Happy New Year! As we kick off 2021, we invite you to share your favorite images that showcase what it’s like to live, love, and work in the D.C. metro area by entering our 15th annual photography contest! The deadline for entries is January 27 so you still have time to look over the images you’ve already taken or get inspired to create new ones that capture the beginning of this new year. Either way, we can’t wait to see this place we call home through your eyes!

• The New York Times recaps the strangeness and surreality of 2020 through images.
• Photographer Polly Irungu wanted to find a way to spotlight and support Black women photographers, so she created a community and database to do just that.
• A photo of two widowed penguins appearing to comfort one another in Australia was selected as one of the winners in Oceanographic magazine’s Ocean Photography Awards.
• New Atlas gathered their favorite images from the top photography competitions of the last 12 months.
• In the December 1955 issue, Popular Mechanics hopped in the cockpit with photographers of a growing profession called “jetography.”
• Video games have incorporated virtual photography, and Cyberpunk 2077 is even holding a photo contest for players: Shutterpunk 2077. 
• Earlier this month, Jupiter and Saturn appeared closer together in the sky than they have in centuries; Jason De Freitas photographed the Great Conjunction event, capturing the International Space Station appearing to fly between the glowing planets.
• The Phillips Collection’s Community in Focus photography project is now available in an online exhibition format.

Join us tomorrow night at 6 p.m. for the inaugural “People, Pixels & Prints” episode on Instagram Live. Host and creator Shedrick Pelt will be chatting with three photographers featured in the “rise up” exhibition chronicling the Black Lives Matter movement and uprising: Kenny Holston, Shelby Swann, and Mukul Ranjan. Follow @exposed_dc on Instagram and tune in tomorrow for a chance to win one of the prints discussed on the show!

• Camera collector William Fagan obtained a mysterious roll of film when he bought a Leica Illa years ago and just recently had it developed and is now looking for anyone who recognizes the people in the photos.
• As part of “The World Through a Lens” series from The New York Times, Richard Frishman shares a collection of powerful images that show the ghosts of segregation throughout the United States.
• Entries are now open for the Focus on the Story Portrait Awards 2021. The call is open to all genres of portraiture, including environmental, studio, fine art, family, candid, and street.
• Photoworks is holding a virtual benefit tomorrow at 7 p.m. that will include a photo raffle and a sneak peek of filmmaker and special guest Ann Segal’s new documentary “Light on Iowa” a conversation with photographer Nancy Rexroth.
• For forty years, respected community photographer and local activist Nancy Shia has lived in an apartment on the corner of Ontario Street and Columbia Road and taken countless photographs of the Columbia Heights, Adams Morgan, and Mount Pleasant neighborhoods.
• National Geographic shares 10 unforgettable images from their Year in Pictures issue.
• Nikon and the National Gallery are partnering on a free, joint webinar exploring the similarities and differences between photography and painting, focusing on still life. The session is Tuesday, December 15 at noon EST.
• Photographer Bob Gruen talks to NPR about his experience capturing the lives and performances of rock stars over the decades and key moments in his career.
• Ron Hoffer captured his experiences working in Eastern Europe in the tumultuous 1990s in a new photo memoir that was published in Germany before the pandemic hit and is now available in the U.S. The publisher’s website provides a sneak peek, and copies are currently available at Politics and Prose, through other independent booksellers, or directly from the author.

Exposed DC is always looking for ways to connect local photographers, which has proven to be more difficult and challenging this year. We look forward to connecting with you all in person one day soon, but in the meantime are excited to explore additional ways to connect virtually and share a love for photography with one another in safe and innovative ways. As such, we are excited to partner with sdotpdotmedia to present a new Instagram Live series, “People, Pixels & Prints.” Find out more about it here and save the date for our first episode on Saturday, Dec. 12 at 6 p.m.

• The Atlantic takes a look at how the preeminent photographic record of the Great Depression excluded people of color from the nation’s self-image.
• Exposed alum Geoff Livingston launched a Kickstarter campaign for his forthcoming photo book, #NotMyPresident: Five Years of Resisting Trump, that chronicles five years of protests. Geoff also shares some of his experiences documenting these events and how he views the protestors as heroes. 
• While the initial run of the DC Street Photography Collective’s (DCSPC’s) new book “Bad Day” has sold out, DCSPC will be holding the first four copies to be offered as collectors’ editions with signatures of the collective members and selected original prints included as well. Contact Ryan Madison, the founder of DCSPC, at thedcspc@gmail.com if you’d like to purchase one for $100, with all proceeds benefiting Critical Exposure.
• The Miami Street Photography Festival will be webcast today and tomorrow. A little bird tells us that you may see Exposed alums Tom Mullins and Marci Lindsay when they go over finalists.
• National Geographic’s expert photo engineer shares his picks for the best compact cameras for 2021.
• Photoworks is holding a silent auction with one item being auctioned off each day beginning December 1 and running through December 12.
• Blind photographer Pranav Lal captures images using sound, using a technology called “The vOICe” and smart glasses.
• Earlier this week, Art on a Postcard released its first series of photography boxsets, designed for photography enthusiasts who want to own limited edition prints at an affordable price.

• Focus on the Story grant winner Alessandro Cinque talks about his work exposing the toxic impact of Peru’s mining industry on the indigenous Quechua people.
• National Geographic shares 25 timely tales of timeless places they look forward to seeing for themselves once able to travel again.
• Bruno Barbey, Magnum photographer of war and peace, has died at the age of 79. He was described by a colleague as a “formidable visual architect” whose pictures told the story of the transformation and movements of the world.
• Jeff Koons is being sued by photographer Mitchel Gray for the artist’s use of one of Gray’s photographs for the 1986 painting “I Could Go for Something Gordon’s.”
• Organizers of the International Landscape Photographer of the Year contest share some of this year’s top and winning images.
• Photoworks’ online exhibition for “A Walk in the Park” opens this Sunday, and an artist talk will be held on Zoom on December 3.
• Baron Wolman, Rolling Stone photographer who captured classic images of the most influential musicians of the 60s and 70s, passed away earlier this month.
• Agora, a free photography app, challenged photographers around the world to submit their images of intriguing creatures, from birds to fish to majestic mammals.