Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Holga Digital Camera on Kickstarter

Mr. T.M. Lee, the 84-year-old creator of Holga cameras, has recently launched Holga Digital, revolutionizing the retro camera without the necessity of 35mm film. The new line not only reintroduces the iconic toy camera to the world with a fresh color pallet, but also allows users to instantly work on their photos using a WiFi SD card. 



The Holga Digital is a high-quality glass optic with F2.8 and F8.0 aperture settings to fit different environments and situations, giving users the freedom to experience the unique Holga image style. For users interested in further developing their own unique shots, Holga will also offer different lenses and mounted external flashes as available accessories.



Wednesday, September 9, 2015

PEAK DESIGN: Introducing SlideLITE, Miirrorless Camera Sling/Neck/Shoulder Strap

My friends at Peak Design have come up with SlideLITE, the world's first camera strap designed specifically for mirrorless and small DSLR cameras.Their current Kickstarter for their Everyday Messenger bag has reached 
11,703 backers and have pledged $3,331,288
The goal was for $100,000 and there is still 11 days to go! 
Use Coupon Code: Diaz for 10% off on any existing products 
bought on their website. 

THIS CAMERA STRAP JUST MIGHT BE OUR BEST ONE YET.
HELLO, SLIDE LITE
MIRRORLESS CAMERA SLING/NECK/SHOULDER STRAP
GOLDILOCKS WOULD TOTALLY DIG THIS STRAP.  Not too big and not too small, the all-new SlideLITE is the perfect fit for your mirrorless camera. Based on the award-winning Slide camera sling, SlideLITE features thinner 1.25-inch webbing that comfortably carries a small-bodied camera/lens combo, and gives you endless adjustability.
WATCH THE VIDEO

Pre-order it on Kickstarter.

JUST FOLLOW THESE STEPS:

1. Become a backer of our current Kickstarter campaign. 
 Click here  to do that. Join at any reward level (or, don't select a reward level). Already a backer?  Click here instead.
2a. Add $50 to your pledge. You can add those funds when initially backing this project, or you add them after the fact by clicking "Manage My Pledge" at the top of the page.
--OR--
2b. Choose the $375 reward or higher. You now have the option to choose SlideLITE instead of Slide in these rewards.
3. You're done for now. After this project is complete (late September) we'll send you a survey where you'll specify that you want a SlideLITE.
If you pre-order SlideLITE on Kickstarter it will ship with the rest of your Kickstarter rewards in the Nov-Dec timeframe.
PRE-ORDER ON KICKSTARTER

Pre-order it from a retailer.

JUST VISIT ONE OF THESE WEB STORES:
If you pre-order from a retailer your SlideLITE will probably ship in the next couple of months.

New pics of our new bag.

IT LOOKS BETTER AND DOES MORE. We've been busy making final design tweaks to The Everyday Messenger, getting it ready for mass production. If you haven't checked out our Kickstarter page recently, you're in for some pleasant surprises.
TIME IS WINDING DOWN to pre-order The Everyday Messenger, The Field Pouch, CaptureLENS, SlideLITE and a host of other gear on our current Kickstarter campaign. We'd love your support, so we can continue designing beautiful, functional gear for photogs, travelers, adventurers and creatives.
SUPPORT US ON KICKSTARTER

