"Headhunt Revisited," the portraiture project of Michele Westmorland and Karen Huntt Mason, was the subject of Smithsonian magazine's April issue. The article, "A Gibson Girl in New Guinea," can be read online at www.smithsonianmagazine.com. Westmorland, who is based in Mill Creek, Wash., teamed up with Mason for a two-month expedition to Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, retracing anthropologist Caroline Mytinger's journey of the 1920s.

Canon has expanded its digital SLR lens offerings with new EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM and EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM lenses. The EF-S offers quality on par with Canon's L-series lenses. It has a large maximum aperture that, combined with higher shutter speeds, can minimize subject motion blur.

Shallow depth-of-field separation of a subject from its background is easier to achieve, and the f/2.8 maximum aperture allows more precise focusing with f/2.8-compatible AF sensors. The internal stabilization has a...

Fuji Photo Film's 6.3-megapixel FinePix F30 is a point-and-shoot digital camera with full-resolution ISO equivalency speeds as high as 3200. Higher light sensitivities allow the FinePix F30 to shoot with faster shutter speeds, lessening the likelihood of blurry pictures caused by active children, fidgety pets or dim lighting. To aid in producing clearer images, the camera incorporates a...

On the cover: A Sanford’s lemur clings to a bamboo stalk in a Madagascar rain forest. Frans Lanting has dedicated his life to cataloging these and other endangered creatures, and to the preservation of their dwindling habitats.

Cover photo: © Franz Lanting

Canon's new DC40 DVD camcorder has a slim design, 10x optical zoom lens, 4.3-megapixel CCD image sensor and high-resolution 16:9 recording for widescreen video.The 2.7-inch display panel makes it easy to compose shots in cinema style. It also doubles as a digital camera, recording photos onto Mini-SD cards.

Canon has incorporated an array of features in the DC40 camcorder, including Smooth Zoom and Level Shot Control features, a built-in lens cover that automatically opens in...

The fine-art photography of Doug Landreth was included at Art Expo 2006, held in New York City in March. Landreth's newest portfolio is "Off I-5," for which he traveled up and down Interstate 5 photographing the landscapes along the exits. His images have appeared in publications such as Graphis Photo Annual and Applied Arts.

Photographer David Julian has created a documentary series of images illustrating the turmoil that followed Hurricane Katrina's assault on the Gulf Coast. "Taken From the Heart: Images of Intimate Loss After Katrina" will be exhibited at the reopened New Orleans Museum of Art from June through August, and at Houston's Museum of Cultural Arts in September.

In addition, Julian's photo-illustrations recently garnered two Maggie awards for George Lucas' Edutopia magazine.

Thomas J. Abercrombie, a photographer for National Geographic for nearly 40 years, died April 3 of complications from open-heart surgery at the age of 75.

Abercrombie was born in Stillwater, Minn., in 1930. In addition to taking photographs on seven continents, he was the first journalist to reach the South Pole in 1957, one year after joining the National Geographic staff.

Abercrombie was the first person to win both the Newspaper Photographer of the Year (1954) and the Magazine Photographer of the Year (1959) awards. After retiring from National Geographic...

Revving up your online image distribution with RSS

Web-savvy photographers have discovered a powerful new tool that is helping them distribute images, find locations for shoots, and keep tabs on the latest imaging trends and techniques. RSS (short for Real Simple Syndication) is an online content distribution medium that is becoming a mainstream technology. At this point, hundreds of millions of web surfers are taking advantage of this new medium, and that number is increasing rapidly...

The International Photographic Council has announced the recipients of its eighth annual IPC Professional Photographer Leadership Awards.

Winners were selected by each of six professional photography organizations from among their members: Advertising Photographers of America, Barbara Bordnick; American Society of Media Photographers, George Long; Professional Photographers of America, Jo Alice and Tom McDonald; Professional School Photographers Association International, Anthony J. Cilento Jr.; White House News Photographers Association, Mannie Garcia; and Wedding Portrait Photographers International, Rick and Deborah Ferro.