Michael Shaw, the publisher and founder of BagNews Notes, is a clinical psychologist — appropriate, considering the deep, insightful analysis his blog gives to the day’s top news photographs and videos. Examining the tiniest, seemingly mundane details of an image to extract its power, its meaning, and its message, the Notes blog (part of a larger site featuring original photography and live interactive discussions) fulfills its mission of “reading the pictures” by starting provocative conversations about how the media illustrate the biggest stories of the day. Why is the American flag so often featured in visual coverage of natural disasters like the tornado in Joplin, Missouri? How does a wire-service photo of President Obama having a beer in Ireland differ from one captured by the White House photographer? BagNews Notes may not have all the answers, but in raising the questions, it offers a compelling new lens through which to view our politics, culture and, of course, pictures.

WINNER: NPR’s The Picture Show

Sometimes serious (portraits taken in Italy’s triangle of death), sometimes playful (fire ants that float!), NPR’s The Picture Show is like a curious friend with big-time resources. You never know what you’re going to find on The Picture Show — and that’s meant as the highest compliment. The curators look around and ask questions: Why did that Cindy Sherman picture sell for almost $4 million? Who’s behind those photos of exploding potatoes? What does the inside of Antartica’s IceCube Neutrino Observatory look like? (For the record, eerie and amazing.) The generous allotment of photos and text often comes with video and links to NPR stories. If you’re stuck eating lunch at your desk, you will have no better companion than The Picture Show.

WINNER: The New York Times’ Lens

Since it launched in May 2009, Lens has consistently been one of the few indispensable photography blogs. A reliable source of water-cooler fodder for news junkies around the world, the New York Times‘ showcase for visual and multimedia reporting is zealously current and busting at the seams with first-rate content. When a photograph makes news (bin Laden’s Photoshopped “death portrait,” for example), Lens editors and its citizen commentators routinely engage in the sort of informed, occasionally heated conversation and debate that photography fans crave. Then there are times when Lens itself generates headlines: In two posts written in March 2011, for example, Times photographer Lynsey Addario provided a searing first-person account of her own capture and brutal treatment while covering the revolt in Libya. Hard-hitting when it needs to be, Lens can also be poignant — as in Béatrice de Géa’s phenomenal series on how New Yorkers who lack an essential sense (vision, hearing, etc.) perceive the city, or the entries in the feature called “Turning Point,” highlighting the work of emerging photographers who pay tribute to one picture that was utterly crucial to their development as photojournalists and artists. For perspective from the global level to the street level, this is as good as it gets.

WINNER: Pictory Blog

Laura Brunow Miner’s Pictory Blog is an evocative companion site to her equally wonderful Pictorymag.com site, which describes itself as “a showcase of life through true photo stories.” The main site succeeds because of its 13-ways-of-looking-at-a-blackbird approach to storytelling: Photographers from all over the world submit pictures that address a single theme (lost love, Texas, danger, and on and on). The blog — a collection of posts featuring a single, stunning image married to an provocative sentence (with a link back to the site for the full story) — succeeds because it really, really knows how to tease. See for yourself: “Before she’d gone five feet, a young guy — couldn’t have been older than 18 — and his friend walked in from the alley behind her. He grabbed at her bag, and that’s when Phil and I saw the gun …” Utterly addictive.

WINNER: La Lettre de la Photographie

Monday: Visit a Herb Ritts exhibit in New York. Tuesday: Fly to Moscow to check out portraits of 1960s rock stars. Wednesday: Zip around the Mediterranean coast for a multi-city photo festival. Logistically, that globe-jumping agenda would be pretty impossible to pull off, but the constantly updated La Lettre de la Photographie brings those of us without a private jet one step closer to the fantasy scenario. In the “Agenda” section, organized by day of the week, the blog (available in both French and English) puts a spotlight on must-see happenings in the world of photography, allowing users to peruse highlights from international exhibitions, artist portfolios, or just-published books. Yes, La Lettre’s galleries may be virtual, but editors still treat the work with the requisite white-glove care, running each photo at an impressive size and in stunning, eye-popping resolution.

