Glass Imaging uses artificial intelligence to “extract the full image quality potential from hardware on current and future smartphone cameras by reversing lens aberrations and sensor imperfections.”
The company has put its impressive AI technology to work with the new iPhone 15 Pro Max smartphone, showing dramatic improvements from the flagship phone’s 5x zoom lens.
The iPhone 15 Pro Max’s telephoto lens sports a unique tetraprism design and offers a 120mm equivalent focal length and f/2.8 aperture. The camera and lens combo is impressive from a technical perspective. However, the real-world results leave a bit to be desired.
“The full potential of this hardware is limited as the accompanying software from Apple doesn’t extract all the detail this lens can capture,” Glass Imaging claims.
In a journal entry, Glass compares the iPhone 15 Pro Max’s default processing against its advanced GlassAI processing. The results demonstrate a significant overall image quality improvement, including better detail, clarity, and color accuracy.
Glass says that while Apple’s hardware is impressive, the iPhone’s native software “occasionally falls short of harnessing the full capabilities of the hardware,” potentially resulting in compromised image quality. Despite dedicating significant resources to its image signal processing and image processing algorithms, Glass argues that “there’s significant room for improvement.”
So, what is Glass doing, and how does its AI processing improve image quality? In its own words, “Glass Imaging harnesses the power of artificial intelligence to get the most from the raw image burst data — the unprocessed sensor information captured during a shot. This AI-centric approach allows for intelligent decisions on image enhancement, going beyond the limitations of traditional handcrafted algorithms.”
At the heart of the company’s approach is neural network training. “At our labs, for each camera on that phone (wide, ultra-wide, tele, selfie), we train a custom Neural Network for low light, bright light, and super res (zoom),” Ziv Attar, Glass’s CEO tells PetaPixel.
“After training, we port these networks to the device’s chipset and optimize for speed and power consumption. Our neural networks take in a burst of RAW images and outputs a full processed image. Our Neural networks are trained to characterize the optical aberrations of each lens at any location on the sensor and are capable of correcting these aberrations,” Attar continues.
The entire training process takes “a few days.”
While the company cannot fully detail its “unique way” of “teaching” its AI to reverse lens aberrations (since it is a proprietary technology that the company is actively marketing to smartphone makers) Attar promises that GlassAI’s results are “more true and noise free compared to traditional processing approaches,” such as those that Apple is utilizing.
“The data (photons) are there but iPhone and other phones must apply very aggressive color denoise in order to remove color noise which is very disturbing. When they do that, they desaturate colors on fine details,” Attar explains.
“You don’t see this in big cameras as it’s mostly a problem of tiny pixels that are noisy and suffer from signal cross contamination between neighboring pixels that are of different color,” he continues. “Our networks are able to look at a large area and understand what pixels lie on what thread or object and handle the color noise removal in a much smarter way.”
The result is more accurate color information in the output image. Attar says that original iPhone images in Glass’s examples appear less colorful in part because default image processing mixes up small, colorful pixels with neighboring pixels when performing denoising.
Glass AI is “fundamentally improving reconstruction of existing data that exists on the sensor,” and is not performing any sort of synthesis of new information or creating “fake” data.
If this AI processing approach delivers such impressive results — as it does — then it should be a pretty easy sell. Is there any downside?
Attar says “there is no downside,” but admits that training high-quality neural networks is extremely challenging. Further, there are relatively high processing demands to handle the neural networks, which technology has only been able to achieve in the “the last year or so,” in his words.
“There were neural processors on Android and Apple devices for a few years now but they were not capable of handling pixel level operations and were only used for semantics and global operations like automatic white balance, automatic exposure, etc.,” Attar explains.
Further, the neural network processing requires time to execute its operations, even on swift, powerful mobile devices like the iPhone 15 Pro Max. However, the processing is pretty quick. A 12-megapixel image captured by the Pro Max’s telephoto camera takes about half a second, says Attar, and he says that the standard iPhone processing of a 12-megapixel file “takes longer than that.” So, practically speaking, processing time shouldn’t be a major inhibitor.
