Industry News

Canon Europe is entering a new era as a supporter of the UK fashion industry, becoming the Official Imaging Partner for the British Fashion Council.  As part of this new agreement, Canon is also continuing its sponsorship of London Fashion Week for all seasons from 2012 to 2014, and for the first time will also support Vodafone London Fashion Weekend and the British Fashion Awards.

James Leipnik, Chief of Communication, Canon Europe, Middle East and Africa, said: “Our sponsorship of the British Fashion Council extends our relationship with the fashion industry and support for professional photographers working in fashion. Canon’s passion for the power of the image has a natural affinity with the British Fashion Council’s aim to strengthen the UK’s reputation for developing design excellence.”

Supporting new designers is a key element of Canon’s sponsorship of the fashion industry. The British Fashion Council and Canon are working together to create the Canon Studio, an initiative designed to support emerging designers to develop visual materials and create look books.

At London Fashion Week and the British Fashion Awards, Canon will provide a photographers centre, offering a range of support services for all accredited photographers and videographers. On-site services include minor camera repairs, a camera and lens loan facility and a team of technicians on hand to handle any questions and help with difficulties.

Canon will also be the Digital Showcasing Partner at London Fashion Week, and will be screening content for guests in the Canon Cinema located in the Courtyard Show Space and the Canon Screening Room, located in the Embankment Galleries, situated within Somerset House. 

- London Fashion Week Spring 2012: 17-22 February 2012 
- Vodafone London Fashion Weekend: 23-26 February 2012

James and Ola Jordan, the popular and high profile professional dancers from BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing will be on the Olympus stand at Focus on the Sunday, Monday and Tuesday to help launch the new OM-D system camera.

They will be performing and conducting Q&A sessions as part of a packed programme of activity during the show that will also include Photo Critique sessions and equipment discussion with the Amateur Photographer and What Digital Camera editorial teams, Photography tutorials with Will Cheung of Advanced Photographer plus talks, presentations and demonstrations from a host Olympus users to introduce the OM-D.

Running from 5th-7th March 2012 and organised by photographer Kenny Bean, this festival brings together six exciting UK pinhole photographers for an exhibition at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and will include a series of workshops and discussions.

During the festival over 300 children from local Edinburgh primary schools will take part in pinhole photography workshops with photographer, Kenny Bean.  The workshops will be held each morning at the Festival Base in the Fletcher Building.
 
Each afternoon the large festival darkroom opens it’s door for all pinhole photographers to be able to use the darkroom as a base to develop images they have made of the Botanic Gardens or of the surrounding city, and make prints on ILFORD MULTIGRADE paper as paper negatives and contact prints. There will also be a chance for photographers to test out the new HARMAN Titan 5×4 pinhole camera from ILFORD PHOTO, and HARMAN DIRECT POSITIVE FB paper.

For beginners unfamiliar with the art, and who want to give pinhole photography a go, there will also be an open drop-in workshop each day from 2-3pm.

Kenny is very enthusiastic about the project and says, “Newcomers to pinhole photography can easily become absorbed by the long exposures, random creative outcomes and the pure fun of it all. Anyone can make their own camera out of a spare tin can then set up a darkroom in a cupboard for next to nothing and start making fabulous images. When creating the festival I wanted to bring together both experienced pinhole artists and total beginners in a celebration of the amazing technique of pinhole photography.”

Most of the events will take place in the large Fletcher Building at the Botanic Gardens Base where the darkroom is situated. Other workshops and events will take place at Stills Gallery and the Camera Obscura building in the city centre.

Full details on the artists that will be exhibiting and the events that will be happening during the festival can be found at www.pinholephotographyfestival.co.uk     

Full details of all ILFORD black and white products can be found at www.ilfordphoto.com.

For more information on HARMAN technology and its brands, visit:
www.harmantechnology.com // www.harman-inkjet.com // www.ilfordphoto.com // www.kentmere.co.uk // www.ilfordlab.com // www.harmanexpress.com
Thursday, February 9, 2012

Corel has announced that it has completed the acquisition of the Roxio business from Rovi Corporation. With this deal, Corel has expanded its product portfolio to include Roxio’s broad range of digital media and security solutions, including Roxio Creator, the industry’s most popular digital media suite and Roxio Toast, the media conversion software on the Mac platform. Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.

