The waterproof, crushproof lower section protects your camera and lenses and movable dividers allow customization without picking out foam squares as is required with some other Pelican cases. The upper section looks to have a decent amount of space for accessories, lunch or a jacket. It also has a tablet pocket for your iPad or android device. Wearing a hard box on your back has never been the most comfortable way to carry gear. But Pelican has addressed this with a solid s-curve spine, load lifters to keep the pack close to your back, a sternum strap and a removable waist belt.

It looks to be a pretty solid option if your photographic adventures require hardcore protection for your gear.

Priced at $325 and available now at www.pelicanprogear.com.

© Meghan Ahearn

After New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg finished speaking, Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer got down to business, announcing that one of her goals has been to make Flickr “awesome again.” Yahoo! SVP of mobile and emerging products Adam Cahan took over to highlight the three changes Yahoo! has made: offering one terabyte of free storage for every user; launching a new Flickr user interface that focuses on the photos; and launching a new user interface for Android-powered devices (Flickr already relaunched new UIs for iOS and PC systems).

In a world where things are usually discussed in megabytes and gigabytes, a terabyte is unique—and Cahan said as much. He equated that amount of storage to uploading over 500,000 photos at full resolution (which is how all Flickr photos will now be displayed). But it got me thinking: If everyone gets a free terabyte, what do Flickr Pro users get? The answer is: Nothing—because Flickr Pro accounts don’t exist anymore. Previously, Flickr Pro users paid for a number of special features, including unlimited photo and video uploads. The free terabyte does away with the need to purchase more storage, and the other perks are folded into the regular accounts.

So how does Flickr plan on making money? A little digging around on the site showed there are three account options for users to choose from: Free; Ad Free at $49.99 per year, which offers the same services as Free but without the ads; and Doublr at $499.99 per year, which is the same as Ad Free except users get two terabytes of storage. This suggests the plan is to make money by selling advertising, which is already being displayed on the Flickr site.

At the press event, Flickr’s Head of Product Markus Spiering went over some of the site’s new features including the revamped photo stream, improved slide show functionality and the new background color for the images (black). He seemed most focused on the new social aspects of Flickr, highlighting how easy it is to share Flickr images on various social-networking sites, and encouraging brands and institutions to create Flickr accounts. Is the ultimate goal to make Flickr some kind of hybrid between Facebook and Tumblr? It certainly seems that way, especially with functionality like People in Photos, which allows users to tag friends and family in their photos.

A day later, now that everyone’s had a chance to poke around the site, the new user interface appears to be what Flickr users have the most beef with. Cahan and Mayer touted the fact that the redesign does away with the negative white space, text boxes and blue links, and displays all images at their full resolution. After we posted the redesign news on Twitter and Facebook last night, a couple of PDN’s followers commented that they didn’t like the new interface. Those comments pale in comparison to the pages and pages of comments on the Flickr help page, which complain about everything from the new background color to the images being displayed at such a large size, it’s hard to navigate the site.

But complaining goes hand-in-hand with redesigns. I’m more curious to see what Yahoo!’s next step is because it’s almost as if they’ve just realized they have a treasure trove of imagery at their fingertips. Take for instance, the new Yahoo! Weather mobile app. The background of the app displays a Flickr image that matches the app user’s location, time of day and current weather condition. So, for example, if you access the Yahoo! Weather app in Brooklyn, New York, on a rainy morning, the image displayed will show you a photo of a rainy New York City morning, previously taken by a Flickr user. To help populate the app with images, Flickr created Project Weather, asking users to submit their own images to be displayed on the app.

I have a feeling this is just the beginning of seeing Flickr images everywhere you see the purple Yahoo! logo.

© Manual For Speed

Manual for Speed (MFS), a website covering professional cycling created by writer/photographer Daniel Wakefield Pasley and photographer Emiliano Granado, is currently featuring daily reports from the Giro d’Italia, a cycling race through Italy that dips into neighboring European countries.

Granado and Pasley created MFS in 2011 with sponsorship from Castelli, a cycling apparel company. Pasley’s reporting on the Giro d’Italia has included access to two cycling teams that Castelli sponsors: Garmin-Sharp and Team Colombia, the Colombian national team.

MFS’s coverage of the Giro d’Italia is unique not only for the quality of photography—action, landscapes, crowd portraits, and a typology of cycling team buses, among other goodies—but also for its diaristic tone. Pasley’s account of the highs and lows of photographing a month-long sporting event is honest and highly entertaining.