WINNER: The Sartorialist

“I started The Sartorialist simply to share the photos of people that I saw on the streets of New York that I thought looked great.” And, on one level, that’s what Scott Schuman does and does brilliantly. But his daily, anthropological photographs of people on the street — looking dandyish on a Harlem park bench, sexy in those tight jeans in the crosswalk, casually stylish while window-shopping in SoHo — convey amazing insight into how people seek to express themselves. If street photography shows us the small dramas of everyday life, then the Sartorialist gives us the drama andthe costuming. The Sartorialist’s eye for personality is wonderful and well-trained, and his blog shows us that there is beauty all around us if only we stop and look.

WINNER: Time’s LightBox

Elegant and commanding, intimate and worldly, Time magazine’s beautifully designed LightBox blog is an essential destination for those who appreciate contemporary photography. Much more than photojournalism, Lightbox (which, like LIFE.com, is owned by Time Inc.) explores today’s new documentary and fine art photography from the perspective of the photo editors at Time – arguably the strongest editors working in their field today. LightBox offers fascinating dispatches from every corner of the world — last week, the photo stories came from Cuba, Thailand, Yemen, and Ukraine. One of the most compelling features of the blog is The Backstory, in which photographers describe what went into the making of a particular picture, either their own part in it or that of the people being photographed. To have a renowned photojournalist like James Nachtwey turn his image into a three-dimensional moment, rich with the thoughts and emotions of his subject, is truly enlightening. And leaves you wanting more.

WINNER: What’s the Jackanory?

What’s the Jackanory? (a phrase taken from British slang and a 1960s’ BBC kids’ TV show, meaning “What’s the story?”) is the creation of Dublin-born, NYC-based photographer Andrew Hetherington, and boasts a following of professional shooters and earnest, knowing amateurs alike. Engaging, utterly up to date, and often very funny; filled with discerning takes on industry trends and controversies; and (almost uniquely in the photography world) enthusiastic about other, lesser-known photographic talents, Jackanory is like a never-ending series of personal, thrillingly random postcards from a well-traveled friend. That the friend is a contributor to GQ, Esquire, Wired, Details, and other titles — a guy who seems just as comfortable critiquing a colleague’s gallery show as posting about “star” photographer sightings — provides Jackanory with genuine cred and an insider-y immediacy. Blogging, at its heart, is often about passion — and it’s impossible to visit What’s the Jackanaory? and not feel that this is the brainchild of a man who positively lives and breathes photography.

WINNER: 500 Photographers

On April 5, 2010, Pieter Wisse began a blog, 500 Photographers, with a singular and simple mission: Highlight the work of five great photographers every week until he reached 500. Wisse, a gallerist and photographer in Rotterdam, Netherlands, with an eclectic and wandering eye, brings us work by well-known photographers (Elinor Carucci, Dan Winters, Taryn Simon) that no modern list should be without, but includes photographers you likely wouldn’t find on your own — the touching war photography of Kosuke Okahara, Mike Brodie’s haunting train hoppers, and on and on. 500 Photographers doesn’t chase news or trends, and it is refreshingly catholic in its tastes: black-and-white, Polaroid, straight-up journalism, modernist portraiture, landscape, fashion, clouds, car accidents. It’s like a virtual trip through a mega-gallery museum exhibit of the most influential photographers working today. Wisse will continue adding a photographer a day, until he hits 500 photographers. At that point — in May 2012 — the blog will, in Wisse’s words, “be finished and done. It will then only be here with the function of being an archive of amazing photographers of the 21st century.”

WINNER: Photojojo’s Tumblr

A lot of very, very good blogs are deadly serious in tone and intent. Photojojo is not one of them. And that is precisely its appeal. Photojojo, the quirkiest of LIFE.com’s winners, offers quick news you can use, DIY-crafts, and wonderfully non-essential photography-based tidbits. Want to know how to make a Leica replica out of paper? Photojojo can help. Missed the boat on those weirdly riveting pictures of “yin yang Oreo cookies” everyone’s been talking about? Photojojo has the link. Wondering why the pictures from the latest space shuttle mission are so much more awesome than all the space shuttle pictures that have come before? Photojojo is wondering the same thing — and linking to a great gallery to explain why. Like Archie McPhee with a photography obsession, Photojojo is clever, helpful, and funky without trying too hard to be hip.

