Greetings Fellow Photobloggers,
It is my pleasure to announce that the July, 2005 issue of Photoblogs Magazine is now available on-line at http://www.photoblogsmagazine.org .
We feel we've put together an outstanding collection of work by photobloggers from across the globe, all of whom are members of photoblogs.org. There's also a new html format available, in addition to our usual pdf design.
Please stop by and have a look at what our fellow community members have created; and if you like what you see, take a moment to subscribe (for free) so that you too can submit work for the September issue.
Thank you all, once again, for your tremendous support and encouragement with this project,
Matt

Dear all it may concern,
I am shutting down the photoblogring.

First I would like to say thank you to all who took an active part in the photoblogring and tried to help by giving feedback and notifying me of dead links etc.
It seemed like a good idea at the time but due to numerous factors the ring is no longer a viable proposition.
These factors include:
*Far too many sites non-compliance with proper ring code placement.
*Far too many sites going defunct or changing their layout and neglecting/forgetting(?) to put the webring code back into their pages.
*RingSurf's less than ideal (this is an understatement!) set-up, making it almost impossible to find and manage sites in such a large ring.
*My lack of enough time in the day to give the ring the attention it needs to keep functioning properly.

Of course if I knew then what I know now about webrings I may have done things differently (chances are however I probably wouldn't have attempted this task at all it is nearly impossible for one individual to manage using the tools I used- oh well, we live and learn, if we're lucky!)

I have tried to notify all active members via email but my mail server cannot handle the task, apologies to all for having to let you know in this way. I suugest all members remove the photoblogring code from their pages as soon as convenient for them, I feel that just letting the ring degrade by attrition would probably just be frustrating to all involved, but I'll leave it up to individual members. I will leave all active members listed for two months then I will clear the boards.

Perhaps Brandon will eventually be able to incorporate some form of random photoblog browsing into the photoblogs.org site.

Once again, I would like to express my thanks and deep appreciation to those of you who helped try and make the photoblogring work.

Cheers,

Cameron

I'd like to shine the photo spotlight on one of my newer favorites - Yonder. Agata has some beautiful photographs, here are a few of my favorites. . .

I wish I had something a bit more poetic to say, but I'll just let her images speak for themselves.

Her complete archive can be found here.

July's theme for Snaps Magazine is Fairs, Festivals and Fireworks.  Visit www.snapsmagazine.com to checkout guidelines and how to send in your photos. Snaps is on the 4th issue and has been getting photos all over the globe. Any questions send mail to snapsmagazine@gmail.com  Photos will be posted when they are received and shortly after July 1, 2005

"Capturing a person's character is fundamental to portraiture and not as easy as it sounds..."

As I flipped through a copy Cathy Joseph's "Outdoor Photography: Portraits" that arrived today, I read the above passage while searching for a street portrait of mine that was selected to be published in this book. I feel privileged to be included in a worldwide publication on outdoor portraiture. Just being within the same publication as photographers who are far more successful than myself is overwhelming, especially for a genre of photography that is my passion; outdoor street portraits.

I am humbled to have been selected as a contributor, for there are an amazing collection of images from photographers from across the globe included in this publication.

Anyways...I received a few copies from the publisher and I would like to give a copy away of Cathy Joseph's book that includes my image and the work of 40 other photographers.  It is chalked full of helpful advice and information on the techniques used in each image, 160 pages total.

All you have to do (as with the Holga that I gave away here on Photoblogs.org) is leave a comment behind on this post.  Let me know you are interested in winning the book.  I will wait a week and then on July 5, 2005, draw one person's name from all those that commented and expressed interest.  I'll get in touch via email or through your site and send the book on it's way to you.  For I always welcome the opportunity to share what matters most to me, photography, and this publication is something I am proud to be a part of and would like to share with you. 

While clicking around I found this article posted in the online edition of TIME Magazine and thought I'd pass it on.

They ran a feature called "50 Coolest Websites 2005: Blogs" -- and in the photography category, chromasia, the snowsuit effort and photoblogs.org were mentioned:

PHOTOGRAPHY
Chromasia. Instead of text, each daily post is a single (beautiful) photograph taken by amateur enthusiast David J. Nightingale of Blackpool, England. Tiny arrows at the top left-hand corner of the page allow you to view other images; to scan Nightingale's entire online portfolio (some 543 images to date), click on Thumbs. The Archives section offers a detailed description of each image, including how it was shot (which camera, type of lens, shutter speed, etc.).

The Snowsuit Effort is also excellent; featuring close-ups of the individuals photoblogger Ryan Keberly meets on the streets of Detroit and the things they say. For a Top 100 list of photoblogs and a directory organized by country and language, visit Photoblogs.org.

Congrats Brandon, Dave and Ryan!

myla

This September 23rd - 25th we are having a Europe Photobloggers meetup in London!  Check out the wiki for more information. We still have lots to discuss, so sign up and share your ideas and suggestions. We'll be updating it often as things are solidified.  There is also a Yahoo! Group to join.

If you are able to attend, please add yourself to the Attendee list so we can start getting a good idea of the number of folks.  If you are unable to attend, please do let us know if you're up for one next year. Our plan is to have a Europe Photobloggers meetup in a different European city each year.

It's been several days, but now the wikis are on the newer, faster, more-better server... so they should be pretty quick and responsive and happy.

• wiki.photoblogs.org
• Camerapedia.org

Let me know if anything isn't working the way it should and I'll debug posthaste.

As a follow-up to our earlier threads (which can be read here and here), we just wanted to let you all know that we have picked the name. . . and the winner is: POWZA! (dreamed up by your_waitress).

The next post on this subject will be to announce the launch, which is coming soon. We just wanted everyone to know that we've picked the name, thank everyone for their fantastic ideas and suggestions and also let you know that we'll be opening the POWZA flickr pool for submissions shortly. If you have yet to join flickr, now's a great time to do so. New to flickr? Learn more here.

Please remember that the whole point of the POWZA award is three-fold: to celebrate the photographer in all of us by highlighting really great photography -- and most importantly: to encourage everyone (in the words of the fabulous one,) to ". . .keep taking pictures, baby!"

Stay tuned for more soon,

Houser and Myla

After the Kodak bad news... some good news before the weekend.

The thumbnailer is finally here!! I have not tried it myself yet because I had installed the hacked version a couple of weeks ago, but since it's an official download, there is no reason not to trust it... Ahem... Can you ever trust a Microsoft product? But here it is anyway : XP RAW thumbnailer download. Enjoy and let us know how it works!

Cheers,
Irina