The user also doesn’t need to wait for the processing to complete to continue to shoot. However, it does take some time to see the final output file: the initial image on the screen is a low-quality version. However, even while processing occurs, Attar says the photographer can continue shooting.
He also says that despite the higher image quality, the image files are smaller because they have less noise, and noise makes files more challenging to compress. So, again, what is the cost here?
“The only cost is you need to develop tools to train these networks: large labs, robotic equipment, tons of software that controls the training procedure,” Attar says. While that all sounds expensive, it seems feasible for large companies to achieve.
“We are working to sell our software to phone makers around the world. The product is an SW library that includes custom-trained Neural Networks for each camera on a phone (selfie, wide, ultra-wide, tele…). Our solution will be in some phone models in 2024,” says Attar.
The company will also consider an iPhone app to allow end users to achieve impressive results. However, it will not be available “very soon,” if it ever hits the market. The company’s primary focus is selling its core technology services to manufacturers so that its AI can be implemented natively.
Image and caption credits: Glass Imaging
This Friday —that is, tomorrow— the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum will honor its 2023 class of Photography Hall of Fame Inductees and Awardees in a virtual ceremony at 6p.m. CST. An annual occurrence since the IPHF first opened its doors fifty-eight years ago, these awards are given to photographers and industry visionaries for their artistry, innovation, and contributions to photography both as an art and as a science.
Significant innovators in their respective fields —according to not only to the IPHF (and common sense) — are none other than Nan Goldin, Vivian Maier, and Bea Nettles, in addition to Matika Wilbur, honored with the IPHF Visionary Awards as women photographers.
Frankly, as a street photographer who also happens to be part of an, ahem, certain subculture, the most shocking thing about this year’s honorees is the fact that it took so long for the IPHF to recognize their work.
We’re talking about Vivian Maier, one of the most prolific street photographers of the twentieth century, whose work we’ve been able to see thanks to serendipity and good luck. We’re talking about Nan Goldin, whose work within the LGBT community shed light on both its happiness and its tragedies; her opus The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, captured moments of love and loss in the post-Stonewall era; sex, drug use, dance clubs, domestic violence, AIDS and more are portrayed candidly and powerfully in this must-see piece.
Vivian Maier was an American street photographer whose massive, unseen body of work came to light when it was purchased at an auction in Chicago, in 2007.
Born in New York City, she spent some of her youth in France and then worked in Chicago as a nanny and caregiver for most of her life. In her spare time, however, Maier ventured into the art of photography. Consistently taking photographs over the course of five decades, she would ultimately leave behind over 100,000 negatives.
Nancy Goldin, is an American photographer and activist whose work has explored LGBT subcultures, the HIV/AIDS crisis, the opioid epidemic and various moments of intimacy, as stated before.
She’s a founding member of the advocacy group P.A.I.N —Prescription Addiction Intervention Now— and she lives and works in New York City.
Bea Nettles explores the narrative potential of photography through constructed images often made with alternative photographic processes. Combining craft and photography, Nettles’s work makes use of wide-ranging tools and materials, including fabric and stitching, instamatic cameras, the book format, manually applied color, and hand‐coated photographic emulsions. Her imagery evokes metaphors that reference key stages in the lives of women, often with autobiographic undertones, and her key motifs draw upon mythology, family, motherhood, place, landscape, dreams, aging, and the passage of time.
Matika Wilbur is a critically acclaimed social documentarian and photographer from the Swinomish and Tulalip peoples of coastal Washington. Project 562, a crowd-funded initiative to visit, engage, and photograph people from over 562 sovereign Tribal Nations in North America, is her fourth major creative venture elevating Native American identity and culture. She co-hosts the All My Relations podcast with Dr. Adrienne Keene as a platform that invites guests to delve into subjects facing Native peoples today and explore the connections between land, non-human relatives, and one another.
