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a TimeScapes production.

Lomography and PhotoBlog partner

As from today all Lomographers can join the Lomogroup on PhotoBlog and share their best shots. Joining is easy: log in and click 'join' after which an administrator will activate you within the group.
The pictures will also be published on the homepage of lomography.be . By the end of November, the members who posted pictures on the Lomogroup with the most comments from registered users, will receive a
brand new *Oktomat* camera from Lomography.
On the LomoGroup all Lomography items can be directly ordered an will be shipped worldwide at best prices. We want as many PhotoBloggers as possible to join the Lomo movement.

PhotoBlog Group Blogs

Yesterday we launched the first Collaborative Group Blog for Foto Magazine. The phenomenon of Group Blogs is not new of course, Launderette, Breastawareness and many other Group Blogs have many people participating.
However, with the new launched Group Blog subscription, the concept of Group Blogging is seamless integrated.

Try it out yourself:

1. Login in to your PhotoBlog.
2. Go to the Foto PhotoBlog, administrated by Filip Naudts of Foto Magazine
3. Click join (and pray you're good enough to be accepted)
4. Once you are accepted: login and post pictures from your Blog; this is what will happen. Have a close look, everything is seamless integrated, perfect flow.

Launderette website launched

Stijn and Lorena just opened the Launderette website. Looking fowarding having a drink with all of you on the exhibition on Ghent on October 13th. Practicalities can be found on the site.

~ picture: Ramona by Lorena [Baeyens.net]

Olympus Mju-mini Cameras

The design of the latest Mju from Olympus adds a nice bit of quirk to the world of digital cameras. Available in six different colours (Jewellery Silver, Pure White, Cosmic Black, Crystal Blue, Velvet Red and Copper Orange) the round-bottomed 4-megapixel Mju-mini Digital is shower resistant, which should help protect it from the capricious British weather.

A 1.8-inch LCD preview screen on the back lets you see your snaps before you save them off onto the xD storage card. It’s got a 2x optical zoom and 4x digital zoom, PictBridge support for easier picture printing, and costs £249. It’ll be available from October.

Read

[shiny shiny]

Where will your pictures be printed?

Last Monday, Spector bought over the Kodak Litto Color labs in Ostend. Which means they are turning strategy and going 100% wholesale. The new Skynet photoprint services are printed in Spector labs, even though Spector shops are not supposed o know this (the service and fulfilment is completely white label).

The bets are high for photography shops, Lyra Research just announced a study in which they project the at-home printing revenues will grow from 7.1US$ billion in 2003 to 9,9 US$ billion in 2008, which equals a 9% yearly growth.

I'm sceptical as to the future of the labs. Buy Agfa shares instead of Spector shares, Agfa just got rid of it's consumer photo printing division.

Canon intros seven printers, one scanner

Canon announced on Thursday the introduction of seven new printers -- MP130, MP750 and MP780 Photo All-in-One models and iP4000R, iP5000, iP6000D and iP8500 photo printers -- and one new scanner, the CanoScan 9950F.

[ from MacCentral]

Photoprinting at home is clearly the message...

(the lack of) censorship on PhotoBlog

Early September, we received an e-mail from Tom Verbruggen, aka ‘TeeVee’. Tom is a gifted photographer and has a much appraised portfolio on PhotoBlog. He and Barbara ', aka 'Flo', another renowned PhotoBlogger started experimenting with a new Lomo LCA camera and posted their first results.

A new member, who is presumably a (semi) professional photographer, Krostinus, started commenting these first Lomo LCA trials. Personally I’m not so impressed by his work, but again, les gouts et les couleurs, ne se discutent pas. His pictures seem to be scans from magazines. Now, there is nothing wrong with commenting other people’s pictures. In fact, even though I appreciate the ‘thumbs up’ comments one usually receives on better pictures, I prefer the ‘you could have tried this’ commenting. However, Krostinus used a ‘different tone of voice’, he calls it ‘criticising’, I call it ‘fulminating’. The thing heated up and became an outrageous flame.

Last March I have lived through a same kind of experience on Photojunkie. At that time we didn’t had the feature to block non-PhotoBlogger commenting; which resulted in hundreds of anonymous comments. I tried to argue, many friends joined in, but eventually deleting comments and at the end deleting the entire PhotoBlog (flooded by anonymous comments) was the only way out.

In a way Tom and Barbara must have been disappointed we took no ‘official PhotoBlog position’ in this matter. Especially Barbara, whom I met in Santiago last April and consider to be soulmate in many respects, deserved support. However, I learned PhotoBlog is all about attention. And in an attention economy pure denial is the only true answer which prevails.

Barbara her PhotoBlog has been visited by more than 38.000 people, more than 2.500 people left a comment; she has an identity, her own thin red line. New entrants like Krostinus, who post two self portraits and seek credentials through “Shooting at Rimini Beach for WN Milano” wordings have no right to use strong personal language whatsoever.

PhotoBlog is not about the picture itself, it’s about the story, your story, my story throughout time. Enter my PhotoBlog, this very Blog and ridiculise me, come on, go ahead, it won’t take more than a few seconds. You will be forgotten, because in the end… longevity will prevail and Krostinus ‘Fuck Us’ will be forgotten.

This is the very reason why we don’t do much proactive censorship as PhotoBlog. Of course, we delete porn and racism. But in many cases we just cannot intervene, it we would be very undemocratic to do so.

Recently, we received a mail from the principal of a Chilean school, asking us to delete a photo posted by a young boy in Chile. Three boys, in school uniform were posing with three girls (nothing naughty, just posing like 15 year old kids pose). The principal urged us to delete the picture, since the boys were tarnishing the image of the school by wearing their uniform. Imagine us logging in and deleting that picture….

However, it is a painful experience when people insult you openly, driven by a yearning drive for attention. It’s like waking up in the morning and noticing someone spitted on your front door because he didn’t like your door being painted red and yellow.

You take water soap and clean your door, and again, and again. And the more you wash it, the brighter it shines.

Keep shooting bright Barbara and Tom.

Little Rooms

Szofi was mentioned in Foto Magazine today and just launched the Restroom collaborative Blog. From next week on all the Collaborative PhotoBlogs will be able to make use of the new PhotoBlog Group feature. Stay tuned.

PhotoBlog membercount

Update: + 60.000 active PhotoBloggers.
Portugal replaced Brasil as nr. 1.