One of my passions is photography. I started as a young boy, working in my father’s basement darkroom, developing negatives, and then exposing, dogging, burning-in, developing, short-stopping, and hypo-ing, washing and drying the many photos he had taken in his avocation as a wedding and child photographer. He took and sepia-toned the photos and my mother colored them with cue-tip / brush and paint. I guess my father was exposed (I know, I know…) to photography even earlier than I, because he worked as one of Bat Masterson’s copy boys at the New York Morning Telegraph. For a time I tried following in my father’s foot-steps as I also did wedding and child photography, but my heart couldn’t take it. Though I never lost one, waiting for the rolls of film to be developed was too much for me, so I reduced photography’s influence in my life to that of beloved hobby.

Even though black & white and film photos will always be special to me, I have embraced digital photography, and I use PhotoShop as my “darkroom”. Why is this story in Bleeding Edge? First, for a number of years I have been teaching a digital photography workshop. Second, there are constant technological innovations that enhance our ability to take, store, modify, view, and print digital photos – photography is always new and on the edge! What do you love about photography?

• Take the folks at  (the great print magazine), for instance, who recently introduced LIFE.COM, a wonderful compendium of photos old and new.
   
• Then there is NASA and the Hubble telescope. It continues to produce astounding photos of the Universe, and it has just received yet another upgrade to make it even more powerful.
  
   
• You may have heard of MahattanHenge – This is a biannual occurrence in which the setting sun aligns with the east-west streets of Manhattan’s main street grid. The term was coined in 2002 by Neil deGrasse Tyson, an astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History. It applies to those streets that follow the Commissioners’ Plan of 1811, which laid out a grid offset 28.9 degrees from true east-west. MahattanHenge usually happens every May 28 and July 12 or 13 at sunset, but (according to Neil deGrasse Tyson) this year it will take place Saturday, May 30th and Sunday, July 12th.
  
   
• Ever heard of the Gigapxl Project? Amazing high resolution photos.
  
   
• In need of a camera to catch high speed action – Soccer goal, Ballet move, Golf swing? Check out these unique digital cameras. The Casio EX-FC100 (5x zoom, 2.7-inch screen, image stabilizer, $400) and the EX-FS10 (3x zoom, 2.5-inch screen, $350).  They can capture 30x 6MP-photos per second in burst mode. They can also record high-quality slow-motion video. However, this should NOT be your only camera – but if you need either of these features you should have an FC100 in your camera bag.
   
  + Read what David Pogue has to say about these cameras
  + Review by Digital Camera Review
  + Review by Digital Camera Tracker
   
• Exhibition: Lennon in New York – Opened May 12th, “John Lennon: The New York City Years,” an exhibition at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Annex NYC in SoHo, provides a glimpse of the nine years the artist lived in the city, from 1971 until his death in 1980.
   
  + View a slide show courtesy of the NY Times
  + Learn more about the exhibit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Annex NYC in SoHo
  

 

• Finally, how about some Photographic Techniques from the Edge?