WINNER: American Suburb X

A “fiercely edited look at photography’s … past, dramatically shifting present and always unfolding future. . . . Our mission is to provide and provoke, to educate and titillate those who are obsessed with photography and all of its beautiful moving parts.” That’s how American Suburb X describes itself. Big talk? Yes. Ambitious? Yes. But ASX backs it up, again and again. The interviews section alone is a treasure trove, offering conversations with many of most dynamic talents photography’s ever known — Weegee in 1958, Dorthea Lange in 1964, Jacob Holdt in 1993 — all meticulously culled from publications like Art in America, Graphis, and the Smithsonian. That founder and editor-in-chief Doug Rickard also posts words and pictures by some of contemporary photography’s brightest lights (Leigh Ledare, Todd Hido, and countless others) adds yet another layer of gritty immediacy to a site that already feels so full of raw energy and ideas that it’s about to pop off the page.

WINNER: PDN

Photo District News, a mainstay monthly magazine geared to professional shooters, is being honored here for two blogs. PDN breathes life into the Photo of the Day conceit with its global reach and and sky-high standards, not to mention its wide-ranging content: one day, the most beautiful sea grass you’ve ever seen; the next, a 1952 Robert Frank photo; after that, Singapore’s political rallies depicted as landscapes. On top of all that, in a world of aggregators PDN’s Pulseoffers something rare: its own reporting. PDN’s seasoned editors craft smart, on-point stories that are steeped in knowledge of the photo industry. It’s the place to read stories you won’t see on most other blogs, like a post on a former Times-Picayune photog accused of “journalistic betrayal,” and early word of Hasselblad’s new medium-format digital camera. A must-visit daily site for working pros. . . and for those who want to know what the pros know.

WINNER: Prison Photography

Prison Photography doesn’t have a standard “about” section; it has a “manifesto.” But editor Pete Brook’s unexpectedly riveting blog is far more than a mere anti-incarceration screed. While most of the content does mine what Brook calls his “nerdcore niche” — in his words, the “analysis of visual narratives created in prison and jail systems” — he brings such a fluid intelligence to the narrow theme that the blog ends up being about prisons in much the same way that Moby Dick is about fishing: shining a light on one topic, Prison Photography illuminates worlds. At his most insightful, Brook — also the lead blogger for Wired.com’s excellent photo blog, Raw File — transforms vintage and modern photographs made in and of prisons into emblems of larger, eternal themes: social justice; crime and punishment; the limits of liberty; even the nature of beauty. In one superb post, Brook considers Sye Williams photos from a California women’s prison, humanizing both the prisoners’ and their handlers’ plight (” … as a viewer to Williams’ work, I find myself adopting the same caution as the staff and administration”). This is heavy, thoughtful stuff — it’s impossible to spend time here without feeling your assumptions about all sorts of issues beginning to wobble — and Prison Photography presents it all with grace, power, and a wry, welcome humor.

WINNER: Joe McNally’s Blog

“The thoughts, notions, and ideas here come from thirty years in the field as a shooter,” reads the text in the upper-right hand corner of this blog, underneath a smiling stick figure and the casual, handwritten words “Meet Joe.” It’s that juxtaposition of the serious and the playful that make Joe McNally’s Blog such a treat. With bona fides from Sports Illustrated, National Geographic, and LIFE (for which he was a staff photographer), McNally tells stories and gives advice from behind the lens, pulling from his travels and his vibrant, extensive portfolio to riff on newsmakers (like the Navy SEALs, whom he once followed in training), share deeply personal memories of favorite shoots, and totally geek out on lighting technique and gear (explaining, as only he can, the best clamps, lenses, strobes, etc.). With eloquence, humor, and passion, McNally makes every post a love letter to his craft.

WINNER: A Photo Editor

A hugely popular blog for and about the photography business, A Photo Editor raises (and often thoroughly answers) the sort of questions that keep working photographers up at night. Example: A post titled “What to Do When Your Image Is Stolen Online” is a masterfully succinct how-to about an industry certainty that professionals and amateurs alike might want to print out and stick in their pockets. Edited by Rob Haggart, the former director of photography at Men’s Journal and Outside magazines, the blog’s look and feel is, in fact, a bit magazine-y — in the best way — with artful use of white space and an awful lot of text. Thankfully, all of that text (by Haggart, other professional editors and photographers, as well as the blog’s loyal, smart, and vocal community) is scarily well-informed and immensely helpful to anyone interested in photography and photojournalism in the digital age. This is not a blog to visit if you’re looking to “ooh” and “ahh” over big, beautiful photo galleries. But for insight into the most nettlesome, enduring issues around copyrights, freelance options, professional ethics debates, and — not least of all — how to make a viable living by your camera, A Photo Editor is simply unsurpassed.