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to persevere through maddening daily logistical challenges, to “lite-stalk” professional athletes, to be heckled by spectators, to drop one’s expensive camera in a puddle, or to see Italian children cursing in English at a race helicopter, the daily reports by Pasley are worth a read.

Or you can just look at the pictures.

Responding to comments last week from readers that a T cover model was too skinny, T editor Deborah Needleman told Sullivan that T editors had considered “adding fat” to the model using Photoshop.

Another Times reporter called the comment “jaw-dropping” because journalistic standards would never allow for photography manipulation.

Drawing on comments from other Times picture editors including Michelle McNally of The Times and Kathy Ryan of The New York Times Magazine, Sullivan affirmed the Times’ photography standards: “The Times does not stage news photographs, or alter them digitally.” Except, Sullivan noted, in T‘s case, where it’s deemed acceptable to alter fashion and glamour photography. The assumption being that readers are aware that fashion and glamour is a “different genre of photography,” and therefore the Times’ obligation to those readers is different.

“It would be best if all the photography produced by the Times newsroom could be held to the same standard,” Sullivan wrote. But, she said, if fashion photography must exist as its own world of assumed fantasy, there should be a disclaimer for readers.

Is it realistic to expect that the Times could hold fashion photography to the same standards as news photography? Do readers need to be told that fashion images aren’t “real?”

You can see the complete list of 2013 PDN‘s 30 photographers at pdnevents.com/pdn30.

PDN’s Strategies For The Emerging Photographer at the Palm Springs Photo Festival from PALM SPRINGS PHOTO FESTIVAL on Vimeo.

The LED100WA lights are priced at $324.95 and are available now at www.fotodioxpro.com.

© Eliza Lamb, from her series “Hopewell.”

By Eliza Lamb

As a photographer I find that portfolio reviews are the perfect combination of exhaustion and exhilaration, community and competition, motivation and humility. After I returned from a whirlwind four days in Portland, Oregon at Photolucida I was still coming off the high of it all. I found myself trying to integrate the connections I’d made and the feedback I’d gotten with the life I knew and the assumptions I held before I left. Sorting through piles of leave behinds, business cards, signed books and pages full of notes, I was struck by feelings of accomplishment and uneasiness, and by my downright good fortune for being able to be a part of such an amazing community.

The process of creating visual art can be very isolating and often involves years of self-reflection, pondering and personal expense, punctuated by both excitement and doubt. It can feel antisocial as we create our images and crawl back into our studios or sit in front of our computer screens for hours upon hours of editing, processing and contemplating. Having trained for years as an actress and receiving instant gratification, I find it can be near maddening putting your work out there to radio silence. But portfolio reviews are a way for photographers to join together to gain feedback, camaraderie and opportunities, to gather despite their home locations or educational training and present their work to the community as equals with common passions, goals and frustrations.

At Photolucida photographers are given sixteen to eighteen twenty-minute meetings with curators, gallerists and editors from across the world. After deciding to attend the review, I spent weeks researching reviewers. I studied the organizations, publications or blogs that would be represented, and tried to determine who might be the best fit for my work. Because I was primarily trying to get exhibitions and features in print and online publications, I focused my reviewer preferences on non-profit exhibition spaces and monthly publications that tend to show work like mine: documentary fine-art color photographs with an affinity for cityscapes, objects and Americana. I then ranked the reviewers in order of preference from 1 to 60, and found out a week before heading to Portland that I was scheduled to meet with two thirds of my top choices. Some of my reviews would be with people I knew from previous review events, while some reviewers I was going to be meeting for the first time.

Often lovingly referred to as “speed dating for photographers,” every review session was a unique experience. Everyone wonders what feedback they will receive. Will the reviewers like the work? Will they have a place for it? Will they be kind and constructive if they don’t like it? How will I power through if not? And every one-on-one review carries not just an emotional but a heavy financial burden. Taking expenses into account, from my flight from New York City, the costs of my hotel and the review fees (which pay to commute and house the reviewers that are volunteering their time) each session was costing me just shy of $120—not an insignificant investment considering that most of the photographers there are funding their art through other full-time jobs.

To this review I brought prints of a newly finished body of work on my hometown, called “Hopewell,” that I was hoping to promote, and the beginnings of a related portrait series that I wanted to gain feedback on. I also carried a portfolio book with two other completed bodies of work in case reviewers wanted to see something more or different. My experiences at several prior reviews taught me that what some people respond to others may not, and while some reviewers may want the entire 20 minutes to discuss a single image, others want to see as much as they can as quickly as possible to get a taste for what you do.