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The buses are back. The galleries are ready. Art Week Tokyo (AWT) returns for a third edition this week with greater ambition. The number of participating institutions and galleries remains more or less the same as that last year, but with the launch of a curated sales platform, thoughtful gallery exhibitions, and a symposium focusing on curators, the annual event is aiming much higher than just luring high-net-worth international visitors.
“Art Week Tokyo is a great occasion to introduce Japanese art to visitors coming from abroad,” noted Hozu Yamamoto of Tokyo Gallery + BTAP, which returned to AWT this year as one of the 50 participating institutions and galleries.
The gallery sold out all the works on show and gained many new customers during a very successful iteration of AWT in 2022. This year, the gallery presents a solo exhibition of Japanese-American photographer Yasuhiro Ishimoto. Yamamoto conceded that sales of photography work can be challenging (works are priced at five-digit or less in dollars), but he was still adamant about staging the show, as Ishimoto brought new perspective to Japanese aesthetics and beauty.
At Art Week Tokyo 2023’s video program curated by Chus Martínez. Photo: Vivienne Chow.
“At normal art fairs, it is difficult for people to understand Japanese art history. Here at AWT, we can take more time to explain and discuss these topics in detail,” Yamamoto added. “We want to show important works to the audience.”
Organized in collaboration with Art Basel, AWT was set out as an alternative to the traditional art fair model. By bussing art exhibition-goers and international visitors around galleries scattered across the Japanese capital, the gallery weekend model was intended to stimulate locals’ interest in contemporary art and introduce foreign visitors to Japanese contemporary art, which has long been undervalued.
This year, however, it’s not just about Japanese contemporary art. Many participating institutions and galleries have presented contemporary art from the country alongside works by global artists. Besides the ambitious institution exhibitions, galleries are also making bold moves.
Take Ninagawa opened a stunning exhibition of the late British artist and filmmaker Derek Jarman at its new space. The show features not just Jarman’s films, Electric Fairy (1971), the artist’s first, and Imagining October (1984), but also includes a selection of rarely seen dark walled works known as Black Paintings created between 1986 and 1991. SCAI The Bathhouse, located at a 200-year-old former public bathhouse, is holding an elegant show of textured paintings and sculptures by the New York-based Mexican artist Bosco Sodi in the exhibition “Galaxy.”
Gallerist Yuuki Imai of Kayokoyuki introduces the paintings of legendary painter Nobuya Hitsuda to a visiting crowd. Photo: Vivienne Chow
Other galleries have opted to show homegrown heroes. Waiting Room gallery is presenting a solo show of the Kyoto-based, 1975-born Saori Miyake, featuring a new series of cyanotypes and video works. Kana Kawanishi Gallery is staging a solo exhibition of Akira Fujimoto’s walled works created out of marine plastics found along Japan’s coastline. Works by the legendary Nobuya Hitsuda (b. 1941), who has taught artists such as Yoshitomo Nara and Kyoko Murase, can be found at his solo show at Kayokoyuki gallery.
Among the most delightful (re)discoveries was Yoko Terauchi (b. 1954), whose philosophical practice is vividly introduced in a solo show at Hagiwara Projects, which has quickly earned her a new fan base. Terauchi moved to London in 1979 and lived there for 20 years before returning to her native Japan. She exhibited at Victoria Miro and Chisenhale Gallery during her London years, an unusual achievement for an Asian woman artist in the west at the time.
“With each edition of Art Week Tokyo, I am reminded of the breadth, depth, and quality of contemporary art in Japan,” Atsuko Ninagawa Art Week Tokyo director and owner of Take Ninagawa, said in a statement. This year’s AWT also features a moving-image program curated by Chus Martínez. “I believe Art Week Tokyo is only scratching the surface of its potential to be a transformative art event for the city and beyond.”
Japanese artist Yoko Terauchi introduces her artistic practice to exhibition-goers at her solo show at Hagiwara Projects.
As the world’s third biggest economy, Japan’s global art market share by value accounts for only one percent of the total, according to the Art Basel UBS 2023 art market report. But this percentage should be higher, according to Hayashi Yasuta, director of the arts and culture division of Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs.
