Photography Blog reports:

“London-based photographer Cat Vinton has become the first female overall winner of the international Travel Photographer of the Year competition. Cat’s beautiful panoramic images of the snowy Norwegian landscape and evocative shots of a Nomadic family won her the opportunity to photograph the Dalai Lama in India. Amateur and professional photographers from 51 countries competed for the £50,000+ prize package. The winning images can be seen at http://www.tpoty.com, and will be on display at the Exposure Gallery in London.”

by Daryl Lang of PDNonline.com:

“U.S. military authorities in Iraq will file a formal complaint against Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein in the Iraqi court system on Nov. 28, a spokesperson says.

Hussein, an Iraqi, has been held as a security detainee since April 2006, much to the frustration of the AP, which has defended Hussein and argued for his release.

Next week the Multi-National Force in Iraq plans to hand his case over to the Iraqi court system. If the process goes as scheduled, it will be the first time any formal charges have been filed against Hussein. As of Tuesday, officials were still discussing the case against him only in general terms.”

Charlie Finch for Art Net reports:

“The notion that there might be an esthetic reaction to the Chinese art boom, with its exorbitant prices, government sanction of mediocrity and brazen mimicry of the worst Western Pop styles, emerges in the work of Hu Xiangdong, a 46-year-old artist from Nanjing, whose efforts are now on view at M. Sutherland Fine Arts. Hu’s life follows those of many of his confreres: influenced by the “No U-Turn Show” in 1989, a series of jobs — including window dresser and wedding photographer — and association with a collective, the Artists’ Colony at Yuanmingyuan.

He has styled himself as a critic of the new Chinese materialism, a street-corner prophet in Chinatown. The motif of his first American show of paintings is to portray traditional Chinese postcard scenes of landscapes and winning youth, and then congeal the images behind painted cellophane, as if China-packaged and thus neutered for the West. Esthetically, Hu’s work has its strong points, dreamy greens and reds, wistful faces and magic pagodas. The irony is served with the tummy-pleasing blandness of a soft-boiled egg.”

Martha Schwendener reports for the New York Times:

“New Photography” is generally limited to three or four artists, which puts pressure on the chosen few to deliver something fresh. None of this year’s photographers accomplish that. The one who comes the closest is Tanyth Berkeley, who lives in New York, has shown in Chelsea and was included in the 2005 edition of P.S. 1’s “Greater New York.”

Sewell Chan reports for The New York Times:

“The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum will remain light gray. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission decided yesterday that the Guggenheim should maintain the same light-gray paint shade it has had since 1992, when a major expansion of the museum by Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects was completed, rather than the original light yellow.

The spiraling museum on Fifth Avenue, a 1959 masterpiece by Frank Lloyd Wright, is in the midst of a $29 million renovation. As part of the project, conservators stripped away 11 layers of paint from the landmark building’s exterior and found that it was originally coated with a light brownish-yellow shade. That shade has been stripped from the facade as well.”

The Art Newspaper reports:

“The Art Newspaper can reveal that the London collector is to provide a changing selection of contemporary art. Mr Saatchi admits that “I am a Hermitage groupie” one of the museum’s greatest admirers.?

The dedicated Saatchi room will be in the General Staff Building, former government offices in Palace Square which are being restored to provide a home for the Hermitage?s collection of 19th to 21st century art. A Saatchi spokesperson confirmed that the collector is ?happy to go along with the idea of lending a rotating selection of works?.”

By Russel Hart for PopPhoto.com:

“You may be surprised to learn that Howard Schatz simply holds his breath to shoot his dreamy, bedazzling underwater photographs. No scuba gear or snorkel tube for him: Unlike his subjects, who must hyperventilate then breathe out deeply to sink below the water’s surface, Schatz maintains his full lung capacity by submerging himself with a weighted waistbelt. A nationally recognized ophthalmologist in his former life, the photographer can tell you exactly how this works, an explanation involving carbon dioxide and the way our brains monitor its level in our blood. ‘Before we go under I teach everybody to breathe,” he says. “I can get just about anybody to hold their breath for a minute, but all I really need is 30 seconds.’”

Ann Landi reports for Art News: 

“Meyer Schapiro (1904–96) was revered for his extraordinary scholarship and inspired teaching. A pioneering art historian in the field of medieval studies, he was also passionate about the great modern masters and was a champion of the artists of his own time. His lectures at Columbia University and the New School in New York attracted overflow crowds and were remembered long afterward. “Sometimes he was so brilliant that he seemed almost insane to me; he seemed to see more than there actually was—he heard voices,” the late critic Anatole Broyard recalled in his 1993 memoir, Kafka Was the Rage. “His knowledge was so impressive as to appear occult.”

By Kevin Smith for whitterdailynews.com:

“PASADENA – There’s nothing worse than scrambling to find the right camera lens when you’re trying to capture an event that’s unfolding in front of you.

And it certainly doesn’t help when you’re lugging around a large camera bag that’s both unwieldy and constraining.

This is what fueled the creation of Shootsac, a specially designed bag for carrying camera lenses. The bag allows photographers to leave their bulky camera bags behind and jump straight into the action with a lightweight bag that’s far less cumbersome and holds each lens firmly in place.

Pasadena entrepreneur Keats Elliott co-founded Shootsac (www.shootsac.com) along with photographer Jessica Claire and fellow entrepreneur Tony Spencer.

“I’m a wedding photographer and you often have to respond to what’s happening in front of you,” she said. “I began to get frustrated at myself because I had this fear that a client might come up, tap me on the shoulder and suddenly want a group shot of 15 people.‘”

by Daryl Lang of pdnonline.com:

“London-based Imagestate announced a major investment this week to help the struggling stock image distributor.

It appears there is a lot of work to do. Some Imagestate photographers say the company is neither paying them nor responding to their complaints.

The Stock Artists Alliance, which has an ombudsman who works to solve problems on behalf of its members, says it has gotten no answers from Imagestate.

“SAA ombudsman Lee Sumner has repeatedly tried, without success, to contact Imagestate representatives and determine why contributors have received no payments, no statements, no returned images and no communication from the company,” the SAA said in a press release Tuesday.

PDN, which documented similar problems with Imagestate in April 2006, has also heard complaints about the agency recently.”