Wednesday, September 2, 2015

LEICA LOUNGE: With Carl Juste | Thursday, September 3, 2015 | 7:00pm - 8:30pm


Free Event

Join us in the Leica Lounge on Thursday, September 3, 2015 with Miami Herald photographer Carl Juste. Carl will be talking about the value of still images and why they still matter.
#Still Image Still Matters
With the onset with the digital age, are we moving so fast that we have forgotten to slow down gather are thoughts, reflect on our lives, and critically think and question before we act? The thirst to be first has been replaced with the hunger for the latest devices, technological advances, and coolest perspectives causing audiences to suffer from a saturation of visual stimuli, demanding the next photographic fix at any cost.
Photographic trends change like the newest fashion or dance step.  We, as visual communicators, are forced to feed the beast moving as if the photographic process travels at the speed of light, but at what cost? What would happen if we actually slowed down? If we stopped treating our subjects as just visual props?  
The photographic process has been my passport to understand my engagement with the world.  In other words, "it has always been personal."  Caught in fraction of seconds to move audiences for years, is why I make images. The still image is not solely a product of reflection, but the source of initial investigation. Simply put it is the universal visual question of "why?".  
The still image makes us pause as it translates our visual sensibilities into the singular definitive moment.  As photojournalists, we produce the most democratic contemporary art form.  The still image is the reoccurring birth of our values, prejudices, fears, and hopes presented in the visual language with no need of any additional interface.  The strong still image requires no advocate.  It stand alone regardless of it author.  It can be designed with purpose or an outcome of coincidence.  The still image still matters because its value is not how fast it moves but how quickly it moves its audience. 
Leica Lounge is a lecture series hosted by Leica Store Miami which features presentations by local members of the photography community. Held monthly, these free events are designed to create and inspire the local photography community through sharing images and exchanging ideas.
The Leica Lounge is kindly sponsored by Brooklyn Brewery. Participants will be able to sample some of their amazing craft beers during the event. Brooklyn Brewery is one of the largest craft breweries in the United States, producing a portfolio of traditional and experimental beers sure to impress any beer drinker.
About Carl:
Under threat of persecution, Haitian-born Carl Philippe Juste and his politically active family were forced to flee their homeland in 1965. Settling in Miami’s Haitian community, Carl flourished academically and attended the University of Miami. He vigorously pursued photojournalism and, since 1991, has worked as a photojournalist for The Miami Herald. He has carried out extensive assignments for the Miami Herald in Haiti, Cuba, Brazil, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Juste has received numerous awards for his work,including the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award. His work has been exhibited in various prestigious institutions and galleries in Cuba, the Dominican Republic and the United States. Carl-Philippe Juste is one of the co-founders of Iris Photo Collective in 1998, a collaboration to create a new context in order to explore and document the relationship of people of color to the world. In the spring of 2010, Juste founded the IPC Visual Lab, a unique photography course that examines visual storytelling in the classical vein of photojournalism. Carl-Philippe Juste is currently working on his first book, Havana and Haiti: Two Cultures, One Community.

To view more of Carl's work, visit his website.


Wednesday, August 5, 2015

LEICA LOUNGE: with Mary Beth Koeth | Thurs., August 6, 2015 | 7 PM


Join us in the Leica Lounge on Thursday, August 6, 2015 with local editorial and portrait photographer Mary Beth Koeth. Koeth, who graduated from Miami Ad School's photography program, has received acclaim for her quirky documentaries including: Miami BoyfriendsUnstoppable, and Off-Season Santas (pictured above). She will present her work and talk about how we can all use photography to tell meaningful stories.
Leica Lounge is a lecture series hosted by Leica Store Miami which features presentations by local members of the photography community. Held monthly, these free events are designed to create and inspire the local photography community through sharing images and exchanging ideas.
The Leica Lounge is kindly sponsored by Brooklyn Brewery. Participants will be able to sample some of their amazing craft beers during the event. Brooklyn Brewery is one of the largest craft breweries in the United States, producing a portfolio of traditional and experimental beers sure to impress any beer drinker.
About Mary Beth:
Mary Beth Koeth was born on June 2nd, 1982 in Ohio. She’s the youngest of five kids whose names all begin with M...she’s still not sure why her parents, Mike and Marlene, thought that was a good idea. Koeth went to an all-girls college prep where she spent the majority of her time in the darkroom sniffing hazardous chemicals and forgetting to shave her legs. She spent three and a half years at Texas Tech University and a semester in Florence and graduated with a Design Communication degree.
Armed with visions of power suits and briefcases, Mary Beth moved to Kansas City to work as a designer for Hallmark Cards. She later moved overseas to further her greeting card design skills with Hallmark UK. Koeth spent her weekends traveling Europe with a camera in hand and soon realized her goal of going back to school to pursue photography seemed fathomable. She spent two and a half months in Norway assisting photographer, Nancy Bundt and observing tall, blond men. She's also interned for Miami photographer, Sid Hoeltzell and Joe Pugliese in Los Angeles.
To view more of Mary Beth's work, visit her website.

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

FROM WITHIN AND WITHOUT: The History of Haitian Photography, Exhibition June 21 - Oct. 4, 2015

