On September 20th and 27th, PBS is airing a feature about National Marine Sanctuaries.  Please tune in to your local PBS station at 8 p.m. (check your local listings) to see “America’s Underwater Treasures”.  During the two evenings, all 14 sites will be featured.  In addition, KQED has officially launched the sanctuary guide portion of their website to coincide with the airing of the program.  On the website, you’ll find information on all of the sites in the National Marine Sanctuary System as well as information on the many issues facing these marine protected areas.

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Two weeks ago, Wetpixel member John Bantin started an interesting topic in our forums.  “Is it art or is it reality?”:

We learned about Photoshop and started to retouch away all those annoying grolleys that were in the water. Then mooring lines and divers inconveniently placed magically disappeared. With the skills so practised, I am now able to go back to the 500,000 snaps (no exaggeration) I have in filing cabinets and resurrect any that I care to….

However, this does mean that all my pictures are getting stylized (just like everyone else’s). I fear that they no longer represent the truth. I am not talking about exhibition or competition pictures. I am talking about the pictures that go into Diving magazines. Are they misleading in their new-found perfection?

What do you think? Is this new digital art misrepresenting reality? The camera never used to lie!

The thread has since attracted over 80 replies, and is well worth reading, if you are struggling with balancing photography as art and photography as reality.
 

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Wednesday, September 20th, 2006 is Japan Dolphin Day, an “international day of protest…to urge the Japanese authorities to ban the slaughter of dolphins.”

Every year, Japanese fisherman round up dolphins by the thousands and brutally slaughter them - with permission from Tokyo. The Save Taiji Dolphins Campaign is calling for peaceful protests in front of Japanese embassies around the world in an effort to stop the killing.

To learn more about what you can do to help, or to find out where the nearest embassy is located, visit SaveTaijiDolphins.org...

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On the heels of announcing the 2nd-annual, U.S.A.-based international photo and video competition, Wetpixel & DivePhotoGuide have organized a second international competition in association with DEEP Indonesia, Indonesia’s first-ever diving, adventure-travel and water-sports expo. Never before have 2 international competitions associated with dive expos on opposite sides of the world cooperated to establish a complementary series of categories and prizing opportunities.

Photographers will compete in 7 themed categories to win photo equipment, dive gear, premium dive travel packages to some of the top photo destinations in the world, and more…

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Digital Photography Review is doing a great job posting pre-Photokina 2006 announcements.  In pre-show craziness so far, there have been 74 new products announced, including a Leica M8 digital rangefinder (which I am really excited about even though it will have little-to-no impact for underwater photography).  Most of the announcements so far have been incremental updates to existing models, with 10-megapixel compact cameras being the new standard.

In other trends, new SLRs are all featuring anti-dust sensor vibration, and compact cameras are starting to produce acceptable high(er)-ISO images.  In particular, Fujifilm compacts have been producing images with relatively low noise levels when compared to offerings by other brands.

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