In her 1977 collection of essays, “On Photography,” Susan Sontag identified a feeling of helpless voyeurism that comes over us as we look at photographs of people in the midst of conflict. She also wrote about how repeatedly seeing such images could anesthetize the vision and deaden the conscience. Sontag understood photographs of conflict to be making a utilitarian argument — that they could bring us into a state of productive shock — and showed that they seldom did what they claimed, or hoped, to do.

via Object Lesson – NYTimes.com.

Idaho resident John Cassinelli lost his digital camera when he went fishing on the Salt River two years ago. It was recently found by a couple who posted its images on Facebook.

via Lost Camera Survives Two Years Submerged In Wyoming’s Salt River : NPR.

In the same week that the City of Paris launched the Parisian Pact on Fighting Social Exclusion, a new photography exhibition featuring images taken by Paris’ homeless and most vulnerable citizens was inaugurated by Deputy Mayors Bruno Julliard and Dominique Versini this week. The photos are on display on the railings surrounding Paris City Hall.

via A new exhibition shows Paris through the eyes of the homeless – Paris.fr.

LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles Board of Supervisors yesterday approved a settlement with the ACLU Foundation of Southern California ACLU SoCal and three photographers who were detained by L.A. County Sheriff’s Department LASD deputies while shooting photos in public places.

via BREAKING: L.A. Board of Supervisors approve ACLU SoCal settlement on behalf of photographers detained by deputies | ACLU of Southern California.

The photographer, who deals his own work through the 15 galleries he owns, is hardly a household name, but Lik has quietly managed to turn himself into the Thomas Kinkade of photography, selling pretty, pleasing, banal images that are wildly popular with a certain class of inexperienced collectors, but are barely recognized by the art establishment.

via New York Times Exposes Peter Lik Photography Fraud – artnet News.

Recognising and rewarding the world’s best contemporary photography from the last year, the 2015 competition received the highest number of entries in its eight year history – 173,444 images from 171 countries – and a 24% increase on 2014.

via 2015 Sony World Photography Awards Shortlist Announced.

In the centre of this image, taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, is the galaxy cluster SDSS J1038+4849 — and it seems to be smiling.

You can make out its two orange eyes and white button nose. In the case of this “happy face”, the two eyes are very bright galaxies and the misleading smile lines are actually arcs caused by an effect known as strong gravitational lensing.

via A smiling lens | ESA/Hubble.

Japan-based vendors shipped 43.43 million digital cameras worth JPY964.5 billion (US$8.20 billion) in 2014, slipping on year by 31.0% and 17.5% respectively, according to Japan-based Camera & Imaging Products Association (CIPA).

Their shipments in 2015 are forecast at 34.7 million, decreasing 20.1% on year, CIPA said.

Canon disclosed it shipped 15.39 million digital cameras in 2014, 9.03 million of them being consumer models and 6.36 million DSLRs. Canon expects to ship 14.2 million digital cameras in 2015, consisting of 7.8 million consumer units and 6.4 million DSLRs.

via Japan digital camera vendors see decreased shipments in 2014, says CIPA.

When the Museum of Modern Art bought a large slice of Thomas Walther’s photography collection for an estimated $25 million in 2001, it decided to catalog its purchase with unusual dedication……

The resulting exhibition, “Object: Photo. Modern Photographs: The Thomas Walther Collection, 1909-1949,” is therefore not your typical self-congratulatory museum display of new acquisitions. The approximately 300 prints on the walls are backed up by a massive website and a hefty catalog, where an abundance of new insights can be found into the culture and technology that nourished experimentation between the world wars, a movement known as the “New Vision.”

via A New Vision of Photography – WSJ.

Bacani grew up in Nueva Vizcaya, in the Philippines, where she also studied photography while attending college, and later moved to Hong Kong to join her mother, also a domestic worker. There she works for an elderly woman, taking care of her grandchildren during their visits.

While working full-time as a “helper,” she took photos in her spare time, starting off with a Nikon D90 bought with money borrowed from her boss.

via The haunting street photography of a Hong Kong migrant domestic worker – Quartz.