Corel now adds the Roxio product line, including the following well-known products, to its portfolio:

* Roxio Creator – Software to enhance, preserve, capture and share your digital media
* Roxio Toast – The ultimate multi-media toolkit for your Mac
* Roxio Game Capture – Software and hardware solution to record your console gameplay
* Roxio Easy VHS to DVD – Convert analog video tapes to digital video for sharing on DVD, online and mobile devices
* Roxio CinePlayer DVD Decoder – Watch your favorite DVDs on Windows Media Player
* Roxio BackOnTrack Suite – Complete media protection solution that automatically keeps your memories safe and protects your PC from both hardware and software disasters
* Roxio Secure Products – Powerful encryption for optical media and USB flash drives

“We want Roxio’s customers and partners to know that these products are an important addition to our portfolio and they will have a great home with Corel,” said Shawn Cadeau, Senior Vice President, Global Marketing at Corel. “We look forward to bringing together the best of what Corel and Roxio have to offer as we work to deliver even richer, more rewarding experiences to our customers.”

With this acquisition, Corel will take advantage of its well-established global infrastructure to dramatically broaden distribution of Roxio products into new international markets.

In addition, the company will draw upon the complementary video, photo, audio, and disc burning technologies found in both Roxio and Corel software to give users even more capabilities and further enhance Corel’s overall product portfolio. Corel also sees significant opportunities in combining the strengths of Corel’s and Roxio’s established retail and direct sales channels and large customer bases.

For more information on Corel, please visit www.corel.com. For more details on the Roxio product line, please visit www.roxio.com.

Leamington business CeWe Color Ltd this week welcomed MP for Warwick and Leamington Chris White as he arrived to meet the company’s apprentices. 

As part of National Apprenticeships Week, Mr White took time out of his busy schedule to take a tour round CeWe Color Ltd, which is currently training two apprentices through Warwickshire College. The apprentices are currently working towards a City and Guilds Level 3 qualification in photography.

The Warwickshire based business is Europe’s number one photo service company and specialises in producing everything form photographs, to photographic art on canvas, acrylic and aluminium along with photo books, gifts and greetings cards.

Commenting on his visit to CeWe Color Ltd, Mr White said: “I’m delighted to have had the opportunity to visit CeWe and see some apprentices in action. It’s a very good programme working closely with Warwickshire College. I’ve heard some very positive feedback from the apprentices and I wish them luck in the future.

“It’s been great to have this opportunity to visit CeWe during National Apprenticeship Week. It’s fantastic to see firms such as CeWe taking the opportunity to support young people into good professions. I look forward to working with Warwickshire College on how they can develop apprenticeships even further.”

David Farrar, Head of Operations at CeWe Color Ltd added: “It was a pleasure to welcome Chris White to CeWe and it meant a great deal to our apprentices that he took the time to come and meet them and find out about our scheme.

“It is vital that we have committed employees with a flair for the business, so we decided to look at the apprenticeship route and take on keen, enthusiastic, switched-on individuals with no experience but who we could mould. With youth unemployment rates growing all the time, our apprenticeship scheme demonstrates our drive and commitment to addressing this issue.”

Warwickshire College has an outstanding reputation for training apprentices in a vast range of areas from traditional trades such as bricklaying and building to business administration, marketing, arboriculture, dental nursing, horse care and floristry.

Assistant Principal for Creative Industries at Warwickshire College, Ian Coates, said: “I’m really delighted that we are making excellent progress placing apprentices within the creative industries sector.

“The apprenticeships that we have developed in partnership with CeWe Color Ltd have been designed to ensure that the apprentices are developing an appropriate skills base and knowledge. It is very pleasing that the partnership is working well and the apprentices are making excellent progress.”

For more information on CeWe Color visit www.cewecolor.de/en/company.html

To find out more about apprenticeships through Warwickshire College, visit www.warwickshire.ac.uk/apprenticeships.

Sport Photo Gallery in West Dulwich, London, has invested in an Epson Stylus Pro 9900 large-format inkjet printer to spearhead its expansion into large format print for both its retail sport and entertainment image sales and for its professional photographic print and finishing services.

Sport Photo Gallery sells classic and contemporary sport imagery and memorabilia products under licence from Getty Images online at www.sportphotogallery.com, offering prints in a range of sizes, media and finishing options; allied to this is Entertainment Photo Gallery, which features music, film and TV stars.

More recently, the company began offering printing and mounting services to professional and student photographers, via its Digilab London brand, providing the same quality and turnaround as central London labs but at significantly more attractive prices.

Previously, the vast majority of the prints made were produced on conventional photochemical paper via a high-end laser-based digital photolab system, but this was limited to a maximum print size of 20 x 32 inches. According to Sport Photo Gallery director Spencer Maclean, there is a growing demand for larger formats.
A large-format inkjet was the solution to both the size and media requirements.

With the advice of supplier CWE Solutions, who also provided a suitable RIP and support package, Maclean chose an Epson Stylus Pro 9900, a 44-inch width roll-fed printer that uses Epson’s UltraChrome HDR 11-colour ink set to provide an extended colour gamut on a wide range of media, with resolution up to 2880 x 1440 dpi for truly photographic-looking results.  Custom ICC profiles made by CWE Solutions for a variety of media enable the full colour potential of Epson’s extended ink set – which includes green and orange inks as well as various cyan, magenta, yellow and blacks – to be realised.

