Are you ready to go out and photograph all the things around this weekend’s Presidential Inauguration and the Women’s March on Washington so you can submit your best shots to our 11th annual contest by the January 25 extended deadline?? Ok, just checking.

• And if you are attending any of those events, please be prepared, stay safe, and know your rights. You have lots of them, but it’s our job to remind you that you have rights as a photographer. Read this before you go out to shoot, and print out this handy card to take with you.
• Speaking of which, D.C.’s favorite Congressman to hate, Texas’ Louie Gohmert, decided to block a photographer trying to photograph protesters during confirmation hearings for Jeff Sessions.
• FotoDC this week launched the #NotASwamp project and contest, running through inauguration weekend. Winning images will appear on its website and in a special showcase and panel during the FotoWeekDC festival this fall.
• And don’t forget this group of local photographers who are soliciting your inauguration photos for a photobook, “UnPresidented: The Inauguration of Donald J. Trump and the People’s Response.” A Kickstarter campaign met its goal in just four days, but you can still contribute to get a copy. Their open call for submissions starts on January 22.
• It’s hard to think beyond this weekend for photo ops, but you’d be well advised to plan ahead for the upcoming Kusama exhibit at the Hirshhorn.
• Next Wednesday, you can find the entire Exposed team at the Corcoran’s thesis preview of the work by its New Media and Photojournalism students, including our very own Caroline Space. Come join us to support these young talents.
• See Miki Jourdan’s “Making America: Portraits from the nation’s capital” at Sidamo Coffee on H Street NE. He “rebuts Trump’s insults by documenting the proud, often joyful, character of our town.”
• Next Friday, January 27, 7 to 9 p.m. at the Leica Store DC, attend an opening reception for “Rolling Through The Shadows,” an exhibition of photos created by some of skateboarding’s biggest influences.
• A CBS News video report on the legacy being left behind by outgoing Chief White House Photographer Pete Souza.
• Harvard is putting their photography classes online for free.
• For more than a decade, photographer Mark Neville has been going into communities from Scotland to Pittsburgh, Helmand and beyond, capturing humanity with a clarity of purpose defined by social responsibility.
• When Joel Sternfeld had the chance to crisscross America with a camera, he got in his camper and never stopped. The 72-year-old photographer talks about his beguilingly sinister take on Americana.
• The George Eastman Museum, among the oldest archives of photography in the world, recently launched an online platform that allows you to search through over 250,000 objects from its collections.

If you haven’t heard already, our contest deadline has been extended! We realized just in time that we’d love to include images from the Presidential Inauguration and the Women’s March on Washington next weekend, so you now have until midnight, January 25 to enter. And if you’ve already entered, don’t fret! You can exchange photos in the sets you’ve submitted, or even increase your chances of winning by entering a whole new set. Just finalize everything by January 25! Our monthly happy hour / winners’ celebration has been moved to January 31.

• Joe Newman and Shamila Chaudhary are putting together a group of Washington, D.C. street photographers to document the day before, day of, and day after the presidential inauguration for a photobook “UnPresidented: The Inauguration of Donald J. Trump and the People’s Response.” A Kickstarter campaign met its goal in just four days, but you can still contribute to get a copy. More than two dozen photographers are on board, and an open call for submissions starts on January 22.
• An old camera store is reborn with a new name in a new space. Embassy Camera has moved from Dupont Circle to downtown, and is now called District Camera.
• This week the Cross MacKenzie Gallery in Georgetown opened “First Ladies” by Michele Mattei, featuring an exhibition of portraits of “eminent ladies who tore down barriers and brooked no obstacles in their paths to the top of their respective fields.”
• Here’s a wedding we wish we’d gotten an invite to. Last weekend, President Obama served as a groomsman in one of his aide’s weddings, while Secretary of State John Kerry officiated, and the local news station has all the photos.
• Got $149? Try out the new Lomo’Instant Automat, which should be a nice toy to get you through the winter.
• FStoppers asks, “Is photography overrun by white males?” and handily answers “ah yup.”
• Edward Burtynsky, the powerhouse environmental photographer, shows how Earth’s landscape is irrevocably changing in his new book, Essential Elements.
• The website Tiny Iceland has a guide for photographing the northern lights.
• Here’s a reflection on how street photography changes as cities themselves change.
• A long exposure video at Yellowstone shows how light pollution is changing even the darkest skies.
• Four-month old Elsa, a tiger cub born in a traveling circus and rejected by her mother, is being cared for by a couple at their home in Germany.

Finally, all of us at Exposed DC are terribly saddened about the death on Thursday of Faith Flanagan. Faith was a friend and a forceful supporter of the D.C. arts community. She will be sorely missed.

Our annual photography contest closes next Wednesday, January 11 — get your images of the D.C. area in soon to be part of the big event in March.