“Japan has indeed come a bit late to promote contemporary art,” Hayashi noted in an interview. “It’s not just about the art fairs. We want to be a part of the global discourse, including museums, academics, in addition to art fairs.”
The hope is for AWT and Art Collaboration Kyoto (ACK), both government-backed initiatives, to rectify this by fostering an ecosystem where museums and art patrons can work closer with each other. The aim is also to interest more people in buying art in the future by giving them more benefits, Hayashi noted. He added that bridging the local art world with the global one remains the government’s ambition: “We are thinking about the next 50, 100 years.”
Gallerist Kana Kawanishi (right), introduces the work made of marine garbage by artist Akira Fujimoto during Art Week Tokyo 2023. Photo: Vivienne Chow.
As there are more contemporary art activities in the country, particularly the commercial ones, Hayashi hopes that industry players will be more active in responding to the art market report’s requests for data so that the team can have more accurate data to work with.
The Kyoto-based Japanese artist Kohei Nawa recalled that when he graduated from art school in the late 1990s, he was devastated. He did not know how to get into the art scene as it was very quiet at the time. But dramatic changes were observed over the past 20 years in the country and he is now more hopeful than before. As a professor at Kyoto University of Arts and Design, he has spotted a lot of young, talented artists.
“There are a lot of good artists in their 20s and 30s now. However, there aren’t so many young curators in Japan. New initiatives and platforms can be helpful to artists by bringing people in,” said Nawa.
Installation view of AWT Focus at Okura Museum of Art, Art Week Tokyo 2023. Photo: Vivienne Chow.
While AWT is billed as an alternative to traditional art fairs, the art fair still appears to be necessary. The newly launched AWT Focus, curated by Kenjiro Hosaka, director of Shiga Museum of Art, Otsu, is perhaps closest to what an art fair could be.
This selling platform curated under the theme, “Worlds in Balance: Art in Japan from the Postwar to the Present,” at the century-old privately owned Okura Museum of Art features more than 100 works from 64 Japanese and Japan-based artists from across generations, each contributed by an AWT participating gallery. Some galleries said sales have been made at AWT Focus.
“This is the third year of AWT and it has already established its presence. It needs to keep evolving. AWT Focus shows how this initiative can evolve,” said Vincenzo de Bellis, Art Basel’s director of fairs and exhibition platforms. Rather than simply staging another fair in another city, AWT’s success can be referenced by cities outside of the locations of the four current Art Basel fairs. He revealed that new events may take place in 2025 or beyond.
“This is a very interesting model. By spotlighting a specific culture, it sheds light for international visitors coming in. It’s interesting for us to see how it will play out for other projects in the future. Asia is major market for us. We want to show our presence,” he said.
To gallerists, traveling to art fairs will still be necessary. Kayokoyuki has exhibited at Paris Internationale and Nada Miami. Waiting Room has also shown at Nada Miami. “AWT is a great opportunity but we still need to go to fairs. We just need to be very strategic,” noted Tomoko Ashikawa, director of Waiting Room.
Yamamoto of Tokyo Gallery + BTAP said that exhibiting at art fairs overseas are still necessary as selling expensive works domestically is very difficult. “We need to go abroad to sell works at higher price points,” he noted.
Art Week Tokyo 2023 runs through November 5.
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“Maternal care” by Javier Aznar González de Rueda (Spain). Overall Winner.
“In Ecuador’s largest protected area, Yasuní National Park, I was able to observe maternal care behavior in the stink bug Antiteuchus tripterus over a two-week period. The female bug guarded its clutch of eggs on a small branch. This behavior has been reported for other true bug species. To my surprise, it turned out that the mother bug not only protected the eggs but also the newly hatched larvae up to their first molt. In Ecuador’s rainforest, the stink bug’s brood is vulnerable to attack by numerous predators and parasitoids such as ichneumon wasps. Maternal care significantly increases the offspring’s chances of survival. The rainforest is a highly complex ecosystem with countless organisms in a vast interconnected web of life.”
