Bill Turnage at the Ansel Adams Trust says, "We're calling it Ansel Scam." I spoke with him over the phone after learning of a new wrench in the whole Ansel Adams negatives story: KTVU in Oakland, Calif. has reported that a Bay Area woman named Miriam L. Walton believes the famed "$200 million" negatives might actually be her uncle Earl's:

Walton said her uncle lived in the Fresno area much of his life and often took pictures at Yosemite.

The photo taken by Walton’s Uncle Earl looks nearly identical to one of the examples that Norsigan has claimed to be from Ansel Adams.

Enlarge KTVU

A screen grab of KTVU's news spot shows Mariam L. Walton examining photographs

KTVU

A screen grab of KTVU's news spot shows Mariam L. Walton examining photographs

Adams' grandson is still calling the whole thing bogus, and curators and critics around the country are questioning the yard sale negatives that Rick Norsigian claims to be authentic. "Not one of those experts [on Norsigian's team] was an expert on photography," Turnage says. More to come.

Enlarge Nick Ut/AP

Rick Norsigian, who claims to have found authentic Ansel Adams negatives at a yard sale, holds one up at a news conference in Beverly Hills, on Tuesday.

Nick Ut/AP

Rick Norsigian, who claims to have found authentic Ansel Adams negatives at a yard sale, holds one up at a news conference in Beverly Hills, on Tuesday.

In 1950, the acclaimed fashion photographer Edward Steichen sent Kodak a telegram from Grand Central Terminal in New York: EVERYONE IN GRAND CENTRAL AGOG AND SMILING. ALL JUST FEELING GOOD.

It was probably the first time many of them had seen a Colorama transparency on display — and at a whopping, glowing 18 feet high and 60 feet wide, it was indeed a sight to behold. Kodak introduced these phantasmagoric ads in the 1950s, and over the course of 40 years displayed 565 of them at Grand Central. Backlit with more than a mile of tubing, the colorful panoramas often showed impossibly happy people photographing beautiful scenes — reinforcing the idea that travelers should document the fleeting moments of life (with a Kodak camera, of course).

Enlarge Courtesy of George Eastman House

View of a Colorama on display in Grand Central Terminal

Courtesy of George Eastman House

View of a Colorama on display in Grand Central Terminal

For years the Colorama was a visual mainstay in New York's train station, and although many viewers lamented its discontinuation in 1990, they can now rejoice in its return. Just in time for the Colorama's 60th anniversary, Kodak donated its collection of Colorama materials to George Eastman House in Rochester, N.Y. And an aptly titled exhibition, Colorama, is on display at the museum through October, at which point it will go on tour.

Enlarge Ansel Adams/Courtesy of George Eastman House

Harvesting a wheat field, Pendleton, Ore. Displayed 1961

Ansel Adams/Courtesy of George Eastman House

Harvesting a wheat field, Pendleton, Ore. Displayed 1961

Touted by Kodak as "the world's largest photographs," the panoramic prints involved a remarkably complex technical process. Each print required a task force of Kodak experts — with an occasional guest director like Ansel Adams (see above) or Norman Rockwell. A variety of large format cameras were used throughout the years and, according to Eastman House's news release, "in early years the wet 20-foot transparencies were dried overnight in the swimming pool at Kodak's employee recreation center."

The exhibition celebrates the Colorama's visual power, and pays homage to a process that required craft as much as technology. In a sense, the exhibition's nostalgic tone is in perfect keeping with Kodak's early advertisements. Are you agog and smiling yet?

Learn more about the Colorama process on Kodak's website.

Photographer William Hereford has done something that seems obvious. But it's actually pretty novel — and I can see magazines heading exactly in this direction. He has combined video with typeface to create the perfect vignette for a tablet technology. Just watch (and enjoy the mellifluous voice of Yves Montand).

"My hope," Hereford writes on his blog, "is to develop this video to work with tablet computers so that you could "swipe" between the vignettes instead of them playing with a rigid sequence from start to end. ... I like the idea of creating a moving image which runs on a loop or is shot over a long period of time so the media can be consumed and studied in ways a traditional film cannot."

I don't know. Part of me just wants to tear out a recipe and stuff it in my bag before grocery shopping. But it will be interesting to see what comes of this idea!

There was some serious internet hubbub during the winter Olympics when a lucky few scored these Canon lens-inspired coffee mugs from the Olympic Press Center. (Which we lowly plebes can finally buy online.)

And it appears that Nikon, Canon's age-old rival, has now fulfilled its duty, with its own competing lens mug from which you may imbibe your hot beverages. It may not be an actual licensed product, but at least it looks real. And at $23, it beats the heck out of the real lens price.