• ExposedDC founder Heather Goss was invited on local photographer Lynford Morton’s podcast, Shutterbug Life, to talk about how she organizes photography events in the city, and what she looks for in winning images for the annual contest. (Enter now!)
• Our In Frame curator, Caroline Space, went through all her 2016 selections and made a short gallery with her favorites from the year.
• Tonight at 6:30 p.m. attend a talk by local photographer Andrew Golda on his Keystone State documentary project about the landscapes and moods of Pennsylvania on the eve of the 2016 Presidential election.
• Marcel Heijnen takes photographs of cats in traditional Hong Kong shops.
• Photographer Tim Dodd bought an old Russian spacesuit and began the ongoing series The Everyday Astronaut. Hear all about his work on this episode of the podcast Are We There Yet?
• The Alexia Foundation is now accepting applications from photographers for its $20,000 Professional Grant program. The deadline is January 31, 5 p.m. EST.
• “This seems like the photo that will be in all of the next century’s history books. If there are still people here to study history.”
• “In a super shocking announcement” at CES 2017, Kodak is bringing back its Ektachrome 100 film in 35mm format, which they discontinued in 2012.
• “Great photo editors are great, exhibit #784.”
• The Guardian’s US picture editor, Sarah Gilbert, selects her favo(u)rite pictures from Obama’s presidency.
• Thai baby elephant Clear Sky enjoys a hydrotherapy session at a veterinary clinic. (Is the fourth image a meme yet?)

P.S. Save the date for our next happy hour, January 18 at Meridian Pint!

The end of 2016 is finally upon us. At ExposedDC, we want to sincerely thank all of you who follow along with us every day, contributing photos or enjoying the wonderfully creative work from our community. Whatever 2017 may bring us, we hope it includes meeting more of you at our monthly happy hours (sign up for our newsletter for alerts, plus get Friday Links right to your inbox by clicking Latest News), seeing the best of the best exhibited in our annual photography show (contest deadline is January 11!), and partnering with more great organizations to bring you exhibits and opportunities like our Crystal City Fotowalk and our Knowledge Commons DC classes. Do you want to work with ExposedDC, or have an idea you want to share? Drop us a line anytime.

• The Washington City Paper’s Louis Jacobson picks the best photographs displayed in D.C. in 2016.
• Photographer Mark Marchesi spent four years in Nova Scotia tracing images from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic poem, “Evangeline.”
• Enter Glen Echo Photoworks latest contest, seeking images that show the divisions in our nation’s capital right now, juried by Washington Post deputy director of photography Robert Miller. Deadline January 30.
• Exposed alum Andrew Golda hosts a talk about his Keystone State documentary photography project next Friday, January 6 at 6:30 p.m. Shot over two weeks in October, the project depicts the landscapes and moods of Pennsylvania on the eve of the 2016 presidential election.
• You can sign up now for this discussion on documenting D.C. since then 1960s at the Historical Society of Washington, D.C. (which has reopened since its mold problems a few months ago) on January 10.
• Science and photography! The Capital Weather Gang explains what’s really happening in this incredible photo of a “ghostly white fog bow.”
• Photographer Sam Hobson has “made it his mission to bestow some intrigue on birds and other animals by showing how they survive in and around cities and towns, even if we fail to notice.” (These close-up backyard birds at Colossal are pretty great too.)
• China shut down factories and banned cars from Beijing roads for two weeks ahead of a massive military parade so that it could go on under a clear blue sky. These photos from a week before the parade and the day after, once the bans were lifted, tell you everything you need to know about smog regulation. (Or just ask anyone who grew up in Southern California in the 90s.)
• The Guardian compiled their funniest and most unusual animal photos of 2016.
• A 440-pound Australian fur seal wandered down a Tasmanian street and settled on the hood of a car.

We hope you all enjoy some down time during the holidays, and use some of it to enter our 11th annual photography contest before the deadline on January 11. We’re already getting the big show together for March, and you don’t want to miss it.

And now it’s time for some eggnog, latkes, and Friday Links:

• This week we were immersed in the powerful images by AP photographer Burhan Ozbilici, who was on the scene when the Russian ambassador was shot in Turkey on Monday, getting this incredible image of the gunman as it went down. Vulture has a surprisingly interesting discussion comparing the series of photos to classical paintings of violence.
• A new documentary explores famed Scottish photographer Harry Benson’s life’s work (limited release outside the D.C. area; also for purchase on iTunes and elsewhere), which The Atlantic is previewing with a slideshow of his greatest hits.
• A photo op for those staying in town this weekend: Santa waterskiing on the Potomac.
• Karim Bouchetata captured gorgeous images of the first Sahara desert snow in 40 years.
• NASA released this 10-frame composite image of the International Space Station crossing the sun.
• “This image has magnificent little details.”
• The New York Times’ Year in Pictures is rough but necessary. The Washington Post picks their 87 best photos of the year. This might be a good time to think about subscribing to your favorite newspaper of record to support photojournalism: Washington Post; New York Times.
• Adding to the end of year links, here are National Geographic’s Best Photos of 2016.
• We missed this spectacular vampire cat back in November.
• Photographer Platon talks about taking images of 44 immigrants for the latest New York magazine cover story.
• Smithsonian has a list of 10 exhibits you should see over the holidays, with plenty of photography.
• Buzzfeed collected a set of photos that illustrate how climate change is affecting terrain around the world.
• “I have captured moments of grief and suffering, but mostly I found dignity and often joy.” Twenty-two-year-old photojournalist Alice Aedy shares the stories behind her encounters with refugee children.
• Parklife DC picks its 10 favorite local concert photos of 2016, including several by Exposed alum Paivi Solonen.
• Burger Days has their picks for Best Burgers of the Year but we vote them best mouthwatering burger photography of the year.