125 sculptures by the artist are about to land on the lunar surface, with the help of SpaceX and Intuitive Machines – but why?

Imagine, for a moment, the world through an artist’s eye—where light, shadow, and color blend to create a tapestry of vivid imagery. This is the realm where Lensbaby has made its mark, transforming the mundane into the extraordinary. On this crisp February morning, the photography world buzzes with anticipation as the Sweet 22 makes its debut, promising to redefine the boundaries of selective focus photography and videography.

Breaking New Ground in Visual Artistry

The Lensbaby Sweet 22 is not just another lens; it’s a portal to a new dimension of creativity. With its unique ability to produce a tack-sharp sweet spot surrounded by a dreamlike blur, this lens invites photographers and videographers to venture beyond traditional visual storytelling. The Sweet 22’s design is a marvel of engineering, boasting a super-wide angle of view and the capability to focus as close as 5 inches from the subject. Its robust metal body, compact enough to accompany artists on their wanderings, ensures durability without sacrificing quality.

Compatibility with most mirrorless camera systems, including APS-C and full-frame bodies, means the Sweet 22 is as versatile as it is innovative. Whether capturing the subtle interplay of light and shadow in a landscape or the intimate details of a portrait, this lens opens up a world where the only limit is the creator’s imagination.

A Legacy of Innovation

Lensbaby has long stood at the forefront of photographic innovation, and the Sweet 22 is the latest testament to its pioneering spirit. By offering a lens that not only captures images but also evokes emotion, Lensbaby empowers artists to communicate their vision with unprecedented clarity and depth. The Sweet 22’s selective focus mechanism isn’t just a technical feat; it’s a tool for storytelling, enabling photographers and videographers to highlight the essence of their subject in a sea of impressionistic blur.

From the whispers of movement in a still landscape to the dynamic energy of a bustling cityscape, the Sweet 22 captures life in all its complexity. It challenges artists to see the world not as it is, but as it could be—full of wonder, mystery, and infinite possibility.

Empowering Creative Exploration

The Sweet 22 arrives at a time when the boundaries between photography and videography are increasingly blurred. As creators seek new ways to engage their audience, the Sweet 22 stands ready to unlock new realms of creativity. Its dramatic focus transitions breathe life into moving subjects, while the impressionistic blur adds a layer of depth to still images that is both captivating and surreal.

This lens is more than just a tool; it’s a companion on the journey of artistic discovery. For enthusiasts and professionals alike, the Sweet 22 is an invitation to explore, to experiment, and to express the inexpressible. In the hands of an artist, it transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary, proving that the true power of photography lies in its ability to capture not just images, but emotions and ideas.

As the Sweet 22 makes its way into the hands of creatives around the globe, we stand on the brink of a new era in visual storytelling. With each click of the shutter, the world is reimagined through lenses that blur the line between reality and imagination. In this ever-evolving landscape, the Sweet 22 is not just a lens—it’s a legacy, shaping the future of photography and videography with every moment it captures.

Teenage and adult dogs at CLAW got their day in the limelight after photographer Emma O’Brien spent the day capturing their good looks.

South Africa (22 February 2024) – Emma O’Brien and CLAW have teamed up once again to help pups find their furever homes. The talented photographer often donates her skill and time to help shelter animals look their best to help boost chances of adoption.

Emma O’Brien is a portrait photographer specialising in human and animal photography. She is a champion for animal rescue and decided to use her talent to promote some underrated shelter animals.

Emma loves photographing black shelter animals. After doing some research, she found that black shelter animals have the slowest rate of adoption and the highest rate of euthanasia. The last time we featured Emma, she had asked rescue pet owners who had adopted black shelter animals if she could photograph their happy faces. The hope was to try to help boost their adoption rates in South Africa.

The most recent photoshoot was for CLAW (Community Led Animal Welfare) to promote their February dogs up for adoption. Emma takes incredible images and we adore the adoptees for this month.

It is safe to say each of these pups have shone in the limelight and may very well find their furever homes because of Emma’s efforts to capture their shine.

Take a look at all the beauties along with their information here.

Sources: CLAW

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Or watch an episode of Good Things TV below, a show created to offer South Africans balance in a world with what feels like constant bad news. We’re here to remind you that there are still so many good things happening in South Africa & we’ll leave you feeling a little more proudly South African.

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Several survivors of the October 7 attacks on Israel have sued the Associated Press (AP) for hiring freelance photojournalists who are allegedly “embedded with Hamas.”