WINNER: The Atlantic’s In Focus

If the 154-year-old Atlantic’s online incarnation often feels as vigorous and relevant as a Silicon Valley start-up, it’s due in part to its photo blog, In Focus. Alan Taylor, the man who created — and for two years ran – The Boston Globe‘s hugely popular and highly regarded Big Picture blog, serves as curator for In Focus. Here, Taylor replicates the Big Picture design and navigation but has upgraded the experience so it’s now, as the kids say, “on steroids.” Taylor covers the biggest news stories of the day with huge, colorful, high-impact photos that often take your breath away, setting up each gallery with concise, conversational introductions. In Focus is the perfect addition to The Atlantic‘s long tradition of journalism and newer tradition of Web excellence.

WINNER: burn

Describing itself as “an evolving journal for emerging photographers,” burn manages the neat (and rare) trick of feeling at once rambunctious and utterly rigorous. Curated by noted Magnum photographer David Alan Harvey, burn publishes amazingly diverse essays — street kids in Odessa, Ukraine; Morocco’s vanishing Jews; portraits by William Eckersley and Alexander Shields shot along US 80, America’s first coast-to-coast highway — in a vivid big-slideshow format. The community that has evolved around the blog, meanwhile, is both loyal and vocal; it’s not uncommon for posts to generate hundreds of comments. While burn’s focus rests with the photographs — those seeking nothing but a satisfying visual experience won’t be disappointed — the insights that Harvey and the contributors provide about the various photo stories reward those looking for a glimpse behind the camera of an up-and-comer.

WINNER: Conscientious

Perhaps it’s the earnest — and rather cryptic — name. Maybe it’s the formal, intense headshot of the blog’s creator, Joerg Colberg, that suggests a seriously intellectual undertaking. And indeed, Conscientious is seriously intellectual; luckily, though, Colberg’s is a refreshing, bracing intellect, one fueled by a genuine curiosity about — and love of — photography. This is one of the longest-running photo blogs out there, and since its founding in 2002 has offered countless profiles of photographers and their work: Aaron Ruell’s marvelous environmental portraits and Alex te Napel’s moving and unsettling “Faces of Alzheimer’s” portraits, to name just two. And the blog is packed: Readers will also find in-depth interviews, news and commentary on exhibitions, and book reviews, as well as Colberg’s rigorous and wide-ranging musings on matters large (one post: “What makes great photography?”) and small. There’s not an ounce of fluff here, which is why Conscientious is rightly seen and lauded as one of the very few essential photography destinations on the Web.

WINNER: aCurator

This is a blog in love with photographers. Scroll down aCurator‘s page and you’ll see one photographer’s name after another in bold, black letters with sharp, seductive images in between. These posts often link to glorious, full-screen features — free of surrounding navigation bars and text — on the main aCurator.com site. (“Frustration with a lack of full-screen images led me to publish aCurator,” explains founder and editor, Julie Grahame.) But the signature strength of the aCurator blog is, in fact, suggested by its name. Grahame is a curator with a flawless eye and, in her assessment of the work she presents, an immediately trustworthy, no-frills tone. (“Miriam O’Connor is my latest crush,” she writes, introducing one young photographer’s pictures. “Her [series] ‘Attention Seekers’ filled me with joy; it’s refreshing, smart and humorous.”) aCurator’s triumph is a clarity of purpose wedded to a keen intelligence, and a willingness to let its stunning photographs largely speak for themselves.

