Urbantopia: The Reality, Imagination
& Dream of the Urban Life
"Urbantopia" is the title of a contemporary photography
exhibition established from October 24 to November 15 in
North Art Space Gallery, Pasar Seni Jaya Ancol, Jakarta. This
was to expose the life of the people living in town in the era
of globalization, covering the reality, their imagination and
dream - or utopia. This exhibition came up from a thinking that
globalization has made these urban people should pay more
attention to the life of the nation's local value. The interaction
between cultures has been in a deep contact with the remaining
values living in a particular place.
Officially opened by the Governor of DKI Jakarta, Fauzi Bowo,
the participating photographers were Agan Harahap, Ahmad
Deny Salman, Davy Linggar, Hengki Koentjoro, Imelda Mandala,
Jay Subijakto, Jim Allen Abel, John Suryaatmadja, Kemal Jufri,
Oscar Motuloh and Wimo Ambala Bayang. Rifky Effendy and
Julian Sihombing (Kompas daily's photo editor) performed
themselves as the curators.
To be more critical, their photos are the image of their intense
observation on the reality, composed together with some
imaginations and artistic editing; resulting something that is
beyond the conventional thought. The border between art and
non-art is broken through, giving out the latest aesthetical
conceptions into each of those journalistic, salon, fashion and
ad photo.  Urbantopia
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Limited Edition of Leica M7
Edition Hermès
Hermès, a legendary French
luxury goods house established
in 1837 by Thierry Hermès in Paris,
has been invited to
collaborate with Leica Camera
AG in its latest edition of Leica
M7 production. This camera is
named after both of their names
-Leica M7 Edition "Hermès"-
and is the second edition
released after Leica MP Edition Hermès was in 2003.
Next month, this camera will
be available in limited number.
They only produce 200 cameras - 100 Etoupe and 100 Orange
color series. All are made
of silver chrome, wrapped
exclusively with calfskin leather. It will be packed together with
a silver anodized Leica Summilux-M 35mm f/1.4 ASPH wideangle
lens. A classical round lens hood in silver anodized metal
also complements the lens, together with the Leicavit M rapid
winder finished in silver chrome.
For your information, Hermès started its very first business
with the production of leather-made saddle. Nowadays, it has
produced some other goods, like perfume, bags and shoes, both
for women and for men, and has had more than 240 boutiques
all over the world. Some of its clients are Madonna, Martha
Stewart, Julianne Moore, Nicole Kidman and Elle Macpherson.
imaging-resource.com, nymag.com
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Life in Photography
Telkomsel has launched its
new engine on Facebook
(http://www.facebook.
com/ngobrolinkampus) and
had Kristupa Saragih -a
professional photographer
and the owner of Fotografer.
net (www.fotografer.net)-
to be collaborating its very
first product introduction in a
photography workshop in November 18. This workshop was the
part of the whole event namely "Simpati Mobile Campus: Satu
Cara Sejuta Acara," established for two days in November 18
to 19, in Gadjah Mada University (UGM) and Yogyakarta State
University (UNY).
In this workshop performed for university students and people
in general, Saragih gave out a topic of "Life in Photography."
There were 30 participants handed out some materials,
like what photography is and what the benefit is in the
"Introduction" session, also the basic and the business of
photography in the "How To" session.
To be more segmented, Saragih explained photography in some
career options: art, media, commercial, freelance and wedding.
With slideshow as the medium, he also showed some of his
photography works, to be the real example of the things he has
explained, together with some stories of his experience in doing
photography business. cindy
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Ricoh GXR: the World's Smallest
Interchangeable Unit Camera System
The Ricoh GXR is a
completely new kind of
digital camera - the World's
first "interchangeable unit
camera system". The GXR's
lens, image sensor, and
image processing engine
are all integrated into an
individual camera unit,
so the camera body itself
does not contain an image
sensor, unlike conventional
DSLRs. The camera units are then changed by using a slidein
mount system to attach them to the GXR body. Since the
image sensor is not exposed when lenses are changed, it's
virtually impossible for dirt and dust to get inside. The Ricoh
GXR is also the World's smallest and lightest digital camera with
interchangeable lenses, even smaller than the Micro Four Thirds
cameras from Panasonic and Olympus.
With world-leading small size (11.39 × 7.02 × 2.89 cm)
and low weight (160 g) enabling easy carrying, the GXR
interchangeable unit camera system features multiple
camera units that can be changed to best fit the scene to be
photographed. You can enjoy easy lens changes as well as
amazing image quality and shooting flexibility.