Perhaps the most exciting and nerve wracking aspect of it all is that every interaction is a gamble and there really are no safe bets once you sit down at the table. No matter how carefully I research and rank the reviewers I want to see or how well-crafted my list of contacts, I never quite know what I am going to get. Personal taste is important to someone’s response, but logistics and timing also come into play.

In one case, I sat down with a reviewer that colleagues recommended highly only to realize that they were just about to exhibit a series dealing with a similar subject matter to mine. As the days pressed on, reviewers and photographers alike got tired and it became harder in some cases to engage with and talk about the work in a meaningful way, even with the people I was most excited to see. But I find it is always best to stay open minded and optimistic. Throughout the years I have come to realize that it is often the gallerist I had never heard of, or the editor that seemed to be interested in work very different from mine, that can have the greatest insights, words of wisdom or opportunity to give. At Photolucida, an extra review that I picked up in another photographer’s absence turned out to be one of my favorites and best fits, with the reviewer having a strong interest in multiple series and future exhibition possibilities. But in general, feedback can be scattered, and more than once what one reviewer remarked was their favorite image, another recommended that I edit out all together. In general these reviews are a practice in staying both open and guarded, allowing feedback to affect and shape your work where it might need to, but not letting it change who you are, and what you do.

I find time and time again that the moments between reviews are the most important for me. The time spent in the hotel lobby, the roving reviewer room or the neighborhood bar is where stories are shared and the casual conversations with both fellow photographers and reviewers about the field and work begin to emerge. In my downtime fellow photographers helped me draw connections between my images that I hadn’t considered, they recommended shows and contacts, and provided me with the suggestions and moral support that will inspire me as I kept shooting. Casual conversations with reviewers broke down the walls that existed in the formal reviews and allowed for frank discussions about the work and the field and what motivates those of us that participate in it. In these environments, friendships are made, experiences are swapped, insecurities are admitted and worked through, images are traded or sold, and very often the photographer you once knew as a colleague becomes the person giving you a show. Informal portfolio sharing, the portfolio walks and talks by other photographers, give us all a temperature for the field as it stands. We find out about what people are thinking, shooting and sharing, where, how and why. We learn about ways we are all surviving and thriving. Portfolio reviews like Photolucida allow us to establish connections and relationships that help pull us out of our quiet studios into a larger conversation that propels our work, and the field in general, to a new and greater place—and on that you cannot put a price.

Eliza Lamb is a New York City-based fine-art photographer.

TOMORROW! Columbia College Chicago is hosting an informal portfolio review for their graduating photography students from 5-8pm tomorrow, May 16. Creative professionals are invited to go check out the work of this group of young photographers. There will be food and drink and conversations about photography. http://www.colum.edu/industryevents/events/photography-review.php

The Philadelphia Photo Arts Center is holding their fourth annual Book Fair. Participants include MACK Books, Printed Matter, Vox Populi, Light Work and Houseboat Press, among many others. It’s a fair of photo books. Nuff said.
http://www.philaphotoarts.org/events/annual-book-fair/

An exhibition of the work of 50 photographers selected as finalists in the 2013 Critical Mass competition opens this Friday at Jennifer Schwartz Gallery in Atlanta. The exhibition is curated by W.M. Hunt. http://www.jenniferschwartzgallery.com/critical-mass-top-50-exhibition/

This is very cool: United Photo Industries and New York Waterway’s East River Ferry people are partnering to exhibit photographs on weekday ferries throughout the summer. The project kicked off this week, and it will include water-related photography by Joni Sternbach, Stephen Mallon, David Doubilet, Andreas Franke, Corey Arnold and Eric Prinvault. http://unitedphotoindustries.com/special-projects/drawn-to-water/

The MPLS Photo Center in, you guessed it, Minneapolis, has a couple of shows up that area photographers should check out. A juried exhibition, “Home: Where We Live,” features the work of 70 photographers from all over the country. And Polly Norman is exhibiting her dance-themed abstract images. Norman’s also giving a talk this coming Monday, May 20, from 7:00-9:00. http://www.mplsphotocenter.com/exhibits/current-exhibits.php

Awards and Workshop Deadlines:

The call for entries for the $30,000 W. Eugene Smith Grant For Humanistic Photography was announced recently. The grant, established in 1979, is awarded to a photographer who “demonstrates an exemplary commitment to documenting the human condition.” The W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund will also give a $5,000 to an individual working in an ancillary field to photojournalism, such as an editor or educator. Applications for both grants are due May 31, 2013. http://smithfund.org

The Eddie Adams Workshop is accepting applications for its 2013 workshop until May 31. The 26th annual Eddie Adams Workshop, which is open to photojournalism students and young professionals and offered free of charge, will be held October 11-14, 2013 in New York. Apply here: www.eddieadamsworkshop.com. Do it!