WINNER: Feature Shoot

Nearly every day, Feature Shoot showcases a different photographer (both established and emerging) by posting selections of his/her work and a short bio. The concept is straightforward enough, but it’s beautifully executed by publisher and managing editor Alison Zavos. A photographer and photo editor with an eye for diverse international work, Zavos’ Feature Shoot has taken its users to the dramatic precipices of Iceland, wild dance parties in Atlanta, and an abandoned theme park in Berlin. Since launching in 2008, the blog has featured more than 500 commercial and fine-art photographers — exposing their talents not only to casual perusers but also to serious publishers and buyers. Occasional Q&As with photographers about their methods, as well as helpful posts providing information about exhibits and grants, give Feature Shoot a warm, community feel, a trait shared by the best blogs.

(via: life.com)

To promote the launch of his new website and blog, London-based photographer David Sykes decided to create a QR code out of objects such as boots, calculators, briefcases, boomboxes and champagne bottles. The QR code was then photographed and sent out as limited edition prints so that lucky recipients can scan the code with their iPhone or iPad to launch Sykes’ new website. Sykes writes:

‘I wanted to promote the relaunch of my website and my blog with a bespoke shot and a mail-out. The QR code is the perfect example of something physical that links to the digital world. Just the QR photograph; no name, no other links or information, just that.

‘I wanted to play with the juxtaposition of a physical object linking directly to the digital, so I decided to build a 3D model of the code and create the image in one shot. This is in line with the way I like to work, I try to shoot as many things ‘in camera’ as I can. This meant scaling up and then building the 8 foot square model of the code. To create another link to my previous work I used objects from around the studio to build up the shot. Over three days, I worked with the stylist, Carrie Louise, to source the props, plan out and construct the QR city.

‘To further demonstrate the ‘in camera’ feel of the code I shot on film. To give the mail-out the sense of being a sheet of 10 x 8 film I retained the full frame of the shot, including studio in the background and rebates. I even presented it in the same bags you would get the film back from the lab in.’

(Text & Image source: featureshoot.com)

WiFi is considered a cheaper medium to provide Internet service to the consumers. “In order to operate WiFi service, router should be placed in different places throughout the country,” NT official said, adding that partnership with private sector will be a stimulus to carry it out at the earliest.

According to the NT source, the partner has not been selected, so far. NT will seek proposals from the private sector soon, he said. It will launch the WiFi service in Kathmandu and other major cities in the first-phase and the service will be expanded to other parts of the country in the next phase, he said.

In the first-phase, the router will be placed at around 150 places and in the second-phase it will be extended to more than 500 places. NT has estimated an investment of around Rs 100 million to set up the infrastructure for the WiFi service.

NT management is thinking of launching WiFi service within 4 months that, according to NT, will help in promoting Nepal Tourism Year (NTY) in its own big way.

text source: ktm2day.com

(image source: www.geeky-gadgets.com)

As well all know by now that facebook the social network giant intoduced “Places” on their mobile apps. And many users are loving it and they frequently use “Places” to let friends know where they have checked in. But how good is it to let it know everyone in you facebook friendslist to know your each and every checkins? Don’t you find it little awkward updating all the checked in places you have been?

Well, for me yes sometimes I do use the “Places” just to let my friends know where but I find it little scary to let know the actual position of my Home via Places. Cause anyone can know the exact location of your Home and track you down. I am not saying that checking in your Home and let your friends know that you are home safe and sound after the long night party or the event can be a good information to your friends but it can be as much dangerous too. HOW? If you have a habit of adding random people in your friends list it can be little scary, cause you don’t know who he/she is and for what purpose they have added you there. So, I think (personal opinion) that its not always a good idea to update your checked in places via facebook. Its really okay to updated the public places you have visited but checking in your private places like home or your relatives locations may not be so cool all the time.

I may be or may not be correct here but I would like to know what you guys think on this one

thank you everyone

[show_avatar email=klashde@gmail.com]

Ncell, the first private sector mobile operator on Wednesday launched a new data service—‘Ncell Connect’. The service enables subscribers to avail of a high speed internet connection up to 3.6 mbps with a USB data card.

To subscribe to the service, one needs to buy a data card at Rs. 1,999 and a data SIM card at Rs. 99. The data card, once connected to the USB port of a laptop, desktop or Mac, automatically installs the required software to connect the network.

“The service is available in pre-paid and post-paid SIM too,” said Pasi Koistinen, CEO of Ncell, addressing a press conference. “We introduced the wireless internet service keeping in mind the increased trend of internet use and its wide scope in Nepali market.”