NSU ART MUSEUM FORT LAUDERDALE
June 21 through October 4, 201
One East Las Olas Boulevard
Fort Lauderdale, Fl 33301
Photography has provided ongoing and important narratives of Haiti’s people, art, culture and politics since the From Within and Without: The History of Haitian Photography. 
advent of the medium in the 19th century. From June 21 through October 4, 2015, NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale will present the first comprehensive museum survey of photography in Haiti in the exhibition 
The exhibition’s nearly 350 works from the late 19th century to the present engage the history of photography in Haiti with the work of contemporary artists and photographers, offering a fascinating perspective on life in Haiti and how political and natural crises have been perceived by native and foreign photographers and photojournalists. 
From Within and Without is organized by NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale and is curated by Haitian-American artist Edouard Duval-Carrié.
From Within and Without features documentary, commercial, and official state photography, along with photographs from studio archives, family snapshots, and graphic arts that incorporate photography and film, documenting Haiti’s public and domestic architecture, its landscape, political history, natural disasters, and events that exemplify the richness and vitality of Haiti’s past and present.
By the late 19th century, photographic studios had been set up in major cities throughout Haiti to document the grandeur and respectability of Haiti’s political elites and wealthy merchant classes. Photography quickly became a tool for capturing Haitian life in broader terms as photographs were made of its less affluent classes, as well as aspects of the social unrest and injustice that plagued the island nation. 
Albums and photographs dating from the 1890s through the 1970s display rural habitats and Haitian landmark sites such as Port-au-Prince’s Metropolitan Bazaar, National Bank of Haiti, Cathedral and Palace. Subjects include photographs of Haitian presidents, such as Francois Duvalier, Elie Lescot, Paul Magloire, Stenio Vincent, military leaders, farmers, families with their children, Vodou priests and festivals, baptisms and marriages, and numerous political events, such as the election rallies of 1913. 

The power of photographs became particularly acute in shaping public opinion about Haiti during moments of political and natural upheaval. Photojournalist Carl Juste’s Ready to Vote, February 7, 2006, and Ruined Prayer, January 12, 2012, taken just after Haiti’s catastrophic earthquake bring the politics and religions of Haiti and its natural tragedies to life. Haitians are survivors and bravely continue to preserve their traditions and assert their voices, as demonstrated in the riveting photographs of Pablo Butcher dating from 1986 and the overthrow of the Duvalier regime, to 1995, when the United States intervened to reinstate Jean-Bertrand Aristide as Haiti’s democratically elected leader. Butcher’s photographs of people gesturing in front of wall murals, which were destroyed during the earthquake, are not only compelling but are among the only documents of these historically significant murals. Maggie Steber’s photograph Mother’s Funeral, Port-au-Prince, Haiti, November 1987 and Paolo Wood’s Graduation, 2012, provide windows into multiple components of Haitian contemporary life. 
Selections of works by contemporary photographers such as Phyllis Galembo, Leah Gordon, Mario Delatour, Maksaens Denis, Maggie Steber, Stephane Kenn de Balinthazy, Jean-Ulrick Désert, Andrea Baldeck, Pablo Butcher, Antoine Ferrer, Adler Guerrier, Carl Juste, Daniel Morel, Gary Monroe, Chantal Regnault, Roberto Stephenson and Paolo Woods are also included in the exhibition. 
The exhibition’s examples of photography by Haitian and other artists and photographers are transient, living records of the tumultuous life of the oldest independent nation in the western hemisphere and provide new perspectives on photography and the visual that offer a broader understanding of Haiti, its history, and its citizens. 
Also on view at NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale is Edouard Duval-Carrié’s, The Indigo Room, Or is Memory Water Soluble, a room-size, mixed media installation that brings to life the story of the historical and contemporary Haitian experience. The work is part of the museum’s permanent collection and is on display in its lobby.





Thursday, June 18, 2015

LEICA LOUNGE: Leica Store with Richard Sexton | Thurs, June 18, 2015 | 7pm - 8:30pm

Free Event

Thursday, June 18, 2015
Leica Store Miami.
372 Miracle Mile Coral Gables, FL 33134

This event is kindly sponsored by Brooklyn Brewery. Participants will be able to sample some of their amazing craft beers during the event. Brooklyn Brewery is one of the largest craft breweries in the United States, producing a portfolio of traditional and experimental beers sure to impress any beer drinker.
About Richard:


Richard Sexton is a widely published and exhibited photographer, who is also a lifelong Leica photographer, beginning with a used M4 in the 1970s and continuing to the present day with the M240 and M Monochrom. He will discuss his most recent published project, Creole World: Photographs of New Orleans and the Latin Caribbean Sphere, which is both a book and exhibit. Creole World, the exhibit, is currently on view in Miami at the Frost Art Museum from June 13 to August 23, 2015.  He will also discuss and show work from his current project, Enigmatic Stream: Photographs of the Industrial Landscape of the Lower Mississippi River. Afterwards, he will be signing copies of Creole World, and his monograph from 2007, Terra Incognita: Photographs of America’s Third Coast. More information about his work and career in photography can be found on his web site: www.richardsextonstudio.com