12.31.2013 | Photography
We had a Michael Andrew follower comment on the blog that he was more curious about how the winner of the 2013 National Geographic Photography Contest got his winning shot of the submerged polar bear. I came across this article in which 52 year-old Paul Souders discusses exactly that. You can check out the article here. 
Winning photography of the 2013 National Geographic Photography Contest by Paul Sounders. He currently resides in Seattle, WA but spent some time in Manitoba Canada looking for polar bears to photograph. He only found one. ![]()
12.30.2013 | Featured Photographers
Kilian Schonberger is a young photographer from Germany. Despite being colorblind he had a goal of sharing his unique artistic perspective as a photographer. Instead of focusing on colors, which he has a hard time distinguishing between, he focuses on all the other principles of design (balance, contrast, emphasis, etc.).
His images range from nature/landscapes to conceptual art. He currently shoots with a Canon 5D II and 24mm and 17mm tilt-shift lenses. You can check out some of his beautiful landscape work here. You can check out his entire portfolio here. 
12.29.2013 | Photography
National Geographic never fails when it comes to acknowledging the world’s best photography. This years photography contest in no different. The winning photograph of a submerged polar bear is incredible to say the lest. You can check out all of the winning photos here. Check out the video below to see the judges discussing entries.
Winning photograph by Paul Souders![]()
12.28.2013 | Photography
The site Wired complied a list of their favorite images taken by NASA this year. Take a second to check out this slideshow of amazing images. There’s even one of Typhoon Haiyan that (as we know) devastated the Philippines.
You can view the slideshow here. 
Image of typhoon Haiyan by NASA
Pavlof volcano eruption by NASA![]()
12.27.2013 | Photography
PhotoStealers is a site dedicated to locating photographers that are potentially stealing the work of others. They present their case and provide their reasons for the accusations. They have brought to light some potential theft from some seriously big names in photography.
Right now it’s the case of Christopher Jones. He has over 84K “likes” on Facebook and has only been in the photography business for about a year. It’s understandable why he’s so popular as his images are pretty amazing. However, the accusation is that he’s using stock images and other licensed images illegally and passing them off as his own. He claims they are composite photographs and never intended anyone to believe otherwise.
There’s even more accusations being thrown around in the comments section on PhotoStealers site. Apparently, some believe his claim of losing his gear was a pure fabrication on his part in an insurance fraud scheme. There are photos posted of the police report that many believe are a fake and suggest the handwriting by both Chris and “the police” are the same. The police report was only presented by Chris after pressure from Facebook fans. Chris even created a donation page to replace his stolen gear. Then a couple weeks later the gear mysteriously was returned. The donation site was taken down.
The original article can be found here on PetaPixel. There you can find links to the PhotoStealers website where the accusations and reasoning is discussed at length.
At the end of the day, even the slightly bit of questionability can bring a business down. It’s simply not worth it. Complete transparency and honesty is always the best option. 
Photo posted by Christopher stating “I would say the sunrise at 7:30 with the storm moving in was pretty awesome….”
The stock image found by PhotoStealers. ![]()