In a new lawsuit filed on Wednesday, the plaintiffs — which include Israeli-Americans and Americans who attended the Nova music festival raided by Hamas as well as the loved ones of victims — have claimed that AP has aided and abetted the terrorist organization by using these freelance photographers.

According to a report by The New York Post, the plaintiffs accuse AP of “materially supporting terrorism” by paying alleged Hamas-associated photojournalists for images captured during and immediately after the October 7 invasion.

“There is no doubt that AP’s photographers participated in the October 7 massacre, and that AP knew, or at the very least should have known, through simple due diligence, that the people they were paying were longstanding Hamas affiliates and full participants in the terrorist attack that they were also documenting,” the complaint alleges.

According to The New York Post, the lawsuit mentions the names of four freelance photographers whose work was purchased and published by AP and claims that the four are “known Hamas associates who were gleefully embedded with the Hamas terrorists during the October 7 attacks.”

But the publication reports that the majority of the lawsuit focuses on one photojournalist, Hassan Eslaiah — who has been repeatedly accused of having links to Hamas .

Eslaiah had contributed some of the earliest photos of the October 7 attacks to news outlets. Later, investigative report by the website Honest Reporting turned up a 2020 photo of Eslaiah posing with Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.

The New York Post reports that the plaintiffs claim that AP was made aware of Eslaiah’s alleged links to Hamas but continued to pay for his freelance images.

“AP willfully chose to turn a blind eye to these facts, and instead profited from its terrorist photographer’s participation in the massacre through its publication of the ‘exclusive’ images, for which it certainly paid a premium, effectively funding a terrorist organization,” the suit alleges.

The plaintiffs are suing for damages from the AP under the Antiterrorism Act, according to the federal complaint filed in the Southern District of Florida.

Last year, when allegations first surfaced about photographers knowing about the Hamas-led invasion, an AP spokesperson stressed that the news wire had “no knowledge of the October 7 attacks before they happened.” They said that the news wire uses freelancers from around the world, including in Gaza.

“Hassan Eslaiah has been an occasional freelancer for AP and other news organizations,” the AP said in a statement to The Washington Times.

“The role of The Associated Press is to gather information on breaking news events around the world wherever they happen, even when those events are horrific and cause mass casualties.”

Brian Griffin, who has died aged 75, was one of the most original and influential British photographers of his generation. His images of Kate Bush, Donald Sutherland, Iggy Pop and Damien Hirst, and his album covers for Echo and the Bunnymen and Depeche Mode, are some of the most famous pictures of the 1980s.

For the cover of Depeche Mode’s 1982 LP, A Broken Frame, Griffin transposed Soviet social realism to a cornfield off the M11 in East Anglia, and the result was named by Life magazine as one of the greatest images of the decade. His virtuosity saw him declared photographer of the decade by the Guardian in 1989.

His work, which has been exhibited globally, is in the permanent collections of the National Portrait Gallery, the V&A, the Arts Council and the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.

Griffin’s success capturing the glossy worlds of money and hairspray was rooted in something darker. He was forged in the Black Country, the industrial heartland of the West Midlands, and the influence of the factories, and the harsh light from the furnaces, suffused his early photography. He had a relentless work ethic and would do anything to succeed in a world far removed from that of his upbringing.

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He was born in Birmingham, the only child of Edith (nee Moore) and James Griffin, who were both factory workers. The family lived in a two-up, two-down in Lye, where every street had a factory. Young Brian felt that “the whole world appeared to be partly made of metal. Everything you touched seemed to be iron and steel.” After passing the 11-plus exam he went to Halesowen technical school, then went to work at the age of 16.

In 1965 he was making conveyors for readymix concrete plants when the factory foreman suggested he join Hagley camera club, where he picked up a camera for the first time. He then got a job at British Steel and was working as a nuclear pipework engineering estimator in 1969 when everything changed. Devastated by the end of a love affair, he decided to leave his old life behind.

Griffin’s only means of escape was photography, so he put some of his camera club images into a Boots photo album and applied to art colleges. He was accepted into Manchester Art School at the age of 21, where he studied with Martin Parr and Daniel Meadows.

In the college library he devoured books on art, and after graduating and moving to London, he spent weeks at the National Film theatre immersing himself in German and French cinema. Inspired, he began to look for work.