Spanish nature photographer Javier Aznar González de Rueda impressed judges with his image of a female stink bug guarding her clutch of eggs in Ecuador’s Yasuní National Park. For his efforts, he was named Photographer of the Year in the German Society for Nature Photography (GDT) European Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.
In doing so, he beat out professional photographers from 42 countries, and his image of this insect topped the nearly 18,000 photographs entered into the contest. His photo highlights the complex ecosystem of the park and the interconnected nature of the species that live there, as the mother wards off potential predators and parasites.
“Do we humans really believe that insects bond with their offspring?” muses jury member Mark Littlejohn. “That they are capable of displaying parental feelings? And are humans capable of connecting emotionally with insects?
“From an early age, the fate of dolphins, elephants, and other large charismatic animals touches our hearts. Yet all life deserves to be cherished and protected. The beautiful photograph by Javier is about exactly this—unconditional love. In all its forms and manifestations. This aspect was crucial to the decision by the jury.”
This winning image is just one of many excellent photographs to earn a win in the competition. In addition to the overall winner, nine category winners, two special prizes, and two youth winners were also named. Highlights include Roberto Bueno‘s mysterious photo of lichen overtaking dinnerware in an abandoned farm in Portugal, which won the Plants and Fungi category, as well as Jens Cullmann‘s dynamic photo that won the Mammals category. In the image, he captures the frenetic energy of a lion as it attempts to take down a member of a buffalo herd.
A staple of the wildlife photography community since it began in 2001, the European Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest once again proves to be a valuable outlet for creativity. Scroll down to see more of this year’s winners, and check out the full gallery online.
“Last dance?” by Jens Cullmann (Germany). Winner, Mammals.
“It was the height of the dry season in Mana Pools National Park, Zimbabwe. The days were hot and dusty, and water was a rare commodity in the southern part of the park. One of the last available watering spots was Chitake Springs. However, the springs are located in a gorge and are part of the territory of a large pride of lions specialized in preying upon buffalo herds that come to quench their thirst. In the dust kicked up as the buffaloes fled the gorge after drinking, the lion took its chance.”
“Silence” by Jan Piecha (Germany). Runner-up, Birds.
“The small town Tissamaharama in the south-east of Sri Lanka is the starting point for safaris to the famous Yala National Park. While in town, I enjoyed strolling through the rice fields in the evenings and stopping in at a flying fox colony at the shore of Lake Tissa. My walk took me along a lakeside promenade with elegant and stately trees. In one of them, I discovered this sleeping intermediate egret (Ardea intermedia).”
“Nighttime squadron” by Catherine Holmes (United Kingdom). Winner, Underwater World
“This image was captured in a quiet, shallow bay of Isla Espirito Santo (Mexico). The photograph shows a squadron of juvenile Munk’s devil rays (Mobula munkiana) feeding on plankton attracted to a green light hanging off the stern of our boat in the dark of night. I used a slow shutter speed to capture the graceful, synchronized movements of the rays as they appeared to fly through the darkness.”
“Lichen dinner” by Roberto Bueno (Spain). Winner, Plants and Fungi.
“I found this unusual situation at an abandoned farm near Sintra, Portugal. A complete place setting had been left behind on a stone table. I was very surprised to see that the whole ensemble was covered in lichens. The table stood under a huge tree which most likely provided the shade and moisture needed for the lichens to grow over the course of decades.”
“Paradise” by Florian Smit (Germany). Runner-up, Landscapes.
“The photograph shows the fascinating landscape of an island in the west of Norway. The island is dotted with small lakes and many of its pines have a bonsai-like appearance. The scenery is reminiscent of a tropical landscape. The image was taken early in the morning before sunrise, while the fog was still wafting amongst the trees.”
“Tightrope artist” by Alberto Román Gómez (Spain). Winner, Young Photographers | 14 years and under.
“One afternoon in spring, my father and I set out to photograph birds. We drove to an agricultural area with many bird species. We decided to park the car and walk along a path through the fields. Almost immediately, I spotted a western yellow wagtail (Motacilla flava) moving cautiously from one stalk to the next – sometimes almost losing its balance and looking more like a tightrope walker than a bird.”
