Eric Charbonneau has joined WireImage, the entertainment photoagency and wire service, as staff entertainment photographer. Charbonneau, who is based in Los Angeles, recently left Berliner Photography, where he covered the Academy Awards and Hollywood premieres for 18 years. Charbonneau’s work has appeared in People, Vanity Fair, Harper’s Bazaar and
Rolling Stone.

Nature and wildlife photographer David M. Cobb has opened a new studio in Portland, Ore., at 4212 S.W. Condor Ave. Cobb’s images can be seen on his web site, www.dmcobbphoto.com.

Michael Grecco, a photographer based in Santa Monica, Calif., recently provided cover images of Steven Spielberg for Time and of Paul Jacobs, CEO of Qualcomm, for Forbes. Grecco’s work can be viewed on his web site, www.michaelgrecco.com.

Through video, art installations, sound and photographs, Amanda Koster is seeking to illustrate how the people of Rabuor, Kenya, are enduring and surviving AIDS. Koster’s multimedia exhibition, “AIDS Is Knocking,” is intended to raise awareness and funds for the Rabuor Village Project, whose mission is to empower the people of Rabuor to develop sustainable, community-based solutions to the challenges of poverty and HIV/AIDS. For more ore information, see www.rabuorvillageproject.org.

Two West Coast photographers recently were honored by Nikon in the company’s Small World competition, honoring excellence in photography through the microscope.

Charles B. Krebs, of Issaquah, Wash., was awarded first place for his photomicrograph of a comon housefly. Second place went to Thomas Deerinck, of the National Center for Microscopy and Imaging Research at the University of California, San Diego, for his quantum-dot fluorescence image of a mouse’s kidney section. Deerinck also received eighth place for his image of a mouse’s small intestine.

The winning images can be seen on a national museum tour and in an electronic gallery, www.nikonsmallworld.com.

In commemoration of the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark expedition, the Washington State Capital Museum in Olympia is presenting “Faces from the Land: A Photographic Journey through Native America,” by Ben and Linda Marra. The Seattle-based photographers focused on many of the Native American cultures that Lewis and Clark encountered, including Sioux, Lemhi Shoshone and Nez Perce. The exhibit includes a contemporary photograph of Sacajawea’s great-great-great-niece, Rose Ann Abrahamson.

The work of Seattle-area photographer Tara McDermott is now available at the online gallery Dislocation Photo (www.dislocationphoto.com). McDermott is known primarily for her spare landscapes and lush colors.

Michael Ramey, an instructor at the Art Institute of Seattle, recently completed an 18-day tour of orphanages in India, Vietnam, China and Russia, where he photographed children for the World Association for Children and Parents. The adoption agency will use the images to develop a donor DVD and a presentation for its 30th anniversary celebration, to be held in New York City in June.

Dan Sweet, media service manager for Columbia Helicopters in Aurora, Ore., has taken the top award in an international photo contest for images of helicopters at work. Sweet’s winning pho-to depicted a Vertol 107-II helicopter at a snowy logging operation above Detroit Lake in Oregon’s Cascade Mountains.

Michele Westmorland and Karen Huntt have been voted two of the 40 founding members of the International League of Conservation Photographers. Westmorland and Huntt recently completed a two-month expedition to Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, retracing artist Caroline Mytinger’s journey of the late 1920s.

The league was launched at the 8th World Wilderness Congress in Anchorage, Alaska, in October 2005, and is supported by organizations such as the National Geographic Society, WWF International and Conservation International.

In Memoriam

Noted photographer Michael A. W. Evans, an early developer of software systems for cataloging photography collections, died
of cancer on Dec. 1, 2005, at his home in Atlanta. He was 61.

The son of Canadian diplomats, Evans was born in St. Louis and spent much of his childhood abroad. His 20-year photojournalism and picture-editing career began at the Port Hope Evening Guide newspaper in Ontario, Can-ada, in 1959, when he was 15.

He also worked for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, The New York Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Time magazine.
Evans also created Zuma Press’ original database and was the company’s first chief technology officer.

Special Honors

Frans Lanting has received the 2005 Lennart Nilsson Award, which recognizes pioneers in medical and scientific photography. Lanting, who is based in Santa Cruz, Calif., was honored for his nature photography, examples of which have appeared in books, magazines and exhibitions around the world. He is a frequent contributor to National Geographic, where he served as photographer-in-residence, and has received numerous awards for his work as a photographer and conservationist.

Earlier this year, Graham Nash and his business partner, printmaker Mac Holbert, were the recipients of the PhotoImaging Manufacturers & Distributors Association Visionary Award. Co-founded in 1989 by Holbert and Nash, Nash Editions is widely regarded as having started a photographic revolution with its invention of digital fine-art printing.

The Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History recently acquired the original Nash Editions Iris 3047 printer, on which the pair began experimenting with new printmaking techniques.

The PMDA also presented the Norman C. Lipton Lifetime Achievement Award to Rudy Maschke and Ed Wagner, whom the association credited with redefining the concept of trade publications and helping to transform the photo industry. The pair, who first teamed up in 1963, founded Photo Industry Reporter in 1992.

Others honors bestowed by PMDA include the Technical Achievement Award, given to Naoki Tomino, managing director and senior executive officer of the Nikon Corp., and the Photographer Award, which this year was given collectively to the White House News Photographers Association.

The International Photography Awards for 2005 have been announced. Jim Fisc, of Atlanta, was named the International Photographer of the Year and the winner of the $10,000 prize. The award for Professional Photographer of the Year in Architecture was bestowed upon Timothy Griffith, based in San Francisco, who also received the first- and second-place awards in the Buildings category.

Nature photographer George Lepp, director of the Lepp Institute of Digital Imaging in Los Osos, Calif., won four awards in the Professional Nature category of the contest, including one for his book, “Golden Poppies of California.”

In the Book Cover category, Chad Ress, of Los Angeles, took first place. Another Los Angeles photographer, Glen Wexler, garnered first place in the Calendar category with his “Secret Agent Cows.”

Among the nonprofessional winners were Hans Hansen, of Denver, in the Editorial category; Jeffrey Krolick, of Ashland, Ore., in Fine Art; and David Burdeny, of Vancouver, B.C., in Nature.

The 2005 IPA competition received 16,648 entries from 32 countries. The first-, second- and third-place winners in all categories will be published in the book, “Annual International Photography Awards,” which is distributed throughout the international professional community and in galleries and bookstores.

The Society of American Travel Writers has named Blaine Harrington, of Littleton, Colo., Travel Photographer of the Year for the second year in a row. Harrington’s images can be seen at www.gronline.com/platform/poy.

Anita Duncan has been honored by the American Society of Picture Professionals as the group’s third annual Picture Professional of the Year. Duncan, whose career has encompassed publishing and book design, including a stint as production manager at Marvel Comics, now works at Photo Researchers. Currently she is working on a picture book about the Murray Hill neighborhood in New York City.

At the International Photographic Council’s New Year’s luncheon, held at the United Nations, Herbert Keppler received the council’s Hall of Fame Award. Keppler, vice president of Popular Photography & Imaging and American Photo magazines, was honored for his efforts to support the advancement of photography.