In 1972 he went to see the art director of Management Today magazine. Griffin’s talent was plain to see, and he was immediately put to work. He shot a shadowy monochromatic image of rush hour on London Bridge from the back of a cab, calling it his Metropolis image, after Fritz Lang’s expressionist masterpiece. Prior to this, Griffin had doubted his ability, but now he knew that he could make it as a photographer, he unleashed his artistry.

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Through his images for the magazine, Griffin introduced surrealism to the boardroom. His industrial background meant that he clicked with the businessmen who were his subjects, and the captains of industry played ball. He wittily subverted the corporate power of the men he photographed by introducing discordant juxtapositions, building tension. He wound intrigue throughout his work, stopping the viewer in their tracks, making them take time over his images, and his work began to be recognised.

Ambitious, he wanted to expand his repertoire and earn more money. He understood that the style he had honed in the business world would translate into the pop sphere, where post-punk bands were eschewing bondage trousers in favour of being suited and booted. He went to Stiff Records and photographed Elvis Costello and the Attractions and Ian Dury and the Blockheads.

Recognition followed and commissions flooded in. He worked for Esquire, Rolling Stone, the Face, Time Out, the Sunday Times and the Observer, in advertising for British Airways, BMW and Levi Jeans, and photographed Brian May in a series for Sony Walkman in 1980.

That year he moved to Rotherhithe, a working-class area of south London on the banks of the Thames. He loved the place, recognised its people and was to stay there all his life. He set up a studio from where he continued to push the boundaries of the conventional. Using his background in engineering, allied to his innate creativity, he built lighting machines and used knicker elastic and ping-pong balls to create startling special effects in an analogue age.

Some experiments led to happy accidents: his highly regarded 1984 image of Siouxsie Sioux, intended as a double exposure, was in fact a triple: “It was wrong, but so right,” he said.

In the days before social media, aside from magazines, the main showcase for a photographer’s work was on walls, be they in galleries or town centres. Griffin’s first solo London exhibition was at Contrast Gallery in 1981, and the posters of his work for bands such as Spandau Ballet and Ultravox were plastered across the land. His family finally saw his work and were proud: they had always wanted more for Brian than factory life.

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As well as portraiture, he produced numerous documentary projects. In 1986 he photographed construction workers at the Broadgate development in the City of London. At the time he was still reeling from the death of his father from lung cancer, due to a life inhaling cast-iron dust. The project allowed Griffin to pay homage to his father and to all working people: he monumentalised the men “like knights lying in state in a cathedral with their swords”.

In 1989 he left still photography to make television commercials, music videos and short films, but returned a decade later. In 2003 he produced a project to aid Birmingham’s bid to become the European City of Culture. He worked promoting the 2012 London Olympics and in 2015 his photo-essay, Himmelstrasse, movingly documented the railway tracks in Poland that transported people to Nazi death camps. He continued to work up until the end of his life, with new projects still in the pipeline.

He had more than 20 monographs published in his lifetime and won numerous awards. In 2013 the Royal Photographic Society awarded him their Centenary Medal, and the following year he received an honorary doctorate from Birmingham City University for his lifetime contribution to his home city.

Griffin’s 1980 marriage to the photographer Frances Newman ended in divorce. Their daughter, Layla, died in 2020; he is survived by their son, Danz, and three grandchildren.

By Delon Shurtz – Lethbridge Herald on February 22, 2024.

Herald photo by Delon Shurtz
Guest curator at the Galt Museum, Tess McNaughton, shows some of the photographs on display in the upcoming exhibit, Extra! Extra! The Eras of Photojournalism in Lethbridge

LETHBRIDGE HERALDdshurtz@lethbridgeherald.com

On a wall in the Galt Museum hangs a photo of former Lethbridge mayor A. W. Shackleford. He’s holding two microphones and appears to be falling backward while two men try to help.

Shackleford was about to introduce Teen Queen Donna Glock and runner-up Shirley Parkinson at a Valentine Dance in 1953, but when he grabbed both microphones he was instantly shocked because the wires were improperly grounded. The current flowed into his body and froze his hands to the microphones until the power was turned off.

The photograph, taken by F. Orville Brunelle of the Lethbridge Herald, appeared in 1,300 magazines and newspapers all over the world, and Brunelle won the 1953 Canadian Press Picture Service award for Best Picture of the Year.

On another wall of the museum is a photograph of a Canadian Airforce F18 jet plummeting to the ground during the 2010 airshow at the Lethbridge Airport, for which Herald photographer Ian Martens won a National Newspaper Award. Just a few feet further along the wall is a photo of an industrial fire at Willow Creek Sand and Gravel that shows a firefighter amidst the intense flames of a burning tractor tire. Herald photographer at the time, David Rossiter, was nominated for a National Newspaper Award for that photo.

