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

A new exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery in London plays host to a collection of eco-conscious photographers and filmmakers, whose works aim to create communicative boundaries between art and the environment.

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‘Metamorphosis: Innovation in Eco Photography & Film’ will run at the Sloane Square gallery until 28 July and features work from the artists Almudena Romero, Edd Carr, Hannah Fletcher, and Scott Hunter.

All the works on show blend traditional artistic mediums with the goal of eco-friendly practices. Photography has historically been an ecologically wasteful medium – from the unsustainable toxic chemicals used in development to the manufacture and disposal of camera equipment, photography has been relatively environmentally unfriendly.

Participants in the exhibition have shown the ways that the field can be improved. The artists have developed more environmentally friendly techniques as well as conscientious approaches to the materials needed to work.

Almudena Romero, a British-Spanish photographer, “uses naturally occurring photographic processes including photoperiodicity, photobleaching and photosynthesis. The resulting works often take the form of delicate leaves which hold printed images. These are encased in resin so they can be touched and handled, like fossils.”

The result is a beautiful collection of photographs that juxtapose the fragile intricacies of nature with human physicality. The human imprint on nature is literal in Romero’s work.

Also in the exhibition is moving image artist Edd Carr, co-director of Sustainable Darkroom, an organisation that researches and develops eco-friendly photography alternatives.

Carr “uses these methods to create films that comment on the human relationship to ecological crisis and the mass extinction of life, and the resulting trauma we face as a species.”

Sustainable Darkroom’s founder and executive director Hannah Fletcher is also exhibited at the gallery. She brings combinations of organic and waste materials together to create ornate and unexpected structures which she photographs. According to her website, “Fletcher questions the life cycle and value of materials by incorporating waste from her studio and workshops back into the system of making.” 

Finally, Scott Hunter brings his practice of experimental photography, scientific processes, and ecological research which “challenges anthropocentrism by creating new representations of the landscape that contest traditional attitudes of landscape photography,” Cargo Collective writes. He focuses on using organic materials to process photographs beyond the traditional toxic methods.

The exhibition is sponsored by Pasqua Wines, an Italian winery making its first international artistic collaboration. “We believe that creativity needs to be cultivated with love and care, just like the land,” said Riccardo Pasqua, CEO of the company. Each of the artists demonstrates what we have always believed to be true – that through experimentation and pushing boundaries we can unlock progress.”

‘Metamorphosis: Innovation in Eco Photography & Film’ will run at the Saatchi Gallery until 28 July.

Growing up on the island of Mauritius, off Africa’s south-east coast, Dominique Pierre-Nina was a long way from the world of creating images for fashion magazines.

But, encouraged by an aunt, he has spent his life dabbling in photography, as a serious hobbyist taking both fashion and landscape portraits.

“When I was a kid, my aunt, who migrated to the UK, came back to the island with a camera that she gave to me as a gift, and I started taking photographs,” said Dominique, who now lives at Jamberoo on the NSW South Coast.

Apart from the camera gifted to him, Dominique also became intrigued by a local photographer on Mauritius who would take his family’s portraits with 4×5-inch large format camera. A hood would cover the photographer as he took the shots.

“I was intrigued by how this man would cover his head and the next thing you knew an image would appear,” Dominique says.

It wasn’t until he was in his late 30s that Dominique completed a darkroom course and moved from amateur to hobbyist, occasionally selling his photographs.

“The natural progression is that you get your own darkroom so you can control the contrast, the developing time and experiment,” he says.

What is large format photography?

Large format cameras are impressive to look at and, after a little practice and experimentation, relatively simple to operate.

The device has no automatic features and instead rely on the operator to compose, focus and correctly expose an image by setting the aperture, shutter and film speed manually.

“With digital you have all the information at your fingertips, you can over or under expose, change the composition, it happens in a split of a second, but with large format photography, we don’t have that luxury,” Dominique says.

Large format photography starts with 4×5 inch sheets of film that are inserted into holders, rather than packaged as rolls, like 35mm film.

“Don’t start experimenting with large format if you are not a competent photographer because you’ll just tear your hair out,” Dominque says.

Autumn light

In autumn, the rolling green hills of Jamberoo and surrounds beckon to Dominique and he ventures out to capture the exquisite light with his large format camera.

While he favours landscape photography, Dominque also enjoys the challenge of shooting in urban environments.

“If I am walking around urban environments, I take street photography, which incorporates portraits, street scenes, anything, as long as the composition is there, the light is there, and all these elements come together.

“Now, when you are on the street, things are happening fast so you have to be pretty snappy.

“But in terms of landscape you can take your time to compose the image, wait for the right light, which large format allows you to do because you are on a tripod, nothing is moving, things are static unless it’s a windy day.”

‘The dance’

Dominique says experimenting with large format can be frustrating and costly but it also takes time, and that is all part of what he refers to as “the dance”.

“The dance is to set your scene in landscape or portrait mode.