Composite via 100milligrams.com

Via PDN Pulse

Cheers, Rick Norsigian, you are the luckiest man alive.

The Associated Press (and others) just reported that after a six-month examination, a team of experts has authenticated a batch of found Ansel Adams negatives. The large glass negatives, purchased for $45 by Norsigian at a yard sale, are valued at $200 million; until now, they were "believed to have been destroyed in a 1937 fire at his Yosemite National Park studio," says the AP.

According to attorney Arnold Peter, an exhibition of photos is in the works, as well as a documentary about the discovery and authentication of the negatives. Lesson learned: buy lots of used "crap." You never know what might some day be worth something.

Update at 6:19pm ET — Adams' grandson Matthew Adams is disputing the authenticity of these negatives. In 2009, he was provided access to evidence compiled by the Norsigian team, which he deemed inadequate; no further evidence has been provided at this point, he says, and his comments below have thus not been updated. In an official statement re-issued July 24, he states:

The evidence gathered and presented does not meet the burden of proof of 'certainty.' No one piece of evidence can stand up to questioning ... All of the evidence presented is circumstantial at best, and hopeful supposition in most instances.

Adams continues:

The number of $200,000,000 that has been suggested by the Norsigian Team is ludicrous. It should be remembered that while there is a good deal of creativity and purpose in the negative, the print is the expression of the artist’s intent. It is the print that carries the value.

About two weekends ago, a curious happening took place in Oregon. Thirty-five of the country's sharpest shooters flew in from around the world to surprise a man they all "wanted to murder," as Brian Lanker, the organizer, put it.

There was no bloodshed. The "shooters" were photojournalists. And the object of their murderous thoughts goes by the name Rich Clarkson, because that is his name, one of the most influential forces in journalism — a force to be reckoned with, beyond doubt. "Though maybe we all wanted to murder him at one time or another," Lanker clarified on the phone, "[it was] a gathering of people who really love and respect and who are thankful for exactly what he did for us."

As former director of photography at the Topeka Capital-Journal in Kansas, what Clarkson did for them was build a newsroom with a singular visual voice. Starting in the 1950s, he hired a bunch of young ruffians and, with tough love that seemed more like hate, turned them into the photojournalists that dominate the industry today.

"You can't have in that short 25-year span," Lanker, himself a Pulitzer-winner, explained, "a photo staff that has six national Newspaper Photographer of the Year awards, a National Magazine Photographer of the Year award, four Pulitzer Prizes, the editor-in-chief of National Geographic ... Magnum photographers, directors of photography... You can't have all of that going on and say that someone wasn't responsible for that."

A ruthless editor, Clarkson smashed dreams and built careers. He humiliated but also lauded his proteges. He has had more than 30 Sports Illustrated covers — but even more impressive is the laundry list of men and women who have emerged from his tutelage (albeit somewhat scathed), the recognition they have received and, most importantly, the photographic canon they have produced.

"He taught us to be journalists first," Lanker said. "The camera was almost incidental. You thought of stories. ... You went out and you had to be the smartest person in the room. He demanded that of you. You needed to know more than the reporter who was out there. You needed to know more than anybody else and you needed to dig deeper than anybody else."

As the traditional newsroom climate morphs into metrics, wire services and higher pixel counts, the Topeka veterans paused to remember the way they were raised, and the man who raised them. To pay homage, Brian Lanker and Carl Davaz, deputy managing editor of The Register-Guard (Eugene, Ore.), compiled a 250-page book of photographs taken by Clarkson and the reunion's attendees.

Enlarge Paul Carter

Brian Lanker embraces Rich Clarkson at a surprise party hosted in Eugene, Ore. Magnum photographer David Alan Harvey records the scene.

Paul Carter

Brian Lanker embraces Rich Clarkson at a surprise party hosted in Eugene, Ore. Magnum photographer David Alan Harvey records the scene.

Although many of these photographers lasted no more than three years under Clarkson's reign, the experience left an indelible impression. Ask any of them about their time in that newsroom, and their recollections will be typified with militaristic — but strangely familial — language. Lanker ultimately described the weekend gathering as a "family reunion." So while Clarkson may have led with a carrot and stick, the ends obviously justified the means. Over the course of the three-day reunion, he once again solicited tears, but this time they were grateful ones.

I lived in a car for a while in the desert. And in Canada, I lived in a hut in the wilderness of British Columbia with my family, far away from just about everything. To get to town in the winter, we had to drive 3 hours one way through blizzards... just to get groceries. That's when I started to photograph other people in cars. The waiting as an inactivity interests me — being trapped in this vacuum somewhere between departure and destination. Not much to do, except waiting for time to pass.

