Before bored japanese people and those pretty snazzy Sprint commercials, Pablo Picasso was inspired by LIFE magazine photographer Gjon Mili to make shit happen with a light and a camera.

See the full gallery here.

In preparation for the inauguration, the New York Times will publish 52 portrait shots of Barack Obama’s top ‘people’ taken by Nadav Kander and Kathy Ryan.

The shots can be seen online with audio from the photographers here.

After viewing the photos, I was most blown away by the three gentlemen below. Jon Favreau (Speechwriting Director), Eugene Kang (Special Assistant to the President), and Reggie Love (Personal Aide to the President, probably the President’s goto power forward) are the three youngest members of Obama’s cadre at 27, 24, and 26 respectively. It’s nuts that these guys are just a couple years older than me, and yet they already have their hands in one of the biggest moments of recent history and some really sweet gigs.

The above video was shot with the newly released Nikon D90. The Nikon D90 is a D-SLR camera. That shoots video. 720p HD video. And because it is still a D-SLR at heart, the ability to switch lenses (eg. telephoto, fisheye, macro) and the high performance in darker situations actually gives the D90 an edge over most camcorders. See for yourself here: D-Movie sample clips.

However, while my D70s weeps for its inferiority, the revolutionary D90 is only a scratch in the surface for the future of high performance cameras and camcorders. RED CEO Jim Jannard is already rabble-rousing about its plans in the future in this space.

Things have been pretty quiet lately. Hopefully that won’t happen again.
A couple of weeks ago, my sister and I were given the chance to shoot our first wedding. I’ve put a couple shots up on the photoblog, but here is a more complete collection.