IMHO creating incredible and wow effects using Photoshop or other image software is the easy part - it’s visuals that are eye-catching and stunning concepts that need experience and inspiration to create. The 45 images showcased at this site, for most, have what it takes.

The premier news website msnbc.com is carrying a feature called “10 years of The Week in Pictures.” In the editor’s words:

As “The Week in Pictures” begins its second decade of publication, we take a look back at the best images published in The Week in Pictures and the Year in Pictures since the slideshow began October 1998.

Be sure to enjoy the entire slideshow (an exhausting 59 images - several graphic photos so do use discretion) by clicking here.

For years now, the world’s camera companies have been taking the public for a ride. They’ve taught us to believe that what makes one camera better than another is the number of megapixels it has - when, in fact, the number of tiny colored dots making up a photo has very little to do with its color, clarity or even detail.

Slowly, though, the truth is getting out. Recently (at long last), camera companies have begun diverting their research efforts from how to get more megapixels to how to get better photos. They’re working on things that really do matter in a consumer camera, like sensor size, stabilization and fixing low-light photography.

Read the full article here.

News photos do not have to be void of pictorial value, as illustrated by the collection of images in the latest Photo Journal of Wall Street Journal’s  website.

In the opening image - a stunning action shot - a horse goes flying through the air after being hit by a race car during the Argentina Rally in South America last Sunday.

This is a good opportunity for photographers from here - there is actually a specific category for India…

Photo contest opportunity - The Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship at MIT invites amateur and professional photographers from around the world to enter its 2nd Annual Photo Contest. This year’s theme is Women’s Entrepreneurship: Empowerment through Innovation. The contest is open to all photographers globally, and in addition aims to spotlight photographers from India, Kenya, and Mexico. Four winners will receive $500 each, be announced at the Legatum Center’s Annual Conference in October, and have their photos featured on the Center’s website. The deadline for submissions is September 13, 2009, 5 pm EST. Please check out the photo contest website

For more details and to learn about the Center, go to http://legatum.mit.edu

Last year’s winners are:

This caught my eye today: The Boston Globe features a gallery of images from around the globe on Lightning. Very dramatic. Enjoy.

A weather front rolls in from the horizon, storm clouds darken the sky, and (at least 1.3 billion times a year) lightning strikes. Last month, the National Weather Service promoted their Lightning Safety Week, with information designed to call attention to safe practices, helping people avoid lightning strikes which kill an average of 100 people every year. While the exact nature of the initial formation of lightning remains a subject of debate, what is known is that lightning strikes are caused by electrical imbalances present in the clouds. Those imbalances correct themselves suddenly, with an often spectacular light show - which I’ve tried to show here, with a handful of recent photographs of lightning from around the world. (26 photos total)

See the full gallery at: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/
2009/07/lightning.html

FRED R. CONRAD: (In 1991) The Times sent me to the Iraq frontier a week after Bill Snead of The Washington Post, then 55 years old, had begun sending pictures from the area. Bill had been in Albania before the crisis erupted, so he had a geographical advantage. I traveled 5,600 miles to meet up with John Kifner, a Times correspondent, in Diyarbakir, Turkey. The next morning we set off for Cizre, not far from the Iraq border. As I was driving along the deserted highway that had once been a busy commercial link between Turkey and Iraq, a young boy ran into the path of our car. There was a thud as I veered the car off the road, flying over an embankment into a gas station. We looked out where there was once a windshield and then looked behind us to see a crumpled body. We started walking back toward the boy. From nowhere a crowd started to form. People started yelling at us.

They’re going to kill you, screamed a reporter from The Boston Globe in a car that had just driven up next to us. Get back to your car. That’s when the rocks started flying. We ran back to the car and drove 50 yards before we were stopped by an armed Turkish soldier. I was taken into custody and later that day went before a Turkish judge. My passport was taken and I was told not to leave the country. Kif never left my side.

As we were driven to our hotel - actually, a Turkish truck stop. I asked Kif what we should do. He told me to get some sleep and tomorrow we would go to work. As we walked into the hotel, we were greeted by colleagues who were glad to see us. Some ran off to correct reports of our demise.

After checking into my room, I came back downstairs. Someone pointed out Bill Snead. I went over, hand extended. I just want to shake the hand of the man who is responsible for me being here, I said.

Bill was very generous with helpful advice. He told me that the main problem was the lack of clean water. There was running water in the room, all right, but it was full of silt and sand. I bought all the bottled water that I could lay my hands on, just to mix up the chemicals that I needed for developing my black-and-white film. Bill then told me how to use the water in the toilet tank to wash my film with minimal grit. If I didn’t flush the toilet, the sand would settle to the bottom of the tank and I could gently wash my film without any problem.

Read the full story - be sure to enjoy the gallery (in full screen size) - at http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/27/behind-7/

*Know more about New York Times LENS at http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/
2009/06/18/about/

Laurent Goldstein: Those pictures of the oldest living city in the world are maybe an answer to my Search of Lost Time. Like the french writer Marcel Proust with his monumental work, Search of Lost Tim(in French, la recherche du temps perdu, also titled Remembrance of Things Past in its initial English translation), the role of memory is central. Memory is the link which leads a picture to another but I should say involuntary memory, as Benaras is acting on me like the “episode of the madeleine” in Proust’s novel. When I walk in the City of Lights, I am transported back to an earlier time by sensory experiences of memory, triggered by smells, sights, sounds, or touch.

I believe this is what happens to most of the visitors who come over here and this is why this place is so special, so unique, this is the reason why whoever we are, whatever our culutre can be, we all find something which might be connected to the begining of History and which is deeply in our soul…

[Laurent Goldstein was trained to be an architect, but then he became the designer and the art manager of several high fashion companies in Paris, London and Milan, before settleing in India in order to launch an household linen label. Along the Ganges relationships with people are different and Laurent carries on this human adventure through photography, which allows him to extend his glance to the world and to show many aspects of the Indian society sometimes deeply devoted to its traditions or on the contrary forward-looking. Benares, the oldest living city in the world, became one of his favourite topic, and after adding a specific treatment his images seem timeless and in a kind of biblical set which can sometimes remind the world of Bosch, he is introducing people who are often soaked in a state of grace.]

See the entire gallery at: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=128044&id=139421082424

The July 22, 09 solar eclipse is one photo event that just did not live up to our expectations - no one’s fault. The monsoons and the early morning time did not help. There are several lovely images. But when it comes to that much anticipated dramatic captures, there’s a general feeling is of disappointment. No Baily’s beads, no crimson-colored chromosphere shots, no photos of prominences. Nonetheless, the century’s longest solar eclipse was a great photo-op for photo-journalists world over:

The Boston Globe Newspaper has put together a wonderful gallery of photos in their ‘The Big Picture’ site. To see the full gallery click here.

33 excellent shots - PC users push F11 for full screen. Enjoy.

Daniel was born in England, raised in Southern California. He has been shooting for 34 years, 18 professionally. Based in Aspen, Colorado for the past 11 years. He shoots advertising, stock, editorial and fine art. Not content to just document the outdoors, he makes the activities and environments he shoots part of his life. As such, he has have climbed all 54 of the Colorado Fourteeners and Mt. Rainier. He uses a variety of formats including Nikon for digital, Leica, Nikon, Hasselblad in 6—6 and panoramic 35mm for film. When asked to describe himself he will often say, I don’t shoot for a living, I simply live what Sam Abell calls - The Photographic Life.

What draws you to do outdoor photography? Which came first, your interest in the outdoors, or your interest in photography?

To read the full interview and profile, click here.

Make sure to check out Daniel’s gallery page.