Ricoh GXR has 3.0 inch LCD screen and features shooting mode
auto, program shift, aperture priority, shutter priority, manual,
scene (movie, portrait, sports, landscape, nightscape, skew
correction). Two camera units are being launched with the GXR.
The A12 50mm F2.5 MACRO camera unit uses a 12.3 megapixel
APS-C size CMOS sensor, while the S10 24-72 mm F2.5-4.4 VC
camera unit features a 10 megapixel 1/1.7-inch CCD sensor.
The innovative Ricoh GXR will be available in December priced
at £ 419/€ 459 for the body, £600 / €670 for the 50mm camera
unit, £ 330/€ 370 for the 24-72mm camera unit, £ 239/€ 269 for the external flashgun and £ 219/€ 249 for the electronic
viewfinder. There are no kits available on launch, with more camera units promised for 2010. photographyblog.com
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Photography Class for Children
A photography class,
"Photography Course for Kids - Phase I," is being managed
individually by Yong Ming in
Semarang city, Central Java.
This class is a course performed
for children (elementary to high
school), aimed at their being
acquainted to photography.
With photography, they are
expected to be able to explore
a better imagination, through
a digital visualization - in this
case is through photos.
The materials given are
introduction to digital camera,
how to break the limit of
inadequate digital camera,
how to use and preserve
digital camera, lighting and
composition, landscape, macro,
slow speed, portrait, nightshot photography technique, also
mixing light and how to use flash.
This course was actually scheduled to be performing the class
from November 2, 2009 to January 2, 2010 in Jl. Tentara
Pelajar 34, Semarang. However, because the participants have
not yet reached the minimum number required, the organizer
has prolonged the registration period. Yong Ming
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Playing Ideas with
"Build a Better Photograph"
Michael Stern, a professional
photographer graduated from
the Art Center College of
Design in 1979 who is until
now still working for several
projects by Walt Disney Co.,
Warner Brothers Studios,
Universal Studios and Sid
& Marty Krofft Pictures,
has just finished writing his
book entitled Build a
Better Photograph, published by
Rocky Nook.
If those photography books
out there are discussing only
the equipments, techniques
and composition steps needed
to create a picture, this book is more about how an artist doing
his concept, getting his ideas and applying the ideas into his
work. As an addition, Stern is also giving out some techniques
and business skills required to make a photographer make a
living through commercial photography.
This US$ 34.95 book is a reference on environmental
portraiture, product photography, 3D scanning and technique
composition, available with a DVD giving you additional pictures
on Virtual Reality panoramas, short videos on photography
sessions, tutorials and so on. Please visit www.oreilly.com to
have further information. imaging-resource.com
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Photography Acts against
Communism
Lubomír Kotek's photographs are being exhibited now in Louvre
Gallery in Prague - the capital city of Czech Republic. What is
so special with this Czech photographer's exhibition? His photos
were all taken twenty years ago, when the people of Prague
lived daily under the era of communism. This exhibition, entitled "Tady bylo Husákovo" (This Once Was
Husák's Country) gives a picture of rundown buildings, empty shop-windows and ever-present
grayness to the audience, when President Gustav Husák was still sitting on his chair.
Morally, Kotek wants to say that those photos give out a strong
impression to bring Prague people’s memory back to that
era. At that time, when Anna Fárová, an art historian, said to
Kotek, "This will not be here forever," Kotek was not sure that
communism would vanish from his daily life. However, when
finally he can now establish his exhibition that will last until
January 3, 2010, he can finally say, "I think these photos are
necessary to remind ourselves of the past times so they would
never come back."
radio.cz
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UK Launch of Panasonic
Lumix DMC-ZX1 Presents
a Giant Pigeon & a Giant Camera 
A giant pigeon "landed" on the grass beside London's City
Hall this morning. The life-like sculpture, which was specially
commissioned to mark the UK launch of Panasonic's Lumix
DMC-ZX1 compact camera with an 8x optical zoom, graphically
brought to life one of London's most iconic and hotly debated
creatures, Panasonic says. A team of five artists spent two
months constructing the 1.52 meters high and 3.2 meters wide
fiberglass structure which was lifted into place in Potters Fields,
central London at 8am before moving further along the banks
of the Thames for a national photo call in front of The Houses of
Parliament.
The giant pigeon is one of a series of objects which have been
magnified and brought to life by Panasonic to illustrate the
8x optical zoom lens of the new, ultra-compact Lumix DMCZX1.
