Flathead Valley Looking Glass: Kalispell, Montana News

For those young and young at heart, where can finger painting really take you? Well, throw in iPhone technology and Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum in Times Square as a muse, if you're artist Jorge Colombo, it can get you to the cover of The New Yorker.

Last week, the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) released the results of the 2009 Best Magazine Cover Winners and Finalists. Peter Yang's portrait of a smiling Obama on the cover of Rolling Stone took top honors. Apparently, I don't understand how the magazine industry works, because I'm not sure how you can come out with a "best of" list when the year is still in full swing. Taking a closer look at the winning dates, I notice that October, November and December are included in the following year’s awards.

The categories are as follows: Magazine Cover of the Year, Most Delicious, Best in Entertainment and Celebrity, Best in Fashion and Beauty, Best in House and Home, Best in Lifestyle, Best in News and Business, Best Obama, Sexiest, Best in Science, Technology and Nature and Best in Sports and Fitness.

Half of the Nobel Prize, announced Tuesday morning, October 7, was awarded to Charles K. Kao for his discoveries in how light travels through glass strands, leading to revolutions in fiber optic cable. The other half went to Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith for the invention of semiconductor sensors which are in digital cameras.

The mastery of light through technology was the theme of this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics as the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences honored breakthroughs in fiber optics and digital photography. - Kenneth Chang/New York Times

Read the full New York Times article, Nobel Awarded for harnessing Light, here.

First, this is very cool. Second, keeping up with world class athletes is exactly why photogs need to stay in shape. Photographer Alexx Henry's most recent blog post is this short video on shooting triathlete Chris Lieto for the "Living" magazine cover and spread released with the October issue of Outside Magazine.

"Photographed with the Red One camera, we created our vision of how a motion-magazine of the not-too-distant future would look based on emerging technologies like flexible OLED and E Ink." - Alexx Henry.

The lighting is amazing, the images stunning, the idea brilliant and the flexible video screens mind blowing. Thanks Alexx for posting this blog. For more, check out his blog here, and check out his Web site here.

National Press Photographers Association recently announced the launching of its new blog, The Visual Student. Geared toward students studying visual journalism, the blog provides a space where students can hear from photo directors, professional photographers and fellow students firsthand.

The blog has started strong with Internship Q&As with The Oregonian, The Dallas Morning News and the St. Petersburg Times, among others. 2008 College Photographer of the Year Tim Hussin writes about editing portfolios for the CPOY contest and Angela Shoemaker discusses applying for a Fulbright grant. The site also contains links to grants and scholarships as well as competitions and other Web sites of interest.

This has the makings of a great resource for students and professionals alike.

Pulitzer Prize winning photographer David Leeson is speaking tonight, Sept. 21, at the University of Montana. Unfortunately, I am unable to go. For those of you who are not familiar with Leeson's work, he was a staffer at the Dallas Morning News where he won the Pulitzer for his coverage of Iraq. He is a great video journalist as well as still photographer. He works in fine art photography as well as photojournalism. He is incredibly smart. His lecture is at the University Center Theater at 7 p.m. If, like me, you are unable to attend, check out this short video I am borrowing from his Web site. It is the last speech he made as a Morning News photographer during a presentation for the Pacific Area Newspaper Publishers' Association. It is truly inspirational.



Check out his Web site, his images and his vision.

Photographer Craig F. Walker, with a team of editing and production support, has an incredible piece on The Denver Post Web site. For 27 months, the photographer and reporters followed Ian Fisher through recruitment, basic training, deployment to Iraq and eventually his return home from combat. (See the project here.)

I went to the New York Times Web site this morning and was surprised to find a familiar face on the front page. It was Scott Johnston, owner of the Montana Radio Café in Creston. I’ve met Johnston numerous times and written a story about him, as well as a blog. And Lido has an excellent slide show of photos taken when we hung out with Johnston for a morning to do an interview.

Click here for Lido's slide show and click "read more" for more information on Johnston.