“The standard of the prints from the Epson is fantastic,” says Maclean. “We’re getting excellent quality blacks from the Epson and it’s great at accurately reproducing some reds – a colour that appears quite commonly in sportsmen’s kit.”

“We’re impressed with the quality of prints that Sport Photo Gallery is producing on the Epson Stylus Pro 9900,” says Martin Johns, Market Development Manager, Epson UK.   “The printer is ideal for their photo and fine art applications, which means they can guarantee consistent and accurate colour reproduction on a wide range of media, whatever the size.”

Most photographic images that are printed on the Stylus Pro 9900 are output to Fuji LFP satin paper and fine art is printed on Hahnemühle Photo Rag paper. One of the main benefits of the Stylus Pro 9900 is that it is possible to print on a wide range of media.

The package installed by CWE included a Shiraz RIP which is able to drive both the Epson Stylus Pro 9900 and an existing inkjet which is used for output to canvas, saving the cost and complexity of having two separate RIPs.

Maclean is impressed with the reliability and ease of use of the Epson Stylus Pro 9900 too. “We’ve had no problems at all in the short time we’ve had it,” he reports, “and it’s easy to understand and use – the media feeding and transport are simple to manage and cleaning is straightforward. It’s cheaper on ink than other manufacturers’ alternatives, too.”

Sport Photo Gallery has been promoting its new large format capability via the web site, offering prints from stock images at up to 60 by 40 inches (approximately 1.5 x 1m), with mounting and framing options. “Images have a huge impact at this size,” says Maclean, “there’s nothing like it when you see these large print come out. It’s another arm to our business, and we’ve had a very positive response from customers, especially on the Digilab side, where customers generally come back for more,” Maclean concludes.

Sigma has released the following statement:                 

“We would like to announce that Mr. Kazuto Yamaki, previously Chief Operating Officer, has been appointed as Chief Executive Officer of the Sigma Corporation and is now the sole director of Sigma Imaging (UK) Ltd.

Mr Kazuto Yamaki is the son of the late Michihiro Yamaki and joined the Sigma Corporation in 1993. His roles within the organisation have included Corporate Planning Division manager, Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer.

Mr Kazuto Yamaki is dedicated to the Sigma Corporation that his father founded 50 years ago and will continue in the tradition or innovation and cutting edge technology. A combination of experience, commitment and energy plus a genuine love of photography and consideration for the customer will ensure that Sigma’s future is in safe hands.”

Hasselblad is set to launch Hasselblad tv – an exclusive new multi-language online video platform that will ‘target and engage’ the company’s global audience of professional and aspirational photographers.

After two years of planning HTV will launch on February 2 offering viewers a range of channel options, including education and training videos, product information, global news and events plus peer videos submitted by Hasselblad photographers worldwide.

Chris Russell-Fish, Hasselblad’s Global Sales and Marketing Director said: “This is a very exciting project for us, our customers and trade partners like broncolor, Epson and SanDisk”.

“We are working with award-winning digital specialists Skylab to produce a comprehensive standalone platform – primarily an education and research tool of ‘all things Hasselblad’. It will be easy to use but with all the appropriate functionality, including options to download PDF information photographers may find useful after browsing a particular video.”

He added: “We all know there are countless thousands of videos available on YouTube but we wanted to create one single place where Hasselblad enthusiasts can go to access fundamental training on our camera systems; how to attach a back, for example, or tips and tricks on software techniques. We have emulated the excellent BBC iPlayer model but we also wanted to provide our service across a number of languages, including French, German, Italian, Spanish and Chinese. So an Italian architectural photographer will be able to simply access our Italian channel and watch a playlist of videos in that genre, in his or her native language.”

Hasselblad is now looking for photographers to submit videos of interesting shoots, stories and events. Of course Hasselblad will retain the right to edit material but there will be no overarching censorship criteria – other than the obvious and universal constraints of common decency. These videos are frequently between three and seven minutes long but if photographers submit material that is of particular interest but longer, then Hasselblad would still provide the space.

Added Russell-Fish: “This initiative is very much a work in progress and it’s a ‘call to action’ to photographers worldwide. We want everyone, from students to leading professionals – from those who rent Hasselblad cameras and those who own them – to submit their videos.”

Launch channels will include Hasselblad: products, company history, news and events; education and training – cameras, software, and innovation. Hasselblad Masters’ videos encompassing various photo-genres including architectural, editorial, fashion/beauty; fine art, landscape/nature; portrait/social and wildlife. Hasselblad is setting up initial bespoke channels for France, Germany, Italy, Spain, UK, USA & Canada, Asia Pacific and Europe – with more global channels to follow.