The call for entries for the 2013 Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation Photobook Awards was recently announced. The awards for First PhotoBook and PhotoBook of the Year will be announced at Paris Photo in November, where 30 shortlisted entries will be shown off. Entries will be accepted through September 13, 2013. http://www.aperture.org/photobookawards/

W.M. Hunt is everywhere. A call for submissions for a Hunt-curated group show at Klompching Gallery in Brooklyn (full disclosure: Klompching’s co-owned by PDN Creative Director Darren Ching, who is co-curating the show) has been announced. The 3-4 photographers chosen for this exhibition, FRESH 2013: The Wall/The Page/The Internet, will be selected for a four-week (July 17–August 10, 2013) exhibition at Klompching Gallery, will be published in a feature in BLINK magazine, and will be featured on At Length online. Ten additional photographers will be selected for Klompching Gallery’s “FRESH ONLINE SHOWCASE.” Submit by May 31, 2013. www.klompching.com/fresh2013.htm

Munita, a Chilean photojournalist who has worked in Latin America and the Middle East, among other places, is being honored for his “exceptional photographic ability coupled with a spirited commitment to the craft of photojournalism,” Piaia said in a statement. Munita will receive a grant of $20,000.

Denton, a photojournalist based in Beirut, was named a finalist for the award and will receive a grant of $5000.

“Chris was dedicated to documenting the compassion, violence and frailty that encompasses so much of our world today. It was through his personal vision and determination that were able to share some of the most powerful images from the large and small events that make up our common humanity,” said Hondros Fund board member and Getty executive Pancho Bernasconi in a statement. “The Chris Hondros Fund is proud to honor Tomás Munita and Bryan Denton and support their work to create a visual history that brings shared human experiences into the public eye.”

Related Articles:
Andrea Bruce Wins Getty Images & Chris Hondros Fund Award
Tim Hetherington, Chris Hondros: Remembering Them as They Lived

The accusation was leveled by a tech blogger over at ExtremeTech, citing a single source: a computer scientist, Dr. Neal Krawetz, who wrote about the photograph on the blog for his company The Hacker Factor, a computer security consultancy.  Talking about Hansen’s photo, which shows a group of mourners in Gaza City carrying children killed in an Israeli air strike, Krawetz stated that in his “opinion, [Hansen's photo] has been significantly altered.” Krawetz provided his analysis and concluded that the image was “a digital composite.”

The ExtremeTech blogger got hold of Krawetz’s post, rehashed it, and tacked on this headline: “How the 2013 World Press Photo of the Year was faked with Photoshop.”

As of this morning the blog post had been shared on various social media platforms by roughly 25,000 people, and had received 271 comments. (Which, by the way, is about 24,450 more shares than a typical ExtremeTech blog post gets, so mission accomplished, right?). Sadly, many of the people sharing the accusation were members of the professional photography community.

Hansen felt compelled to issue a statement, and World Press Photo asked two independent experts to examine Hansen’s RAW file. The independent experts did so, issued their findings, and World Press was satisfied. In its statement, World Press didn’t refer to Krawetz by name, but said the digital analysis that had prompted its review of Hansen’s image was “flawed.”

Krawetz wrote another post acknowledging the WPP statement, and has agreed to disagree, standing by his belief that Hansen’s image is a “composite.”

ExtremeTech also “updated” their blog post with a link to the WPP statement and the counterargument by Krawetz, but their headline remains: “How the 2013 World Press Photo of the Year was faked with Photoshop.”

Reasonable people can—and do—debate how much post-production is too much post-production in news photography. But accusing a journalist whose work depends on public trust of “faking” reportage threatens his livelihood. Hansen’s image was not faked—or staged. Those mourners did carry those dead children through that alleyway, in Gaza, in the field, where Paul Hansen has worked repeatedly in his career.

But 25,000-plus people saw a headline that accused Paul Hansen of “faking” his image. Have all of those people seen World Press Photo’s statement? Or Hansen’s? Have the members of the photo community so eager to share that headline been as eager to share the statements supporting Hansen? Have we seen an apology from the blogger or website that persists with its accusing headline?

Some fake journalism was certainly revealed this week. The irony is that it’s not where everyone thought it was.