Ncell has introduced the service in three packages, depending on the needs of internet users. The first one is a small package with 500 MB size that costs Rs. 499 per month. The medium size 1,000 MB with the same validity period costs Rs. 899 and for the large size 5,000 MB customers will have to pay Rs. 3,999 per month.

“We will start offering the service in Kathmandu from Thursday and the service coverage will be expanded to other parts of the country too,” said Koistinen. “We are bringing the fastest internet for everyone, anytime, anywhere.”

Once the pack expires customers easily can buy a new pack or pay the reduced MB tariff of 2 rupees per MB. Pre-paid SIM users for the data service can recharge their account through normal recharge scratch card, while post-paid users can top up through standard procedure.

According to the Ncell, the service package size can also be reduced in future for those who use less internet. There will be maximum speed – up to 3.6 mbps in the areas having 3G network. If the subscribers are out of 3G coverage, they will get access to 2.5G or GPRS where there is no edge connection available.(Source:ekantipur)

I was thinking to post the list some of the best tweepies from Nepal who must be followed in twitter and suddenly one of my friend posted the top 10 Nepalses you should follow if you’re into technology, so I am sharing the list here also with some additions to it. Thanks Swapnil

So here are the list of people you should follow on twitter.

*List in alphabetical order

Alok Thapa @aa1ok

Anjan Shrestha @anjhero

Ashma Aryal @azm002

Deep Sherchan @bexdeep

Bibek Shrestha @bibstha

Freddie Benjamin @freddie_b

Geshan Manandhar @geshan

Kailash Gyawali @iklash

Prashant Khanal @ipras

Bhupendra Khanal @leplan

Mahésh Shrestha @maheshcha

Manoj Chandi Shrestha @manojchandi

Ram Krishna Wagle @rkwagle

Swapnil Acharya @schwafnil

If you feel that you should be in this list, please comment on this post with your twitter link, it will be reviewed and the list will be updated again.

But, Dashain never brings good times for everyone, cause for some of them its a disaster and there is a Nepali proverb “Dashain ho ki Dasha”, so this proverb applies to some of the people. Mostly to the people who lost their relatives during the month of dashain and some just can’t fullfill the things that they need to celebrate this festival. Recently, I heard so many bad news about people who lost their relatives and now they are not supposed to celebrate this festival. And, according to the news and reports it has came into consideration that more people lost their lives when this festive season is near specially in Nepal. We can hear so many news on accidents, deaths and all during this season which has been shocking us from few past years.

Sometimes Dashain is not just a nightmare for the poor but to the well enough wealthy ones. Recently I heard a rumor regarding our rising actress “Namrata Shrestha” who started her career in modeling since 1997 and pursued her acting skills from the movie “Sano Sansar” as a lead actress. This dashain has been a nightmare for her which has effected her professional as well as her private life with the release of her sex scandal home video. I don’t have much info about it and I don’t even want to go deeper into it cause I knew her as a model and actress from last few months and I love her acting skills and as a model listed under top 5 models of Nepal. The news got so hyped and the video spread like a fire in the country that it seems like she will never get out of this trauma and there are some people who enjoy insulting someone by giving it so much importance on someone’s one mistake than 100 good things that they had done before, I personally feel that its not her mistake but its their mistake who give so much hype to this kind of things, I think they are a looser for their life. If you have seen the video, let it be, you don’t need to share it with anyone, you don’t have to promote that video and I bet that the one who spread that video over the web has ever bought her movie “Sano Sansar” DVD yet or supported her for the acting she has performed in that movie. If you cannot appreciate the good things about her then you don’t have the right to say anything bad about her also, give yourself a break people, it must has been an entertaining issue for you at this time but for her its the most difficult time of her life. If you cannot help her out of this situation then please let it be, don’t talk about it, keep that thing within yourself and don’t feel so proud that you watched that video and talk about it with your friends, STOP doing that and please try to remove the links from the web.

This post is not intended to hurt anyone but I just felt to talk about the negative side f the people who are promoting this issue all over the country. And I would like to request everyone to stop spreading this with anyone and this dashain let us all wish good luck and best wishes to Namrata Shrestha for her future and hope everything comes back to normal in her life as it was before.

And finally, I would like to wish all my readers a very Happy Vijaya Dashami.