Photography sites on the Net

It is often almost unbelievable the sheer beauty, depth of emotion and the clarity of understanding that can be gained from viewing an event or object that has been captured in a single, never-to-be-repeated-moment in time. Fortunately, the Internet does allow more of these fantastic pictures to be available for viewing by a wider audience than ever before, and that can only be a good thing.

When we think of amazingly beautiful photographs, the words National Geographic are often the first that come to mind.

Renowned throughout its publishing history for the quality of the artwork it uses, this magazine has made many of its stunning images available online in its Photography Index (http://www.nationalgeographic.com/siteindex/photography.html). There, you can also find a Funny Photos and ‘What in the World?’ Mystery Photo Game for children, as well as their Photo of the Day section complete with an archive of previous selections.

Other sites with notable Picture-of the-Day or -Week features, photo essays, and archives include: Reuters (http://photos.reuters.com/pictures/default.aspx),

Time magazine(http://www.time.com/time/potw), the Washington Post

(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/photo), the Los Angeles Times (http://www.latimes.com), the Dallas Morning News (http://www.dallasnews.com/photography/), and the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures).

Each year, major awards are given to the people behind the camera in honour of both their skill and their judgement, and the winners for 2005 can now be viewed at some of the major contests for photojournalism, including: the Pulitzer Prize (http://www.pulitzer.org), World Press Photo (http://www.worldpressphoto.nl), the National Press Photographers Association

(http://www.nppa.org/competitions/best_of_still_photojournalism/2005), and Pictures of the Year International (http://www.poyi.org).

Some other, non-journalism related awards worthy of mention are the Travel Photographer of the Year (http://www.tpoty.com) and the Wildlife Photographer of the Year

(http://internt.nhm.ac.uk/jdsml/wildwin/2004/ad_index.html), where you simply will not believe the winner’s description of how he took the shot!

There are a huge number of photography contests held each year and if you are looking to go beyond the sample listed here, check out Google’s Directory for Photography Awards (http://www.google.com/Top/Arts/Photography/Contests).

One award for 2005 that hasn’t been announced just yet is Visions of Science

(http://www.visions-of-science.co.uk), part of an effort to encourage greater interest in the sciences through the use of photographic art. In addition to their archives of past winners, you can see similar images at Eye of Science (http://www.eyeofscience.com) and at Science Photo Library

(http://www.sciencephoto.com).

It really is a whole new way to view, and think about, the world around us.

Linton Harrison is with Richmond Public Library. This column and its links can be accessed from the web version of the Richmond Review, found on the Richmond Public Library home page at www.yourlibrary.ca

This column and its links can be accessed from the Internet version of the Richmond Review, found on the Richmond Public Library's website at www.yourlibrary.ca.