Staff

On The Cover
With summer upon us, we’ve dedicated this issue to nature and outdoor photography. No one exemplifies exploring the outdoors better than Josh Miller, who shot our cover photo of Elves Chasm while he was rafting the Colorado River at the Grand Canyon. To see more of his adventurous photos, see page 132. We also take an in-depth look at the top photo backpacks and sling bags as the importance of these traveling accessories cannot be overstated. Finally, we review the latest and greatest photo gear, from software to lighting equipment.

The world is rich in symbols, some more apparent than others, but if you put yourself in a “graphics” frame of mind, as we asked readers to do for this month’s assignment, you’ll find more than your share of images to capture in the world around you. The nature of this assignment was to find abstractions, to use context merely as a frame and not a reference, and to find the image within the image where a graphic presented itself. In many cases the frame becomes a canvas and the image something that abstract expressionists would understand. While we did receive some composites for this assignment we favored images made “in the field” that used cropping and a “graphic eye” to make the shot.

It is with profound sadness that we mark the untimely passing of Hilary Araujo. Mr. Araujo had been vice president of marketing for The Tiffen Company of Hauppauge, New York, since June of 2004. He established an unsurpassed record of accomplishment at Tiffen and over nearly 40 years of outstanding service and dedication to the imaging industry. His personal charm, warm and friendly demeanor, great sense of humor, and unstinting willingness to help others are but some of the sterling qualities that made him a man who was loved and admired by all who knew him. We at Shutterbug knew and worked with Hilary for many years and had always relied on him for honest, straightforward dealings and a personal warmth that made the relationship cordial and appreciated.

Our Picture This! assignment this month was “Art Filters,” those in-camera special effects processing scripts that seem to be all the rage in cameras these days. Rather than have users spend time with computer software these days, camera makers are incorporating some interesting tricks into their imageware. You can think of them as subsets of Scene modes, as shortcuts, as fun filters, or as preprogrammed image processing effects that go right from camera to memory card. Readers responded with a host of images that display many of the “art” options and special effects available today.