Kodak Introduce Improved Versions of its KODAK PROFESSIONAL PORTRA 400-Speed Colour Negative Films

Technology innovations result in finer grain and better scanning

In a move that underscores its ongoing support of the professional photography market, Eastman Kodak Company (NYSE:EK) has announced improved versions of its KODAK PROFESSIONAL PORTRA 400NC and 400VC films. The latest enhancements to the award winning KODAK PROFESSIONAL PORTRA colour negative film family build on the successful introduction of improved PORTRA films in 2006. The finer grain of the PORTRA 400NC and 400VC films, combined with the spectacular skin tone of the entire portfolio, enable professional photographers to create striking, breathtaking photographs.

“In the past 18 months, since we introduced the new generation of PORTRA film, we’ve sought ways to refine and improve the films to provide even better options for professional photographers,” said Mary Jane Hellyar, president, Film Products Group and executive vice president, Eastman Kodak Company. “These new 400NC and 400VC films, with their even finer grain, will enable photographers to create stunning images with spectacular skin tones and, in addition, provide improved scanning performance for greater enlargement capability.”

The new films offer:

- Finer Grain: Extended use of antenna dye technology enables PORTRA 400NC and 400VC films to deliver finer grain than ever before.
- Outstanding Scanning Results: With finer grain and an emulsion overcoat specially designed for scanners, PORTRA 400 films reproduce...

Polaroids by Andrey Tarkovsky at White Space Gallery, London
22 Nov - 20 Jan 2008



White Space Gallery, in association with the Tarkovsky Foundation, is to display forty-five previously unseen photographs by the legendary Russian filmmaker Andrey Tarkovsky (1932-1986). This touring exhibition will coincide with the launch of the book, Bright, bright day, published by White Space Gallery and the Tarkovsky Foundation, as well as the release of a limited edition portfolio of polaroids. These events, and others celebrating the 75th anniversary of the filmmaker’s birth, including screenings at the Curzon Mayfair (7-13 Dec), are part of the Tarkovsky Festival in London (Nov 07- Jan 08).

Andrey Tarkovsky is considered by many to be one of the greatest filmmakers the world has ever seen. Although he made just eight feature films before his life was cut tragically short by cancer, at the age of 54, each is an artistic masterpiece and a major landmark in world cinema. The focus of the exhibition is an array of previously unseen polaroids from the Florence-based Tarkovsky Foundation archive, which is maintained by the filmmaker’s son Andrey Tarkovsky. Taken in Russia and Italy between 1979 and 1984, ranging from romantic landscapes and studied portraits to private shots of the auteur’s family and friends – including the distinguished scriptwriter Tonino Guerra – all the photographs demonstrate the singular compositional and visual-poetic ability of this master image-maker. This show pairs Tarkovsky’s polaroids with projected scenes from his...

The Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM)
www.ciwem.org
For Immediate Release: October 2007

PICTURING THE ENVIRONMENT

Photo journalist Sudipto Das is the Environmental Photographer of the Year.

Over 600 international amateur and professional photographers entered this year’s Environmental Photographer of the Year competition. Entries to six categories were judged by some of the most respected environmental photographers in the industry, including Gary Braasch, winner of the Ansel Adams Award for Conservation Photography, Anthony Epes and Ronnie Israel.

Sudipto Das became the Environmental Photographer of the Year after his image Hard World won the Urban Environment category and was then selected by Chief Executive of the Environment Agency, Baroness Barbara Young, as the overall winner.

Baroness Barbara Young said:

"This photograph brings home just how many people are excluded from access to good environments due to poverty. This is a beautiful and heartbreaking image."

As Environmental Photographer of the Year, Sudipto received £500 courtesy of competition sponsor, Black and Veatch, the global engineering, consulting and construction company. On receiving his award, Sudipto said:

“My photograph is one of the most interestingly candid photographs I have ever taken in my career. It portrays the socio-economic condition of third world countries - lack of housing, inappropriate hygiene and unhealthy environments increase the risk of exposure to diseases and street violence for poor children such as the boy in the picture.”

“I am grateful to the honourable judges who have selected...

London, Oct. 9, 2007 –

The World’s Sharpest, Finest-Grained 400-Speed Black-and-White Film

Enabling Professional Photographers to Capture the Truth of the Moment

For decades, the world’s greatest photographers have trusted Kodak’s black-and-white films to help them achieve the best of their artistic visions. Today Eastman Kodak Company (NYSE:EK) enhances its black-and-white professional film portfolio with the introduction of an improved KODAK PROFESSIONAL T-MAX 400 Film.

The new film, utilising Kodak’s patented T-GRAIN emulsions, delivers finer grain and higher sharpness. T-MAX 400 now stands alone as the world’s sharpest and finest-grained 400-speed black-and-white film, offering photographers a level of clarity normally only available from a 100-speed film. T-GRAIN emulsions, first introduced 25 years ago, remain the gold standard in the photographic industry.

“The new T-MAX 400 film provides a grain structure that is superior to anything I’ve seen in a 400-speed film,” said noted photographer and master print maker John Sexton. “That, combined with Kodak’s legendary quality control and consistency, makes this film a most valuable tool.”

In a recent survey conducted by Kodak, professional photographers cited the benefits of black-and-white film. Although professional photographers acknowledge that digital cameras offer certain benefits, they said that film better captures certain images, particularly black-and-white photos. The majority (80 percent) of photographers produce black-and-white images and, to capture these, almost half (45 percent) prefer to use film. More than half of the photographers surveyed (55 percent) said they prefer the results that film capture provides over...

I know when it's coming. A wave of nostalgia-like emotion takes over all rational thought after a rummage through the refrigerator in search of a snack only to find a roll of film on the wrong shelf; a session on the light box, or as now, a quiet moment spent flicking the pages of another good book.

The tome in question is nothing special in photographic terms, but Cote D'Azur by Pierre Borel published at thirty five shillings (one pound seventy five pence to you.) by Nicholas Kaye of London in 1957, contains 169 b+w heliogravure printed photo illustrations.


Hardly any of the photographs are what one might label outstanding, but they have, nonetheless, the characteristic appeal of an era now well past; content is arranged in a more formal compositional way, the emphasis on each frame of directional and contrasting lighting effects brought to bear on a potter's hands, or to give extra dimension to an image by way of contre-jour, to the carpet weaver's labour of love. This is a collection of workaday travel photos, but they are endowed with a certain charm rarely seen today in the colourful interpretations of stock photographers.

The 1950s and early 1960s marked the end of a period during which this treatment proliferated across a wide range of subjects since the late 1920s. The French exploited the technique more delicately perhaps than the Brits, but in either camp,...