There will also be a Hasselblad Studio and a VICTOR Magazine/Bulletin channel.

Hasselblad tv is easily accessible on PC or Mac computers and on iPhones and iPads. Check out htv.hasselblad.com

High street photography operator Venture Photography has sealed an agreement with Fujifilm UK Ltd for the supply of chemicals and paper to its Cheshire based imaging laboratory.

The laboratory handles orders from all of Venture’s 40 plus franchised operations in the UK as well as from their operations in Hong Kong and the United States.

With this volume of business Venture needs to rely on its suppliers to ensure that they maintain the high service levels of service and quality that their customers demand.

Venture’s Production Director Mike Sweetman commented: “Naturally we spoke to a number of other imaging labs before making this decision.  Fujifilm was appointed because of its quality product, competitive pricing and strong customer service provision.

“We look forward to a successful relationship with the Fujifilm team, enabling us to continue providing unmatched levels of service to our franchise base.”

The agreement will see Fujifilm supplying Fujihunt Professional RA4 Chemistry and Fujicolour Professional Type DP2 photo paper.

Steve Pointon, Fujifilm’s Major Account Manager for the Business Imaging Group commented: “Venture Photography has carved out a reputation as a highly reputable and forward thinking High Street operation and we’re delighted to be working closely with them. Venture’s plans are very exciting and we look forward to having a part to play in the company’s future development.”

For further details on Fujifilm’s range of photofinishing products and services, contact photoimaging@fuji.co.uk

Color Confidence has confirmed their attendance at this year’s Focus on Imaging show, at the NEC Birmingham, 4th – 7th March. Located on stand C11, Hall 9, Color Confidence will be demonstrating colour management solutions from X-Rite, image enhancement software from Nik and high quality inkjet paper from Tecco. In addition, a monitor wall displaying the latest colour accurate screens from NEC and Eizo.

Geoffrey Clements, Managing Director, Color Confidence comments, “Focus on Imaging provides our customers with a real opportunity to learn more about the benefits that the solutions from Color Confidence and manufacturers such as X-Rite, Nik Software and Tecco can have on their images. We always look forward to this time of year when we can meet with our customers and work with them to improve their photography.” 

On stand C11, customers can get expert advice and demonstrations on the latest equipment, discuss colour and imaging issues with both the Color Confidence team, and representatives from manufacturers, and get outstanding show offers.

On Color Confidence stand C11 this year:

Nik Software - Will have a theatre, and will be demonstrating how you can get the best out of your images, with their innovative range of plug-ins and software. Nik software has some of the most popular image editing software available, including the award winning Silver Efex Pro 2, HDR Efex and Viveza 2. Richard West and Kevin Dobson from Nik will run through how you can produce outstanding results with these best in class software solutions.

X-Rite – Will be presenting their latest monitor calibration solutions the ColorMunki Display and the i1Display Pro, as well as the award winning ColorChecker Passport, the ever popular ColorMunki Photo and the professional i1Photo Pro.

Tecco – Will have their entire range of award-winning inkjet paper on stand, including the hugely popular and unique Silver halide effect, Iridium paper. Graham Hodgkiss, award winning photographer and camera club judge will be on stand presenting his images, and how they perform on Tecco paper. 

Color Confidence - Will be presenting a range of their own innovative solutions, such as the GrafiLite for desktop daylight lighting and Color Confidence Studio Photo and Studio View bundles. In addition, they have a full range of solutions available from Hanvon graphics tablets, to GTI viewing booths and mac accessories.

Noritsu – The Noritsu team will also be on stand with Color Confidence demonstrating the latest in both wet and dry mini-lab technology and discussing the new QSS38 series product launch.

Hanvon – Hanvon offer a range of professional standard graphics tablets which are ideal for artists, illustrators and graphic design professionals who want to work comfortably and easily as if drawing, painting or writing on traditional media but with all of the advantages of digital precision and flexibility. The ArtMaster III range, Hanvon’s flagship tablets will be available to try on stand.

Booq – The brand new Python range of Booq camera bags will be on display. Booq, who are famous for their creative solutions and high quality bags for the Apple Macintosh market have launched a brand new range of bags for photographers. The Python Courier, Python toploader, Python pack and Python Sling will all be on stand.

Monitor Showroom – Choosing the right monitor for colour accurate images can be a difficult decision. Color Confidence will have a wide range of monitors from NEC and Eizo designed to suit all budgets and requirements. The NEC SpectraView Reference and Eizo ColorEdge range will be on stand on the Color Confidence monitor wall and as demonstration screens throughout the stand. Come and get advice on choosing the right monitor for you.

For more information on Focus on Imaging visit www.focus-on-imaging.co.uk and to learn more about Color Confidence visit www.colorconfidence.com