Users are invited to submit their own photographs which
showcase the fun that can be had with perspective for their
chance to win a trip to the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Winter
Games by visiting the website below.
Besides a giant pigeon, Panasonic team is also preparing other
installations to launch Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZX1. A giant
camera has appeared at London Waterloo station this morning,
providing passers by with a fun visual focus, while traveling into
and out of London. The larger-than-life camera is the last of a
series of objects which have been magnified and brought to life
by Panasonic to illustrate the powerful 8 x optical zoom lens of
the new super compact camera, the Lumix DMC-ZX1. A team
of 6 artists spent 5 weeks creating the 3.6m high and 2m wide
fiberglass camera.
The sculpture incorporates the massive Panasonic's 103"
plasma screen, posing as the camera's LCD screen on the back
of the camera. Displaying video footage of how the giant-sized
objects were built as well as footage of all objects in location,
the creation is so life-like; you feel like you're actually watching
a home movie back on your camera.
Further installations include a giant conker, postbox, traffic
cone, park bench, pigeon and crumpled coffee cup. These
six sculptures are now positioned in high-profiled locations in
the respective cities of Edinburgh, Manchester, Birmingham,
Leeds, London (Neal Street, Covent Garden) and Bristol for the
remainder of the week. photographyblog.com
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Maximize Your Twitter
for Photography Business
 
How to adapt yourself with the development
of social networking technology in the term
of photography business? There are three
directories in Twitter that you can use to
find the other photographers: We Follow
(wefollow.com/twitter/photographer),
Twellow (www.twellow.com/
category_users/cat_id/342) and Just Tweet
It (justtweetit.com/photographers).
Put yourself in those categories, so that the
other photographers can find you, let us
say, in case of your or their acquiring a co-photographer
in your or their business.
In addition, there is an Advanced Twitter
Search (search.twitter.com/advanced)
option that provides you some features,
like "All of these words" in the "Words"
box, "Near this place" and "Within this
distance" in the "Places" box. What is the
use? Alike the name, what you need to do
is to fill the box with -for example- the
word 'photographer,' then the next box
with the name of the city you are living
in, also the distance that you would like to
reach. After that, you can save the result
on your RSS Feed, so that next time when
someone mentions the same words with
yours on his tweet, you will be notified.
fuelyourphotography.com
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Women & Health through
the Lens
Women's effort in taking their family's
health is an interesting phenomenon to be
documented and exposed to public. Based
on this reason, Forum Parlemen untuk
Kependudukan dan Pembangunan Sumsel
(IFPPD Sumsel) supported by United
Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) arrange a
photo contest themed on "Perempuan dan
Kesehatan (Women and Health)."
The photo contest wishes to record women
and health in their daily life, which is useful for advocacy and information
matters. They choose photo as a media, since it is presumed that photo is an honest media that can record reality. The object
captured must be the real event. This photo
contest is an open competition and will be
closed on December 15, 2009. Photos must
be submitted in 10R-sized hardcopy and CD-packed softcopy, to IFPPD Sumsel at Gedung
DPRD Sumsel, Jl. Kapt. A. Rivai, Palembang.
The winning photos will be published as
calendar. Ivan Ramandha
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To Use Nikon on
Windows 7
Nikon announced
the compatibility
of its Coolpix
pocket and DSLR
cameras with
Windows 7 Device
Stage of Windows
7 platform in
the previous
October 22. Two
cameras that
have the highest compatibility are D5000
and Coolpix S230. Nikon Inc. offers you so
many photography tools and easy-to-use
interface.
When connected to Windows 7-based
computer, the graphic representation of
your computer will be synchronized with
your camera's specification. Your computer
will then identify your camera as another
disk drive, so you can easily access it
and manage your photos or videos. As an
addition, this page -where you can access
the interface released this month- is now
has Nikon's logo on it, and it links to Nikon's
products site. To get to know deeper, please
visit support.nikontech.com.
press.nikonusa.com
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Charity for Padang
by KFT 
Photo by Iwan Samuel
As an effort to help the victims of
earthquake in Padang recently, Komunitas
Fotografer Tangerang gathered some
donations for them. KFT organized a model
photo hunt in order to gather some amount
of money. The photo hunt "Charity for
Padang" costed only Rp 200.000 for each
participant.
