• We still have more than a week before the cherry blossoms reach peak bloom. Get inspired with some new ideas for how to capture them with this Capital Photography Center field class on Sunday.
• Head to Johns Hopkins SAIS on Tuesday for a special event about the sights, sounds, and stories of pre-war Syria, including documentary photography by Jason Hamacher from his travels between 2005 and 2010.
• The National Endowment of the Arts recently reported that photography and photo services contribute $10.2 billion to the U.S. economy.
• 25 artists have been shortlisted for the Contemporary African Photography Prize.
• Estevan Oriol started documenting L.A. street culture over 25 years ago, photographing communities he was part of and sides of the city often misrepresented.
• Photographer Bex Day has embarked on a project to make stock photography more inclusive of transgender persons.
• This U-2 pilot captured the Northern Lights from a new high. The results are nothing short of incredible.
• Make of this one what you will: Government photographers may get a few more jobs now that the “Ego Act” has been signed into law, banning government officials from using taxpayer dollars to get their oil portraits done.
• See the winners of Smithsonian Magazine’s 2018 photo contest.
• Enjoy these moody animal portraits by George Wheelhouse.

We’re loving the entries that so many of you submitted to this year’s contest! Check back with us on March 13 when we announce the winners that will be showcased in our 12th annual Exposed DC Photography Show, and join us for happy hour that evening at Meridian Pint.

• Update: Reception postponed to March 8 from 6:30-8:30 p.m. See an exhibit of Everitt Clark’s large format photography in “Treasures of the Heart,” a study of the prized possessions of people with hoarding tendencies, at the Arts Club of Washington through March 30.
• The National Gallery of Art is opening “Sally Mann: A Thousand Crossings” this Sunday, with her photographs that “explore the overarching themes of existence: memory, desire, death, the bonds of family, and nature’s magisterial indifference to human endeavor.”
• In “My Camera, My Voice” at Glen Echo Photoworks, Michael A. McCoy photographs the daily struggles and joys after soldiers return home from combat. Reception and gallery talk Sunday, 6 to 8 p.m.
• Get to Glen Echo earlier on Sunday for a panel on “Building a Successful Photography Career” with Sora DeVore and Rebecca Dobris. Arcade Room 202/203, 4 p.m., $15
• An amateur Argentinian astronomer accidentally photographed the moment a supernova exploded.
• Fund your next photojournalism story by applying before March 9 for the Howard G. Buffett Fund for Women Journalists. Awards are given out twice a year.
• Next Thursday, attend a discussion on using photography for “investigation and storytelling relating to the politics of land, landscape and environment.” 6:30 p.m., free.
• The “violence of flash photography” is a fascinating assertion in Aeon this week.
• American sociologist Lewis Hine’s photographs both documented and impacted the conditions of ordinary working people and migrants at the beginning of the 20th Century.
• Sometimes photography is a team effort. Leah Millis writes about how she got the photo of Hope Hicks that went viral this week.
• If beaches aren’t beautiful enough for you, how about ones aglow with bioluminescent creatures?
• Justyna Badach spent a year inventing a new developing process to incorporate gunpowder into images.
• Oh look, a yellow cardinal! (Thanks to a “one in a million” genetic mutation, not Photoshop.)

Time’s running out to submit your photos of the D.C. metro area to our annual contest. The winners will get to show off their work at our blowout exhibition at Dupont Underground this May. See the rules and get them in by February 28!

