• The Uncommon District published a collection of photos documenting the Black Lives Matter protests around the DMV area over the past couple of weeks.
• A photography teacher at the Baltimore School for the Arts wanted to give seniors a sense of normalcy by documenting the missed milestone of prom so he offered socially distanced portraits. 
• Ernesto Bazan joins Focus on the Story today at noon for an online talk about his fourth book about Cuba, 25 de Noviembre, which he never expected to publish because until five years ago, he didn’t expect to return to the island where he had lived previously for 14 years before leaving with his family in 2006.
• Brisbane underwater photographer Jasmine Carey won the grand prize in the Hamdan International Photography award with her image of a humpback whale and its two-week old calf off the coast of Tonga.
• Winners of this year’s Sony World Photography Awards were announced earlier this week, selected from over 345,000 images submitted.
• Rey Lopez documented scenes of D.C.’s outdoor-only restaurants as Mayor Muriel Bowser’s stay-at-home order officially lifted two weeks ago. 
• The British Journal of Photography returns to excerpts of interviews with Carrie Mae Weems, Dana Scruggs, Lola Flash, and Mark Sealy who invite us to look and consider—to acknowledge and act upon injustices that pervade the past and the present.
• On Wednesday, photojournalists Laurel Chor and Leah Millis will join Focus on the Story for a discussion about Hong Kong’s struggle for democracy and their coverage of the movement.
• Stories That Move You, a Saskatchewan LGBTQ photography project launching both virtually and in person, features eight people who are part of the community. Each image also includes a description and audio recording of the person telling the story behind the image in their own words.
• Wednesday’s Flickr Explore page featured a curated selection of photos from the Black Lives Matter movement that includes the recent protests, historical photos from the Civil Rights movement, and other demonstrations and protests over the years.

• Focus on the Story is hosting a virtual happy hour critique session with the DC Street Photography Collective today from 4-6 p.m. Panelists include Ryan Madison, Ashley Tillery, Sofia Sebastian, Kanayo Adibe, and Tom Mullins.
• Women Photograph created “The Journal” as a way for members of the community to document their private spaces and daily lives during COVID-19. 
• Profoto is offering a chance to win a Profoto B10 with their #ProfotoPets competition running through June 24.
• Photography students in Paul D’Amato’s “The Documentary Book” class at Columbia College Chicago usually have individual final projects, but this year it will be a collaborative one as many students couldn’t complete their original projects due to social distancing measures.
• Professional adventure photographer Chris Burkard and National Geographic photographer Ami Vitale share tips on how to practice and hone your skills right now at home to become a better travel photographer.
• Mark Seliger, whose esteemed resume includes a decade as chief photographer at Rolling Stone and lots of work for Vanity Fair and GQ, discusses the role of fashion in his photography. He’s also partnered with Christie’s to auction off 25 iconic celebrity portraits with all of the proceeds going to charities of the celebrity subjects’ choice. 
• Join Exposed alum Geoff Livingston on a virtual tour of Olympic National Park on his Show Me video podcast. The full transcript with photos is also available here.
• Steve Benjamin is usually an aquatic photographer, but he’s turned his lens to birds visiting his backyard where he created a studio setting for wild birds by positioning a feeder in a small sunny area with nearby shade and mounted additional underwater video lights. The results are stunningly dramatic.

Join us for our next virtual roundtable on Thursday, May 28 at 6 p.m. where we’ll be exploring the theme of interesting angles. Have a photo that captured your unique perspective? We’d love to see it next week during the session. You can register here and get all the details in the confirmation email, including how to submit your image to share with the group.

• Landscape photographer Nigel Danson invited other photographers to edit his own images to see how different people would tackle the same task and showcase their unique editing styles.
• Virtual photoshoots are becoming more commonplace in the fashion industry as it adapts to the quarantine by creating content through phones and laptops.
• National Geographic and Blue Earth photographer and filmmaker Mike Snyder will be hosting an online workshop on documentary storytelling in the time of a pandemic for Photoworks, $350 for three sessions on May 23, May 30, and June 6 from 4-6 p.m.
• Winning images from the Landscape Photography Competition capture scenes all around the world, from natural wonders to man-made ones and beyond.
• Vogue’s international titles are addressing coronavirus with various approaches, from reimagining iconic covers with digitally-added face masks to a full CGI cover creation—the first ever for Vogue.
• Washingtonian asked local photographers to send in self-portraits from quarantine, and we are loving the results. You’ll notice some familiar names and faces in the unique approaches to the assignment. 
• Jean-Luc Feixa captures the bizarre and idiosyncratic objects on display in Belgian windows, which have transformed into a more intentional form of communication since the quarantine began.
• A freelance commercial photographer particularly vulnerable to the coronavirus found plenty to photograph at home, returning to a habit of his—family photo shoots.

• Join Focus on the Story next Friday the 22nd at 4:00 p.m. as Lloyd Wolf reveals the backstory behind his famous image of a young girl wearing a lion’s mask that appears in the opening title sequence for the show Homeland.
• Acclaimed photographers from around the world share a single image reflecting on their experience of the coronavirus outbreak.
• A group of wet plate photographers in North Dakota are mailing objects to each other to use as props in photographs created as part of a quarantine art collaboration.
• Leather Boyz, the second of four books to be published by Exposed alum Chris Suspect in 2020, explores the gay BDSM scene through 51 black and white images photographed over seven years. Presales for the book opened this morning, and the first edition will have a unique design featuring several gatefold spreads and a blue film dust jacket.
• BYT has started sharing COVID photo essay series, ranging from exploring all 131 neighborhoods of D.C. to remembering galleries and venues with Exposed alum Chris Chen. If you’d like to submit a photo essay, you can email info@brightestyoungthings.com. 
• If you’re looking for photography ideas to keep you busy at home, consider putting color theory into practice.
• “Crap Wildlife Photography” is a Facebook Group dedicated to hilariously bad animal photos, from unintentional photobombs to a bird’s awkward landing on water.

Thanks to all who have joined us for our virtual roundtables thus far; we’ve thoroughly enjoyed the experience and being able to hang out and see some of your work. We plan to keep these sessions going for the time being and hope you can join us! Our next virtual roundtable will be held on Thursday, May 14 at 6 p.m., and we’ll be exploring the theme of light and shadow. If you’d like to join, please register here. The confirmation email will include details for the meeting and how to provide the image you’d like to share with the group.

• Focus on the Story will award a grant of $2,000 to one visual storyteller to help in completing a project, reimbursing expenses for a recently completed project, or exhibiting, publishing or promoting a project that brings attention to a critical issue, bridges a cultural gap, or has the potential to spark social change. Proposals will be accepted through June 5.
• An-My Lê’s first retrospective slated to open at the Carnegie Museum of Art on March 14, the date the museum closed due to coronavirus, is now a virtual show with many of her images documenting cultural conflicts playing out in public spaces.
• Photoworks call for entries for their Gender|Space online exhibit closes this Sunday at midnight; the $25 fee includes up to five images.
• A photographer furloughed from his job with Lifetouch set out to document the evolving restaurant industry as owners adapt to stay open during the pandemic.
• The 2020 Pulitzer Prize winners were announced this week with Reuters being recognized for breaking news photography and the Associated Press for feature photography. 
• A new book invites people to dive into the history of the swimming pool through photography.
• The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is making the transition to digital exhibits later this month with an exhibit featuring the work of longtime entertainment photographer Kevin Mazur who has shot all but two of their induction ceremonies.