“Decide on your aperture, focus your image, check that everything is zeroed in and then once everything is completed, and as near perfection as you can get it, then you would go ahead and release the shutter.

“This is a great experience.”

He says he loves “the anxiety and the drama” that come with large format photography.

“You still get it wrong, and every now and then you get it right.

“It’s a journey and that’s what you remember.”

Dominique says he is often left praying and hoping he has ticked all the boxes for a good shot because he won’t know until he has processed the film, and film is expensive at $20 per negative.

“Unlike digital photography where you walk along and shoot and delete the image if you don’t like it, shooting on a $20 piece of film means you don’t want to just trash it,” Dominique says.

And that’s where knowledge and artistic skills really come into play.

“With film photography you have to know your craft, and I like to think I know my craft, but having said that I am forever evolving,” Dominique says.

“For me, the skill I am pursuing is to get it right in camera, on film, from the word go.”

A photo of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle is officially part of the the world’s largest portrait collection.

On Thursday, May 23, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s frequent photographer and close friend Misan Harriman posted a slew of celebratory pictures and video on his personal Instagram account, announcing that a photograph he took of the couple is being added to the famed National Portrait Gallery’s photograph collection.

“I am humbled and proud to announce that my portrait of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex is now part of the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery,” Harriman captured the post, which featured snapshots of the photographer with his now-famous photograph as well as the black-and-white photo itself.

In the portrait, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle stand side-by-side, holding hands as they look forward and prepare to take the stage at the One Young World Summit in Manchester, England, on Sept. 5, 2022.

The photo was taken just three days before Prince Harry’s late mother, Queen Elizabeth, passed away.

At the time the photo was taken, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex had already stepped away from their roles as senior royals and relocated from the U.K. to California in the wake of continued threats and security concerns.

The pair had returned to the U.K. to attend the One Young World Summit in Manchester. After Queen Elizabeth died, the royal couple remained in England to attend the late monarch and royal family matriarch’s funeral events.

According to a spokesperson for the National Portrait Gallery who spoke to People, there are no “immediate plans to display the image of Prince Harry and Meghan.” Instead, the spokesperson added, the photograph will go through the gallery’s cataloging process before it becomes available.

Harriman has captured many of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s most memorable milestones, including in 2021 when the pair announced they were expecting their second child, Princess Lilibet, as well as their daughter’s very first birthday.

In February, the photographer told People that Markle “is really as a sister to me.”

“I’ve been very lucky to photograph many special moments with her and her husband and her family,” he added.

Recently, Harriman accompanied the royal couple on their three-day trip to Nigeria. The photographer shared a series of photos of their trip on his Instagram page, including their visit to the Nigerian Armed Forces’ Defence Headquarters in Abuja, Nigeria and a portrait of Markle posing alongside Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director-general of the World Trade Organization.

“It was such a pleasure to observe and capture the amazing bond and friendship that they have with each other,” Harriman captioned the post.

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In my years as a photographer I’ve bought my way through a few systems worth of cameras and lenses. Be it a medium format film system right through to my current Fujifilm setup as a former ambassador (the program ended, not my love of the system). My current lens setup runs from a 7.5mm fisheye up to 600mm (using a 300mm with a 2x teleconverter). Despite this, I still firmly believe that anyone could be happy with two lenses and shoot the most common subjects with them with ease.

I bet you think I’m going to say the 24-70mm f/2.8 and 70-200mm f/2.8. Sure it’s the classic professional set, but they’re big and bulky and not at all an agile set for the average photographer. The two biggest genres of photography are scenics and portraits. Both of these can be covered with the lenses I’m suggesting. Wide lenses suit landscapes, cityscapes and broad nature, while medium telephotos suit portraits.

In full-frame terms, the lenses I’m suggesting are the 16-35mm and the 85mm. On my Fujifilm X system, it’s the Fujinon XF 10-24mm f/4 and the XF 56mm f/1.2. Now, I’d prefer if there were an f/2.8 version of the 10-24mm for astrophotography, but f/4 is still fine for scenics, where you’d normally be shooting at f/11. The zoom gives you room to change your view and enhance the foreground. 

85mm (56mm on an APS-C crop-sensor camera) is a very flattering lens focal length for portraits. The compression allows the nose to balance well with the face and helps the ears look proportional. Wider lenses make the nose look larger and bloat the face.  I’ve even shot ¾ portraits using this by zooming with my feet. 

Being a prime, you also get beautiful bokeh with the shallow depth of field. While most are f/1.2, Canon’s RF 85mm f/2 is a gorgeous lens for the money and a worthy investment, especially as it also does macro. I love the new 56mm for Fuji, especially the weather sealing.

Best of all, the combined weight and size makes this set easy to bring everywhere. They’re well suited to a smaller messenger bag, or a day bag with your lunch and laptop. You no longer need to worry if you can bring a camera with you for light travel because you know these lenses will cover most of your needs. 

Checkout our complete guide to the best Fujifilm XF lenses