“Octopus tango” by Francisco Javier Murcia Requena (Spain). Underwater World, Highly commended
“This photograph was taken in the early morning hours during a dive along the Mediterranean coast of south-east Spain. Already from a distance, I could see two common octopuses (Octopus vulgaris) intertwining their arms and moving continuously—a very unusual behavior. Perhaps a mating ritual or maybe a form of territorial defense requiring the animals to compare tentacle lengths?”
“Defeated” by Roberto Garcia Roa (Spain). Runner-up, Plants and Fungi.
“In August 2021, I found this spider near a small river in the Peruvian Tambopata rainforest. It was infested with a parasitic Ophiocordyceps fungus. This so-called “zombie fungus” infects arthropods by penetrating their exoskeleton. The fungus is able to control the behavior of its host. In this case, the spider was “compelled” to seek a location favorable for the growth of the fungus. After killing the host, the fungus fully metabolizes the inner organs of the spider and produces fruiting bodies that release spores to infect new victims.”
“Brookesia superciliaris” by Petr Bambousek (Czech Republic). Highly commended, Other Animals.
“Brookesia, also called leaf chameleons, are a group of Old World lizards endemic to Madagascar and are considered to be the world’s smallest chameleons (< 10 cm long). They are terrestrial and forage among fallen leaves. The ability to change their skin coloration to match the environment and the tendency to stay still under threat make leaf chameleons almost invisible to their predators. In this photo taken from a distance, I have tried to depict Brookesia superciliaris in its typical habitat.”
“Pen and inkwell” by Jonathan Lhoir (Belgium). Highly commended, Birds.
“I’m lucky enough to live close to the Camargue, a perfect place to photograph pink flamingos (Phoenicopterus roseus). This image shows a flamingo searching for prey in a muddy pond. The photograph was taken late in the day, with light cloud cover. Positive exposure compensation produced the high-key effect. The result reminded me of a paintbrush covered in ink.”
“Nest building” by Solvin Zankl (Germany). Runner-up, Other Animals.
“The two-colored mason-bee (Osmia bicolor) is a solitary bee species that nests in empty snail shells. After mating, the female bees search for suitable empty shells, which they then provision with masticated pollen and nectar. After laying eggs on the provision balls, the bees seal the shells and camouflage them with plant material. This bee is gathering dry twigs to cover her nest – ‘the more, the better’, she seems to think, flying back and forth to accumulate an impressive pile.”
“Bird in forest” by Csaba Daróczi (Hungary). Winner, Birds.
“In the winter of 2022-23, I regularly visited a nearby forest to take photographs. Almost every week, I chose a new topic that I perfected over the course of several days. That is how I found this hollowed-out stump surrounded by tall trees. The opening is approximately half a meter in diameter. I put my GoPro camera inside, and the results were amazing. After a few days, I realized that the composition was missing something—an animal. I placed sunflower seeds in the hole and, soon enough, the first birds appeared, including this great tit (Parus major).”
“Wrapped up” by Marella (France). Runner-up, Man and Nature.
“Every summer, a small part of the Rhône Glacier in the Swiss Alps is covered with white fleece blankets to protect the ice from melting even further and to preserve the blue ice grotto—one of the region’s largest tourist attractions. This image is part of the long-term project Evig, which explores the glistening, eternal, yet also fragile beauty of glaciers using digital black and white photography and cyanotype printing.”
“Glencoe Highlands” by Dario Fernando Marelli (Italy). Highly commended, Landscapes.
“The spectacular valley of Glencoe and its eponymous village lie in the north-west Scottish Highlands. Glencoe played a tragic role in the history of the country in the 17th century; a feud between two opposing clans ended in a bloody massacre. Looking at today’s idyllic landscape with centuries-old pine trees, it is hard to imagine that this was once the site of a terrible tragedy.”
“Lost at sea” by Angel Fitor (Spain). Winner, Man and Nature.
“Loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) spend their lives unhurriedly roaming the high seas – the largest habitat on Earth – in search of edible morsels drifting in the water currents. As omnivores, the sea turtles feed on a wide variety of items, including jellyfish, salps, bits of seaweed and carrion. Because of their broad dietary interests, the animals are inevitably attracted by the brightly colored, eye-catching pieces of plastic drifting around in the world’s oceans. Many loggerhead turtles perish in agony due to intestinal blockage, just one of the many health concerns of ingested plastic.”
“Volcanic swirls” by Joel Delmas (France). Winner, Landscapes.
“This photograph was taken on Reykjanes Peninsula in Iceland during the Geldingadalur eruption in 2021. I was there leading a photo workshop and the participants were thrilled to be able to photograph a volcanic eruption. The spiralling structures in the image arose as lava pushed out of a crack in an old lava field far from the main crater. The greatest challenges were to not overexpose the centres of the swirls and to prevent the drone from overheating and crashing on the hot lava. Despite being very careful, several small plastic components melted while the drone moved in close enough to get this risky shot.”
“Start of the cycle” by Aaron Gekoski (United Kingdom). Highly commended, Man and Nature.
“In South Africa, there are more than three times as many lions in captivity as in the wild. Every stage of the life cycle of a captive lion is fraught with suffering. Cubs are taken away from their mothers shortly after birth. This brings the female back into oestrus and increases the number of times per year that she can breed. Lion cubs are used as props for tourists who pay for the photo opportunity. Once cubs are too old to be handled in this way, they are often sold to ‘walking with lions’ operators. In the next life phase, lions are brought to hunting facilities to be shot by trophy hunters paying a great deal of money to bag a lion in a small enclosure. Lion skeletons are then exported to Asia where the teeth and claws are fashioned into jewelery and the bones are used as substitutes for making tiger bone wine. It is estimated that a lion born in captivity is worth up to $150,000 over the course of its lifetime.”
“Inside a tree den” by Jan Piecha (Germany). Highly commended, Mammals.
“I have been photographing raccoons (Procyon lotor) for several years and have had the opportunity to accompany various individuals with my camera. This female was raising her offspring in a large tree den and was not bothered by my presence. During the day, she would lazily let her head hang out of the burrow. In the evening, she would climb down the tree trunk with me standing right there. With a self-made, extra-high tripod, I was able to observe and photograph special moments in her family life.”
“Treasures of the sea” by César Llaneza Rodríguez (Spain). Highly commended, Plants and Fungi.
“This photograph was taken as part of my project On the sea shore. It shows diverse seaweeds washed up together on the shore by waves. At the center of the image, there is a shark’s egg – most likely from a small-spotted catshark (Scyliorhinus canicula). For this type of motif, I pay special attention to focus placement to ensure a balanced composition. To enhance the color contrast, I added side lighting using an LED panel with warm colors.”
Soaring Winners of the 2022 Bird Photographer of the Year Competition
Germany’s Nature Society Crowns the 2022 Nature Photographer of the Year
Marine Biologist’s Photo of a Golden Horseshoe Crab Wins Wildlife Photography Awards
Photographer Wins Prize for Heartbreaking Story About the Plight of Endangered Forest Elephants
Amid fears that a new war could threaten the world economy, New York’s coming auctions will test a growing consensus that the $60 billion art market is headed toward a down cycle.
Major auction houses are hedging their bets in the fall season of sales that begins Monday, offering fat guarantees to sellers to secure their works — and pricing some of their top items more conservatively after the spring season demonstrated weakness in the blazing-hot $60 billion art market. And now, sellers are trying to anticipate how the uncertainty of a new war in the Middle East will affect them.
Auctioneers at the three rival companies, Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips, have been digging deeper into private collections for one-off paintings that might spice up their modern and contemporary art sales, given the thinning availability of estates to draw from (typically driven by deaths and divorces).
