My good friends at PhotoShelter have created a super-slick-gotta-have-plugin-for-WordPress-blogs which allows you to post photos to your WordPress blog directly from your PhotoShelter account. Talk about simplifying your workflow!

Simply Select an image from a gallery and select “Insert Image.”

and then in the words of one of the greatest poets of our generation: “BAM!”

Or it you prefer more security, you can choose to upload a flash image:

Grover Sanschagrin of PhotoShelter put together this great article about Professional Photographers who also shoot with Point-and-Shoot cameras.

It’s great to see that so many of my friends also carry a small camera with them everywhere they go. Afterall, the best camera you can own is the one you’ve got with you…

And a drumroll please…Six of my Burlesque portraits won in the Celebrity/Editorial Portrait Category of PDN’s Faces 2010 Competition. The July 2010 Photo District News includes photos of Candy Carmelo and Kitten DeVille. The rest of the winning entry includes Dirty Martini, Roxi DLite,  April March and the Chicago Starlets. My thanks to the lovely and talented Burlesque dancers. Take a bow ladies!

EQUIPMENT:
Sony a900 Cameras
Sony Zeiss 24-70/2.8
Profoto 2400 Acute 2
X-Rite ColorChecker Passport
iOne Pro

Click here for a Behind-the-Scenes look at one of my burlesque shoots.

Please join all the major photography trade organizations by saying “NO” to the NYC Mayor’s Office of Film, Theater and Broadcasting (MOFTB) plan to assess a $300 fee for film permit application processing. This is three hundred buck whether you’re doing a three month-long feature film with a crew of hundreds or a 15-minute still shoot with a crew of one.

For a feature film that’s nothing. But in a time that the magazine industry is particularly hard hit and everybody’s budgets are getting pared to the bone, it may me whether a shoot happens or not. This is a poorly conceived idea coming at the worst economic time and destined to place the heaviest burden on those who can least afford it. In short it’s a BAD idea.

All the major photography trade organizations: EP, ASMP, APA and NPPA will be at a hearing next Thursday, June 3 at 2PM at 125 Worth Street auditorium. If you are in the city that day, your attendance would be greatly appreciated!

If that’s not possible, please do the next best thing and sign the online petition saying “NO“!

I was just reading a PDN Pulse post about San Francisco photographer Ken Light.  Ken won a judgment in February against Al Gore’s cable TV network Current TV for unauthorized use of an image. But Current TV has appealed a small claims court award to Light of $500 plus $88 in court costs for unauthorized publication of a 1994 image of Texas death row inmate Cameron Todd Willingham.

Current TV downloaded the photograph off the New Yorker website and published Light’s portrait of Willingham on its website without permission, but is balking at paying up claiming news photographs are free to use under “fair use” which is not the case.

Al should know better. His wife Tipper was a news photographer for the Nashville Tennessean until he was elected to the Senate in 1976. Tipper definitely knows better. Tipper have a talk with your husband.

This is an inconvenient case. Pay up, Al.

Catch Legendary Jazz Photographer Herman Leonard this Thursday, April 1 from 7 – 9pm at the Opening reception for “Legends of Jazz Photography” at Fahey/Klein Gallery in Los Angeles. The show features the work of Herman Leonard, William Claxton and William Gottlieb. All are welcome to attend. It’s a great chance not only to see great jazz photographs but to also meet a true Jazz Legend…The exhibit runs from April 1 – May 15, 2010.

On her last visit to Florida, my friend, fine art photographer Linda Troeller stopped by our house with the husband Lothar. I’d promised Linda that I would shoot a portrait of her for her new book. Somehow, by the end of the night, Lothar was looking quite Grace Jones…