Roderik Henderson is a photographer and filmmaker who has spent much of his career living and traveling in remote areas of the American Southwest and British Columbia, Canada. His series "Transvoid" recently won 1st prize in the World Press Photo contest. You can see more on his website.

"100 Words" is a series in which photographers describe their work—in their words. What makes them tick? What makes a great photo? Film or digital? Positive or negative? Find out here. Curated by Graham Letorney

Oh no! You are super busy because it's the 21st century and it's impossible to sit still for more than a minute but you desperately need a quick and dirty portrait of yourself for some undisclosed reason! No fear — One Minute Portraits are here. It's the latest shtick from Australia-based illustrator Benjamin Hammond. Submit your photo through his website and have a custom-made portrait in minutes. Or in one minute, the name would indicate.

Vermeer would shudder.

"I started the site because I quite love to illustrate," Hammond wrote in an e-mail, "but other than the odd doodle here and there and a couple of projects that occasionally cropped up, I was lacking a solid consistent reason to draw." Now, thanks to a post by Cool Hunting, he has more than 500 portraits to complete. That's more than 8 non-stop hours of drawing.

Hammond has closed the submission feature for now — but he did take a minute to do a portrait of me because I had, like, a hundred things to do and I needed a portrait FAST. (See slide 1.)

Enlarge Steve McCurry

Steve McCurry's "Afghan Girl," photographed in Peshawar, Pakistan, in 1984 on Kodachrome film.

Steve McCurry

Steve McCurry's "Afghan Girl," photographed in Peshawar, Pakistan, in 1984 on Kodachrome film.

In 1984, photojournalist Steve McCurry was in an Afghan refugee camp in Pakistan. He followed the sound of voices to a tent where he found a group of girls. "I noticed this one little girl off to the side that had his incredible set of eyes that seemed almost haunted — or very piercing," he tells NPR's Audie Cornish.

McCurry snapped a picture that ended up on the cover of National Geographic's June 1985 issue. "The Afghan Girl" became one of the magazine's most widely recognized photographs — and one of the century's most iconic. To get that shot, McCurry used a type of film that has become iconic in its own right: Kodachrome.

The film, known for its rich saturation and archival durability of its slides, was discontinued last year to the dismay of photographers worldwide. But Kodak gave the last roll ever produced to McCurry. He has just processed that coveted roll at Dwayne's Photo Service in Parsons, Kan. — the last remaining location that processes the once-popular slide film.

Enlarge Ahmet Sel

Photographer Steve McCurry, 2002

Ahmet Sel

Photographer Steve McCurry, 2002

What's on that landmark roll of film is still under wraps. It will be the subject of an upcoming documentary by National Geographic. What is known is that the first and last images are in New York City, McCurry's home base. And between those frames are photographs from India, where McCurry established his career as a master of color photography.

Although he has almost a million images spanning 35 years in his Kodachrome library, he still felt the pressure of this assignment. Every one of the 36 frames on that final roll was precious. "Am I getting the right moment?" he wonders. "Is it in focus? Is the exposure right?"

So before he took one of those shots, he used a digital camera to hone in on the perfect exposure. "To have that reinforcement, to be able to see that on a two-dimensional screen ... it was a big help," he says.

And he's got a piece of advice for amateur photographers with unused Kodachrome film lying around: Get it to Dwayne's! The Kansas photo shop will stop processing Kodachrome rolls on Dec. 30. And while that will mark the end of an era of photography, the memories created with Kodachrome — like that Afghan girl's green eyes — will live on.

Related: 'Afghan Girl' Mystery Solved

The region around Kandahar city in Afghanistan is the Taliban's birthplace and breeding ground. That makes it a key location in the U.S. military's security efforts. But "securing" a region in which you can hardly distinguish friend from foe is far easier said than done. NPR staff photographer David Gilkey just returned from the region, where he spent time with the 101st Airborne Division. Their mission is two-fold: chase out the Taliban and win the trust of locals — if they can.

See more of Gilkey's coverage from Afghanistan.

Enlarge Luis Lamar

Wes Skiles prepares to film Blue Hole Vortex

Luis Lamar

Wes Skiles prepares to film Blue Hole Vortex

This past January, underwater photographer Wes Skiles stopped by to show me a few photos. He had just finished an assignment in the Bahamas for a National Geographic story, and our conversation ran the gamut. Be it poisonous hydrogen sulfide gas, photography or conservation, Skiles was excited about everything.