The event was held on November 7 at
Taman Kota 2, BSD, Tangerang with 4
professional models involved and attended
by 30 participants. By having this photo
hunt, KFT successfully collected Rp
10,104,786 in cash. The donation was
then given to donation channel such as
RCTI Peduli, Dompet Metro TV, and Tzu Chi
Foundation / DAAI TV. Iwan Samuel
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Casion EX-G1: the
World's Slimmest Rugged
Compact Camera
Casio has unveiled
the world's slimmest
'rugged' compact camera in
the shape of Exliim
EX-G1 - its thinnest
side measures
just 20mm (0.78")
and weighs only
124g. The first in
the company's new
'Exilim G' series
of weatherproof
cameras, named in reference to the
company's well-known G-Shock series
of watches. The G1 is designed to be
dustproof, waterproof up to 3 meters for
an hour, coldproof up to 14 °F and shockresistant
for drops of up to 2.13 meters.
It incorporates a 38-114mm equivalent
lens, 2.5" LCD, 12.1MP sensor and includes
features such as Intelligent AF, Best Shot
shooting mode and Interval shooting. The
interval shooting function can automatically
take still photos or movies at fixed intervals,
enabling users to capture great shots
while engaged in active sports such as
snowboarding or cycling.
Casio's original Dynamic Photo function,
which creates composite moving images
using the camera's own high-speed image
processing technology, now does even
more. When a moving subject is cut out
of a number of images and combined
with a different still shot that forms the
background, the size of the subject can
be changed to suit the background image.
Additionally, the Dynamic Photo video can be easily converted into a motion JPEG movie, directly from the camera.
The camera also features a wide format
(16:9) Movie function. Just press the
dedicated Movie button to take beautiful
movies at 848 x 480 pixels. Priced at US$
299, the camera will start shipping from
December 2009. dpreview.com
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Capturing the
Development of Badung
Regency in a
Photo Contest
Badung Photographer Community (BPC), in collaboration with the Public Relations and protocol of the government of Badung regency,
organized a photo competition themed on
"Potret Badung Membangun." The photo's
object includes the development in all fields
located at Badung regency, Bali. The photo
competition is for public, and participants
can submit up to 10 photos.
Photos must be submitted in hardcopy
and softcopy and sent to Badung Regency
Public Relations at Jl. Raya Sempidi, Dalung
or BPC Secretariat at Jl. Bunut Sari, No. 2
Legian Kelod, Kuta, Bali. The deadline is
on December 10 and the judging day will
be on December 15. The winners will be
announced on December 20.
I Gede Budiwijaya
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A $100 Camera to
Educate Children
 
A prototype of a camera for children,
priced at $100, has been released to teach
children the mechanism works on a camera.
Almost every part of the surface is made of
a transparent plastic, so that they can see
how each item inside the camera works;
when they are doing photography. Like an
analog camera, this BigShot -how it is
named as- camera does not have an LCD
screen. This is the way how the camera
teaches children to think twice before they
press the shutter.
This camera will be available in some
color options interesting for children, and
moreover, some retail sales will subsidize
the cost of donations to schools in low-income
areas of the United States and other
countries. Please visit www.bigshotcamera.
org or news.columbia.edu to have a further
reading. imaging-resource.com
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Art Photography for Sale
 
Appreciators of fine photographic art are
invited to visit Artphotographyforsale.com (www.artphotographyforsale.com), a
newly launched online gallery that features
a selection of limited run, masterfully
produced photography suitable for framing
and display in the home, office or public
space.
The website offers the discerning collector
prints offered on Hahnemühle 330 gram
fine art paper; both paper and ink meet
industry standard archival quality. 24" wide prints are
€ 250, 36" wide ones are € 300. Whereas 36" tall prints are €
350. Prices include handling, shipping and
insurance.
photographyblog.com
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A Workshop &
On-the-spot Photo
Contest Themed on
Compact Digital Camera
 
Photo by Budhi Marta Utama
BE Pencinta Fotografi Lampung (BE-PFL)
community conducted a workshop packed
with on-the-spot photo contest themed on
compact digital camera. The workshop was
held on November 7, in collaboration with
Agromedia book publishing. Taken place
at Saburai Bandar Lampung sport center,
the event aimed to encourage passion for
photography in Lampung through compact
digital camera users who want to optimize
their cameras.
The first session was workshop, presented
by Hadi Iswa –the author of Fotografi Digital dengan Kamera Saku- and BE-PFL
community. After the workshop was on-the-
spot photo contest located at the sport
centre. The winners were announced on the
same day. Budhi Marta Utama
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