

Shotti NYC, IPC Professional Photographer Achievement Award, FujiFilm Creator Nominee: Empathy is at the forefront of Shotti NYC’s practice. As a portrait photographer, he feels that it is important to reimagine how a subject defines personal beauty. Shotti NYC often finds himself capturing the unconventional, uncertain and uneasy aspects of human nature. His process relies heavily on connecting with a subject on an emotional level, and through this connection, he is able to get an insight on their shared experience.

Deanne Fitzmaurice, IPC Professional Photographer Achievement Award, NIKON Ambassador Nominee: Deanne Fitzmaurice served as an eyewitness to sweeping change across the Bay Area as a photojournalist for the San Francisco Chronicle, documenting the worst Earthquake in nearly a century, pivotal Supreme Court rulings, significant wars involving the U.S., climate change, and sports. Her work for the Chronicle garnered the attention of global publications and soon she was shooting for National Geographic, Sports Illustrated, ESPN, and others. One photographic essay, documenting a young Iraqi war victim named Saleh, earned her the Pulitzer Prize. She has won most of the major prizes in photojournalism – some multiple times – including Pictures of the Year International, AI-AP American Photography, Communication Arts, NPPA, and others.

Anna and Jordan Rathkopf, IPC Professional Photographer Achievement Award, American Photographic Artists Nominee: Anna and Jordan Rathkopf’s work utilizes their lived experiences to create inclusive health stories that portray illness humanely and authentically and help create awareness for health equity. Their work has received prestigious awards (Comm Arts, APA, American Photography), exhibited at ICP, Photoville, LinkNYC and Smithsonian Institute, and has been featured as the Master Brand Campaign for Susan G. Komen and media including CNN, Good Morning America, Metro UK and more.

IPC James L. Chung Memorial Scholarships. The scholarship honors the late long-time president of IPC. Lucas Brito Drumond and Mariana Otalora Chavez attend the School of Visual Arts College in New York City and were named as this year’s recipients. The scholarship awards are made possible by the generosity of the Chung Foundation. Dr. Mark Chung gave a heartfelt speech on how important the IPC Scholarship Program is in keeping with his father’s legacy of helping to mentor young people.

A special thanks to the corporate supporters: American Photographic Artists, B&H Photo Video, Canon U.S.A. Inc., Fred Marcus Photography & Video, FUJIFILM, H+H Photo Lab, Mailpix, Nikon Inc., Professional Photographers of America, SIGMA America, SONY Electronics North America, Tamron, Tether Tools, Tiffen, Westcott, WPPI, Steve Simon and Suspect Photography; along with a generous donation to the James L. Chung Memorial Scholarship program from The Chung Foundation, Francoise Kirkland and Benjamin Von Wong.

Visit IPCPhoto.org to learn more. Mark your calendars for May 14, 2025. Visit IPCPhoto.org for full info and to view incredible images from the honorees.

About the International Photographic Council (IPC)
The International Photographic Council (IPC) is a Civil Society Organization formally associated with the United Nations Department of Global Communications, composed of representatives from every major sector of the photographic industry. IPC’s motto is “Peace Through Photography, the Universal Language.” IPC is celebrating its 50th anniversary.

Photo Caption:

(left to right) IPC Vice President Kathy Jello, Mariana Otalora Chavez, Peter Hurley, Lucas Brito Drumond, Lindsay Adler, Jordan Rathkopf, Francoise Kirkland, Shotti NYC, Anna Rathkopf, Deanne Fitzmaurice, IPC President Andy Marcus, Benjamin Von Wong.

Contact
Kathy Magrane
International Photographic Council
KathyMagrane@southcomm.com

Kathy Jello
International Photographic Council
KathyJello@IPCPhoto.org

Jay Clue: I purchased my first camera just before
I moved to Baja California in Mexico six years ago. It was a small compact camera with plastic housing. 

Back then, I knew almost nothing about photography. I’d just run around mashing buttons in Auto mode, hoping I would get some epic shots. 

Eventually, a close friend sat me down and said, ‘Okay, you need to learn how to shoot photos or I’m taking the camera away’. She’s an incredible photographer and I’ll forever be grateful that she took the time to teach me the basics of shooting in Manual mode. 

Being a big nerd at heart, I began going down rabbit holes online, reading guides and watching tutorials, then going out and practicing what I’d learned. 

I was still horrible at it but I really wanted 
to be able to capture photos that showed the same beauty I felt when I was in the ocean, so I kept pushing on and practicing more and more.

Fast forward a year or so and I decided to save up my pennies to upgrade from my compact to a crop-sensor mirrorless camera. 

To my surprise, around six months or so later, I won my first photography award. Not long after that, I placed fourth in the world for the best up-and-coming photographer, as well as picking up a few other placements and awards that year. 

But then, I had a change of heart and stopped entering competitions. I realized something incredibly important: beautiful images and stories can do a lot more than just be pretty. 

They have this incredible power to make humans who have never been to the ocean before fall in love with it and maybe even want to protect it. This realization became ingrained in my work as I continued learning and growing as a photographer. 

For me, it really changed the quality of my shots. I no longer only wanted to just capture the beauty I saw in the ocean but instead use my photos to inspire others to hopefully feel that same passion
I have for our oceans. 

Bringing a purpose to my photography helped me take it to new levels. 

Sam Glenn-Smith: I was influenced by two incredible men who continue to inspire me to this day. 

Alan Wiggs, who was my high school teacher and taught me to dive, and Daniel Geary (also known as Doctor Frogfish), who first put a camera in my hand and inspired the creative side in me to start shooting underwater.

For eight years from 2007, Dhruv Malhotra photographed after dark in Indian cities and suburbs. He was, he says, drawn to “the silence, the palpable sense of time and the unknown” as well as the chance “to make visible what is ordinarily dark and hidden”. To begin with, these scenes were uninhabited. He liked the idea of places on the edges of the urban, left alone overnight, waiting to wake again. To achieve his effects he exposed colour negative film over long periods, imprinting otherworldly early hours on film.

About a year into these insomniac studies he took a picture of a night sleeper he chanced upon. Malhotra was living and working mostly in Noida, the New Okhla Industrial Development Authority, a satellite zone of Delhi, which has expanded rapidly since it was created in 1976. After that first picture of the sleeper he made a series, going in search of where people might bed down, staking out likely benches and shelters. Mostly the people he photographed were not homeless. Summers are stifling hot in Uttar Pradesh, and sleeping outside is a regular custom. Some were migrant workers who chose to sleep close to their place of work, others were security guards between shifts. “When photographing,” Malhotra has said of the series, “I’m looking for spaces where the human figure and the urban environment form a symmetry with each other.”

This picture is emblematic of that nocturnal series. It is included in a large-scale book, Night Fever, which focuses on photography and cinema set in the moments when the world is fast asleep. As with other work in the book, Malhotra’s pictures convey the heightened sensory awareness that daylight tends to extinguish; his sleepers, lost to the world, have what he calls “the sense of disquiet that otherwise would go unnoticed”.

• Night Fever: Film and Photography After Dark, edited by Shanay Jhavari, is published on 1 June by Koenig Books