After weeks of judging, the Photos of the Year International contest has posted its winners. Some of our friends walked with honors. Victor Blue won a best newspaper story award for his work in Afghanistan. Also, Brian Frank won the Global Vision Award for The Death of the Colorado. The whole winners gallery is filled with incredible, deserving images from the last year.

Sorry for the inconvenience regarding the site. Every so often a hackerbot makes it through our security net and ruins it for everyone else. I’ve reuploaded the key files and asked Google to remove the warning. Thanks for your patience.

Sepiatown is a rad site that links history, photography and geography. It uses google maps to search certain cities including NYC and SF for historical photos taken on specific blocks. It’s definitely worth playing around with and realizing how much different everything looked a hundred years ago. And how much the same it really is.

Mulberry Street in the late 1800s

Our friends at Say Mayday just finished Part 2 of Alex Klein’s Shotwell episode. It discusses the process of making God Went Surfing With The Devil. Incidentally, the film premiered at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival last month. There are still more festivals, but Alex is working on a distribution deal. You will be able to see it one day.

Mike Belleme did his first assignment for The New York Times. The article about a German family moving to Tennessee so they can legally homeschool their children.

A few years ago, Devon Blood was shot in the head trying to stop burglars from entering his girlfriend’s apartment. Amazingly, he survived. Devon worked as an artist at the tattoo shop next to the skate shop where I worked at the time. Unfortunately, he lost precise control of his right hand and has since learned to tattoo left-handed. He’s currently working on a book of his story and artwork. Check out the Devon Blood website for more information on his story and path to recovery. Hell, go to SF and get a tattoo from him.

Sandy does an interview on Platform.

Working on the Bjork video for “Wanderlust” a few years ago, I met Greg Dinkins the president of The New York Stereoscopic Society. In addition to being a very genuine guy and big supporter of Lovebryan, he’s also really passionate about 3D photography. His newest endeavor is a series of books featuring historical stereoscopic photography. I just received a copy of Native Americans & The Wild West in 3D. It’s amazing. The book comes with a built-in stereoscopic viewer to look at 45 antique photos. The depth is incredible and you can totally get lost in each image. It’s interesting to think that Avatar is just following up on a photography fad from the 1850s.

Lafleur and her friend Owen have been quietly working away out in Egypt. They recently lent their eyeballs to a CNN Traveller for a story about French-influenced architecture in Cairo. There’s also a gallery of images.

The winners of this year’s World Press Photo have been announced. It’s definitely worth a look.