© 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.

In an editorial published yesterday in The New York Times, the newspaper’s public editor, Margaret Sullivan, questioned the rules regarding Photoshopping at T, the monthly style magazine published by the Times, and suggested that readers should be notified when fashion images have been digitally manipulated. She also pointed out that editors shouldn’t assume that readers understand the difference between the standards for a news photograph and a fashion photograph.

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?”

Exhibitions and Other Happenings:

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/ (more…)

Tomás Munita and Bryan Denton will receive Getty Images and Chris Hondros Fund Awards at a June 7 benefit and silent auction, the Hondros Fund has announced. The Chris Hondros Fund is a non-profit photojournalism organization founded by Christina Piaia to honor her late fiancé, who was killed in a mortar attack while covering the conflict in Libya in 2011. The Fund “advances the work of photojournalists who espouse [Chris Hondros's] legacy and vision, and sponsors fellowships, grantmaking and education to raise understanding of the issues facing reporters in conflict zones.”

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

Let’s review: On Monday Paul Hansen, a veteran photojournalist and two-time newspaper photographer of the year award winner was accused of “faking” his World Press Photo award winning image. An analysis by independent experts recruited by the World Press Photo organization has since cleared Hansen of the charge.

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. (more…)

Awards and Competitions:

2013 Pierre and Alexandra Boulat Award
The Pierre and Alexandra Boulat Award for journalism was created in honor of the late VII Photo founder Alexandra Boulat and her father, Pierre. Sponsored by Canon, the award carries an 8,000 Euro prize, and is given to “a professional photographer of any age, sex or nationality who wishes to cover a social, economic, political or cultural issue in a journalistic manner.” Entries for the award are due by June 7, 2013, and the winner will be announced at Visa Pour l’Image in Perpignan in September. Entry is free.

18th Annual Photo Competition Exhibition
Seattle’s Photo Center Northwest is accepting entries for their annual juried exhibition. Entries selected by this year’s juror, collector and curator John Bennette, will be exhibited at Photo Center Northwest in August and September of this year. The deadline for entries is May 18, 2012. (more…)

Kodak’s transfer of its Personalized Imaging and Document Imaging businesses—including its photographic film division—to the UK Kodak Pension Plan (KPP) will not affect the production or distribution of photographic film, according to Audrey Jonckheer, Global Communications Director for Kodak’s Personalized Imaging business.

Jonckheer says the Personalized Imaging and Document Imaging businesses are gearing up for what they hope will be a smooth transition. “This whole plan was put together so there would not be any changes in product, services or delivery to our customer base…. All of the manufacturing sites will continue to operate as normal.”

On Monday Eastman Kodak Company announced that it would turn its Personalized Imaging and Document Imaging businesses over to KPP in order to settle $2.8 billion in claims KPP made against Kodak in bankruptcy proceedings. Kodak agreed to transfer the businesses to KPP for cash and non-cash consideration of $650 million. If the U.S. Bankruptcy Court and the UK Pensions Regulator approve the settlement, it will help pave the way for Kodak to emerge from Chapter 11.

The proposed deal has encouraged optimism, Jonckheer says. Today the KPP chairman, Steven Ross, was in Rochester, where Kodak is based, speaking with Kodak employees and local reporters. According to Jonckheer, “He exuded confidence in the growth prospects for the businesses,” and said that with the proper investment, which Kodak hasn’t been able to make due to their Chapter 11 status, the businesses could grow.

“That’s the part that’s exciting to us, because we are profitable,” Jonckheer says. “The future is looking bright.”

In the immediate aftermath of the announcement the majority of social media chatter was about the future of Kodak film, says Jonckheer. “From a social media perspective, from the immediate media coverage that we saw, it was primarily film. Film was in the headlines,” she told PDN. “No matter what this company does, the reaction is always, ‘How is this going to affect film?’”

“We have been asked that, and we have said what we’ve been saying all along, which is that the lifecycle of film depends on the demand for it, and as long as there is profitable demand there will be film.”

Related: Kodak Turns Over Film Division to Its UK Pension Plan

Iwan Baan‘s iconic aerial photograph of a blacked-out lower Manhattan in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Sandy helped New York magazine earn top honors in the American Society of Magazine Editors Cover of the Year contest for 2012. The New York cover also won in the News and Politics category.

A majority of the winning covers and finalists featured photographs or photo-based illustrations.

The finalists for Cover of the Year included Harper’s Bazaar‘s cover featuring a Terry Richardson photograph of Gwyneth Paltrow, and TIME‘s Martin Schoeller-photographed cover showing a woman breast-feeding a 3-year-old boy. The Harper’s Bazaar cover won in the Fashion and Beauty category.

The New York Times Magazine‘s Finlay MacKay-photographed cover featuring Jerry Seinfeld won in the Entertainment and Celebrity category.

The Times Magazine was also recognized in the Sport and Adventure category for its cover featuring Damon Winter‘s portrait of Venus and Serena Williams.

The cover of the New York magazine Sex Issue, which won in the Lifestyle category, featured a photograph by Tim Flach.

And a food photograph by Johnny Autry graced the Garden & Gun cover that won in the Most Delicious category.

Click here for a gallery of the winners.

© Paul Salveson, courtesy MACK / www.mackbooks.co.uk

American photographer Paul Salveson has won the 2013 First Book Award for his project “Between the Shell,” a series of color images made through creative observation and arrangement of objects close at hand. The award, announced last week, is co-administered by MACK books and Britain’s National Media Museum. They will publish Salveson’s book later this year.

The judges for the award were Michael Mack (MACK), Polly Fleury (Wilson Centre for Photography London), Liz Jobey (FT Weekend Magazine), Greg Hobson (National Media Museum) and photographer Clare Strand.

Salveson’s work was selected from more than 100 submissions.

The First Book Award, now in its second year, is open to photographers who have not previously released a book project with a publisher. However self-published and print-on-demand projects do not disqualify a photographer.

In order to be considered for the award, photographers must be nominated by one of an international group of nominators. The names of this year’s nominators were not released.

Today Eastman Kodak Company announced the transfer of its Personalized Imaging and Document Imaging businesses to the UK-based Kodak Pension Plan (KPP), its largest creditor. The deal includes Kodak’s Film Capture and Paper & Output Systems divisions, among others, and will see KPP take over responsibility for the operation of Kodak’s film business.

Kodak is giving the businesses over to KPP, the pension plan for its U.K. retirees, in order to settle $2.8 billion in claims KPP made against Kodak in bankruptcy proceedings. Kodak agreed to transfer the businesses to KPP for cash and non-cash consideration of $650 million. If the U.S. Bankruptcy Court and the UK Pensions Regulator approve the settlement, it will help pave the way for Kodak to emerge from Chapter 11. Kodak plans to focus on its Commercial Imaging business.

In a statement, Kodak Chairman and CEO Antonio M. Perez said the settlement helped Kodak clear “several key hurdles in our reorganization…. placing our Personalized Imaging and Document Imaging businesses with a new owner that recognizes their value and is focused on their growth and success, and providing the remaining liquidity we require to emerge from Chapter 11.”

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, KPP plans to hire new executives to run the Personalized Imaging and Document Imaging businesses so they can generate cash flow for the pension plan, rather than finding a buyer for the businesses.

“The businesses that we are acquiring will deliver long-term cash flows to support the plan’s obligations,” said KPP chairman Steven Ross in a statement. “The financial stability that KPP will provide for the Personalized Imaging and Document Imaging businesses will be beneficial to those businesses’ employees, customers and partners.”