“We have built the sale in a very old-school way,” said Alex Rotter, chairman of Christie’s departments overseeing 20th- and 21st-century art, who said that his team shopped around individual collectors to acquire works by Joan Mitchell ($25 million to 35 million), Claude Monet ($65 million) and Francis Bacon ($50 million). “We went for paintings that would create the most buzz.”
However, the company lost one of the season’s biggest bounties to rivals at Sotheby’s, which is presenting 31 artworks from the estate of Emily Fisher Landau, a philanthropist who died earlier this year, on the evening of Nov. 8 (there is also a day sale). That collection is estimated at more than $400 million and carries a Sotheby’s house guarantee — a minimum price guaranteed to the family. It contains one of the most expensive Picasso paintings to reach the market, carrying an estimate over $120 million: “Femme à la montre,” a portrait from 1932 of the artist’s mistress, the young Marie-Thérèse Walter. (The current auction high for a Picasso painting, set in 2015: $179.3 million.) Other lots include a 1958 Mark Rothko painting that was completed in preparation for his famous commission at the Four Seasons restaurant in New York’s Seagram Building and a 1964 Ed Ruscha painting whose appearance at auction coincides with a lauded exhibition on the artist at the Museum of Modern Art. Both artworks carry estimates that hover above $30 million.
“We have to go out there and get our supply,” said Brooke Lampley, Sotheby’s chairman and worldwide head of global fine art sales. “Season to season, people are evermore interested in what the big collection of the season will be.”
Sotheby’s and Christie’s expect that the November auction season could bring their companies upward of $1 billion each. But despite the claims of some auctioneers who said there are masterpieces around every corner, art advisers and market experts have noted the broader market’s lack of stellar inventory and buyer focus.
“We are experiencing a recalibration in the market after the comeback that we saw in 2021 reached its peak last fall,” said Drew Watson, head of art services for Bank of America’s private bank, who was referring to the $1.5 billion sale of artworks collected by Paul G. Allen, the Microsoft co-founder. “We were already seeing signs of the market softening at this time a year ago, if you looked at day and evening sales. There was less depth of bidding.”
During the spring auction season in May, three paintings by Jasper Johns offered at Christie’s failed to reach their low estimate. Paintings by other artists were withdrawn before the auctions started, signaling a lack of confidence in the market or inflated prices. Celebrity auctions have helped attract crowds in the meantime, with consignments from Barbara Walters and Freddie Mercury drawing collectors willing to spend thousands of dollars on mementos.
Watson said there was a noticeable uptick in guarantees from auction houses and third parties, which provide consignors with a confirmed minimum sales price.
“It has become an increasingly important tool for auction houses to coax high-value properties into the market,” Watson said. “For buyers, it is also an important signal of confidence. It gives potential bidders something to bid against. And it only takes two bidders to create an auction.”
Robert Manley, deputy chairman at Phillips, said that his auction house has guaranteed the 30 artworks from the Triton Collection Foundation in the Netherlands, which includes pieces by Fernand Léger and Pablo Picasso. The entire collection, to be auctioned Nov. 14, has a high estimate of $100 million.
In another noticeable downshift, Manley said that rampant speculation in the ultracontemporary market for young artists born since 1975 — many without a museum provenance — had decreased.
“I hate to use the word sanity, but people are more measured,” he said. “It is still not unusual for young artists to rocket up to $200,000 or $300,000. But over the last few years, artists were quickly going to $800,000 and $1 million.”
What is behind this more cautious market? Magnus Resch, an art market economist, said that higher interest rates and the global uncertainty of two major wars, in Europe and the Middle East, could dampen next week’s sales.
“People are just less active in times like these,” Resch said. “There is a large group of buyers who have Israeli connections. It is understandable that buying luxury items is not on their minds right now.”
For major collections, auction houses often set their estimates about six months in advance, although regular evening sales have more flexibility; nowadays, they are finalized a few weeks ahead of the sale. But the economic volatility of global conflicts might widen the gap between expectations and reality, some auctioneers fear.
“I am not painting you an elephant in every corner,” said Rotter, the Christie’s executive. “To say anything that happened this year will have no impact would be irresponsible.”