The pictures are part of the Galt Museum’s newest exhibit, Extra! Extra! The Eras of Photojournalism in Lethbridge.

“This is an exhibit on the history of photojournalism in Lethbridge, and there’s a focus on the Lethbridge Herald, as the four earliest photographers were from the Lethbridge Herald,” Tess McNaughton, guest curator at the museum, said Wednesday during a preview of the exhibit.

“Originally this was an online exhibit curated by Bobbie Fox, and it covered four different photographers: Lloyd Knight, Orville Brunelle, Ian Martens and David Rossiter.”

When McNaughton turned the online exhibit into a physical one, she split it up into four eras: the analog era (film and photography); the transitional era (from film to digital photography); photographers and photojournalism; and the digital era, focusing mainly on digital photography and photojournalism.

“I think newspapers are definitely changing right now, the news is changing, and a lot of it is online and a lot of it is moving quickly, so putting a highlight on the past of photojournalism is really important.”

Fox developed the online exhibit during COVID-19 to keep people engaged with the museum and archives, and with some 100,000 photos from the Lethbridge Herald in the archives, an exhibit of the history of photojournalism seemed a natural fit.

“The Lethbridge Herald, of course, is very prolific in our journalism and media landscape…so it just made sense to kind of go through and look at the evolution of how those pictures were being taken,” Fox said.

Because of the immensity of trying to create an exhibit from thousands of photographs, Fox decided to focus on the four most prolific Herald photographers.

“They are all award-winning photographers in their own right, and they have come up with some amazing, amazing photographs that we’re lucky enough to have a lot of in our collection.”

Fox said McNaughton turned the online exhibit, which can still be viewed on the Galt’s website, into an amazing physical exhibit, which, she said, emphasizes the phrase, “a picture is worth a thousand words.”

In addition to the four photographers and their photographs on display, the exhibit also includes two other journalists: Alejandra Pulido-Guzman, a reporter/photographer with the Lethbridge Herald, and Ose Irete, a video journalist with CBCs Lethbridge bureau.

“I really wanted to emphasize their stories because I love their photography and their photojournalism, and also they are voices that are under-represented in newspapers and photojournalism,” McNaughton said.

“I wanted to give a well-rounded view of what photojournalism looks like today. I think they both have an eye for photos which varies from the other four photographers.”

She said she chose Irete because he is the only photojournalist for CBC Lethbridge, and she chose Pulido-Guzman because “she has such an important journey and really shows the present photojournalist experience.”

The exhibit opens Saturday and runs until Aug. 4.

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Once told she was “too much,” Leta Harrison reclaimed her voice as a Black woman through her photography. In an exhibit that opened last week at Austin’s Central Public Library, she challenges stereotypical beauty standards.

“In my own experience, I’ve been told I can’t do something because it’s too loud, it’s too bright, it’s too bold,” she said. “And that’s how this idea was born.”

Her exhibit, “Black Girls Don’t Wear Red Lipstick,” shows empowered women in diverse spaces, clothing and colors.

Harrison said she was inspired by Texas musician Kam Franklin, whom she saw give a talk at the Carver Museum.

Franklin was “always being told to be very modest,” she said. “In her artist’s talk, she mentioned ‘Black girls don’t wear red lipstick’ and immediately I was very drawn to that.”

The nonprofit OF COLOR co-curated the exhibit. Whitney Hamilton, its director of small events and artist engagement, said it’s important that shows like Harrison’s are featured in high-foot-traffic areas for visitors who would not otherwise know about an artist.

“Seeing this in this space continues with the work we’re doing with OF COLOR — amplifying voices … specifically BIPOC artists in the Austin community,” Hamilton said. “In the Austin Public Library, you have all walks of life coming in; they get a chance to witnesses it.”

She said she was proud that she was able to help Harrison tell her story and amplify Black women in bold colors. She hopes other women see the exhibit — full of “different women from different walks of life, different shades, different tones” — and feel empowered.

Nicole Parker, the library’s exhibit coordinator, became enamored with the concept and Harrison’s photographs. She said the library is a great spot for the artwork because people who don’t typically go to galleries or museums can stumble across it.

“I think having an exhibit like this in the space … exposes people to different types of art,” she said. “It’s sort of a democratic space, a welcoming space because everybody comes to the library and it’s free and open to the public.”