• The new exhibit “The Ties that Bind: The church, identity, activism, & community in the African American experience” features several Exposed veterans. Register for the reception on Thursday, Feb. 22 from 5 to 7 p.m.
• See photography and other media works at Civilian Art Projects in “Alternative Evidence.” Reception this Saturday, 7 to 9 p.m.
• Exposed team member Julian Thomas is showing his work and giving a demo next Friday, Feb. 23, at Beyond Studios.
• A graduate student photographed a single atom in an ion trap. The image won a science photography competition organized by the U.K.’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.
• Maggie Steber is best known as a documentary photographer, but she will be sharing a more personal fine art project at the Focus on the Story International Photo Festival in June. Get a sneak peek in this interview.
• Aspiring photojournalists should get tickets now for the 2018 WPOW Seminar and Portfolio Review at the Corcoran on March 11.
• The White House refuses to release the photo showing President Trump signing House Joint Resolution 40, which made it easier for people with mental illness to buy guns and rolled back a rule President Obama pushed for after Sandy Hook. CBS News has made 12 requests for the photo.
• On that note: The New York Times is hiring a staff photographer to cover the White House and Capitol Hill.
• Photographers at Food & Wine magazine have a talk about the evolution of food photography, from Irving Penn to IG trends.
• Wired magazine makes the case that Rachel Morrison, the first woman to be nominated for an Oscar in cinematography (for the movie Mudbound), is a superhero in her field. See her work in Black Panther, which, of course, opens today.
• Hold your breath and enjoy this year’s winners for the Underwater Photographer of the Year.
• Stretch your skills with these cool sports photography classes held at local college games with Capital Photography Center.

 

Join us TONIGHT for the opening of our latest Crystal City Fotowalk exhibit.

We’re featuring a series of work from 13 local photographers. You can start the walk by taking a left off the Crystal City metro, and once you reach the end (there’s a break in the exhibit past Synetic theater) join us for a First Friday reception at Gallery Underground between 5 and 8 p.m.

• Focus on the Story has announced that its first International Photography Festival will be June 7 to 10. Get a preview of the wonderful line-up on their site with this interview with Martin Parr.
• Order the inaugural issue of MFON: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora featuring over 100 photographers,  and then clear your afternoon for a discussion and signing from 2 to 4 p.m. today at Howard University.
• Bayard Wootten first picked up a camera in 1904, and was so successful at selling her personal postcards, she was hired as the first woman in the North Carolina National Guard, who dubbed her “Chief of Publicity.”
• WETA launched the miniseries “Animals with Cameras” this week. Look up broadcast times here.
• An investigation by Vox revealed that photo editor Patrick Witty was fired from National Geographic after allegations of sexual harassment, but the publication didn’t explain this to the staff until Vox forced its hand.
• Washington Post photographers produced a series on “What Unites Us?“
• Shutterfly announced plans to buy photography company Lifetouch, which takes school photos of around 25 million kids, for $825 million.
• People just can’t seem to get enough of spiritualism and ghost photography.

In case you missed it, we decided to extend our contest all the way to February 28. That gives you plenty of time to send us your best images of life in the D.C. region and increase your chances of being part of our annual show at Dupont Underground in May.

We have a lot of great events in the meantime! Join us for our January happy hour this Tuesday at Board Room. Then on Friday, February 2, we’re opening a new exhibit at the Crystal City Fotowalk! You can see the exhibit up now anytime, but we hope you’ll join us for a glass of wine and meet the talented photographers we’re featuring in this round.

On to Friday Links!

• “The Wonder People” exhibit opens today at the Glen Echo Photoworks Gallery and runs through Feb. 25 with a reception and gallery talk this Sunday from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. The exhibit features Dorte Verner’s portraits of refugees from around the world.
• Register to attend a photography exhibit, reception, and conversation on the impact of photojournalism and creative storytelling on policy at Johns Hopkins SAIS on Feb. 1. Free to attend.
• Head to the opening of “You, if no one else,” the Arlington Arts Center’s winter group exhibition, including photography by Danielle A. Scruggs among other artworks. Saturday, 6 to 9 p.m.
• National Geographic photographer illustrates glacial retreat by making long exposures while carrying a torch along the glacier’s former boundaries.
• After the New York Times revealed the extent of sexual harassment by fashion photographers Bruce Weber and Mario Testino, publisher Condé Nast cut ties with them and created a code of conduct to protect its models during shoots.
• A former Department of Energy photographer has filed a federal whistleblower suit stating that he was fired after leaking photos of Rick Perry meeting with the CEO of Murray Energy.
• This one is for all you Star Wars geeks.
• The New Yorker profiles photographer/filmmaker Khalik Allah and his images of Harlem at night that “have a spiritual essence, an element of passion and grace.”
• Christopher Payne’s photo essay on one of America’s last remaining pencil factories may cause unexpected feelings of nostalgia.