His story is now on the cover of National Geographic's August issue. It contains the magazine's second-ever tear-out, fold-out photograph. The editor-in-chief even wrote his editor's note about it. But Skiles did not have the chance to enjoy the recognition. He died tragically Wednesday while diving off the coast of Florida, at age 52. As of Thursday, the details of the accident were unknown.

A native of Florida, Skiles began diving at age 8. "I took to the water quite like a fish," he said. In fact, he never seemed to be on land. Even 44 years after that first dive, Skiles was as enthralled as ever by his work. He was a pioneering underwater cinematographer and still photographer, often working with National Geographic and scientific research teams to explore the inaccessible, diving deep to bring Earth's hidden treasures to surface.

Although each dive entailed a life risk, his photos alone explain the incessant returns. There was an obvious thrill, but also a certain majesty which only Skiles and a select, skilled few could experience. "I'm very appreciative of the fact that I'm in a very niche world that is about true exploration and discovery," he said. His hope, he continued, was to make people care more about the places he loved.

"Everything we do on the Earth's surface has this real direct connection to the water beneath our feet," Skiles concluded. "We can do better. And I hope to do a story that shows directly that connection."

Wow. According to this article, referenced in New York magazine, a bunch of researchers from Northeastern and Harvard have devised a way to quantify and visualize happiness in the U.S. — based on Twitter.

Analyzing more than 300 million posts to Twitter using the "ANEW word list," they have determined, among many things, that we Americans are happiest on Sunday morning and saddest on Thursday night. Hence Thirsty Thursday? Also interesting: "A number of interesting trends can be observed in the data..." the website says, "with the west coast showing happier tweets..."

I've always wanted to move to California. Now I can justify it, based on Dr. Twitter's empirical health observations.

Neat!

Whump! Pow! Wham! Colored pencils, comic strips, onomatopoeias and Ben-Day dots! These were the things that inspired Roy Lichtenstein. He liked things big and bold and bright. And if you've ever been to a modern art museum, you might agree that his works are probably some of the most memorable; it's hard to forget, really, a larger-than-life comic strip.

Lichtenstein is remembered as one of the most prominent self-proclaimed pop-artists who emerged in the 1960s among the likes of Andy Warhol. By the 1990s, he had turned to other media such as sculpture — but he also spent a good deal of that time planning his exhibitions. That's when photographer Laurie Lambrecht met him. For three years in the early '90s, she worked as his assistant while he prepared for a major retrospective.

Lambrecht's series, "From the Studio of Roy Lichtenstein," currently on display at Blue Sky Gallery in Portland, provides a rare behind-the-scenes look at one of the 21st century's most renowned artists. It's a glimpse at the things that inspired him. Some images show the artist quietly working, taken from a discrete, unobtrusive distance. But the majority of Lambrecht's photos show Lichtenstein's muses, which inhabit the pages of newspapers and scrapbooks. There was enough visual stimulation in his studio for her to make her own art — basically recycling and reinterpreting his old materials.

It must have been a contemplative time for them both, digging through archives and unearthing old materials at the end of Lichtenstein's career. He died in 1997, but today his works thrive in museums, in books and in some lucky homes around the world.

Ryan Enn Hughes makes videos. No, wait — he makes photos. I mean, he makes videos out of photographs. Or stop-motion photographic videos. Whatever. Just watch this:

The medium may defy category — Hughes calls it "interdisciplinary" — but these are basically examples of stop-motion animation. With the support of a Chalmers Arts Fellowship, the Toronto-based photographer is using the same technique employed by claymation animators (remember Gumby?), in which still photographs are strung together to create motion. But in this case, the subjects are live dancers, not lumps of clay.

Hughes' interest in motion pictures began in film school. An eye for cinematography led to still photography, and now he navigates the space between the two by making "stills" that move. After all, motion pictures are essentially just that — except traditionally shot at 24 or 30 frames per second instead of the one or two frames per second fired by Hughes. So, has photography just come full circle?

"The big thing," he told me over the phone, "is that the tools are crossing over." More and more digital still cameras are incorporating video capabilities. There have been Hollywood TV shows and documentary films shot entirely by DSLRs.

Hughes says the benefit of using a digital SLR camera over a movie film camera is that it's lighter, so he can experiment and maneuver easily and without the weight of a 5-person camera team. A lot of "RGB Move" (above) was devised on the fly, testing different shots and seeing what worked. "Controlled chaos," Hughes calls it.

His next project will employ 48 still cameras arranged in a circle, providing a 360-degree view of the subject, similar to how those iconic "bullet time" scenes in The Matrix were filmed. The result will be 48 still images of the same moment from different angles, but Hughes wonders: Will it be considered photography?

What do you think?