With the market moving toward digital photography, two Puget Sound-area photography companies, Ivey Photo of Seattle and Abolins AV Photographic of Tacoma, went out of business this summer. Ivey closed June 30 after operating for more than three decades; Abolins shut its doors after nearly 40 years in business.

Portland-based Ivey Imaging, the parent company of Ivey Photos, will retain a Seattle sales office. Originally Ivey-Seright, the company began with custom black-and-white processing and grew to become one of the nation's largest professional photofinishing companies.

Much of Ivey Photo's equipment, including...

The Brooks Institute of Photography has announced that Leica Cameras will sponsor its 2008 documentary trip for students of the Visual Journalism program. Leica will provide training for the students before they depart on their trip, as well as Leica M8 digital rangefinder cameras and various interchangeable Leica M lenses.

Visual Journalism instructor Paul Myers will accompany 26 students on a seven-week journey through Southern India from November to December 2008 to chronicle the cultures of the region...

The Annenberg Foundation will open a free 10,000-square-foot gallery space in Los Angeles next to its administrative office on the Avenue of the Stars. The Annenberg Space for Photography will open in the spring of 2009 with a group show by eight Los Angeles-based photographers.

The space will feature a new digital projection gallery along with a traditional print exhibit area. Once the facility opens, thousands of photographs will be readily accessible to the public in large, high-resolution formats. The original inspiration for the space came from the foundation's vice president and trustee, Wallis Annenberg, whose personal devotion to traditional gallery and museum photography led him to create this new, high-tech paradigm for presenting images to the public...

The American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) received a $1.3 million royalty distribution from the Authors Coalition in December 2007, the largest such payout to date.

The Authors Coalition of America, founded in 1994, redistributes royalties on non-title-specific works that are photocopied abroad.

Unlike the United States, many European countries have created a tax on photocopying. International reprographic rights organizations funnel these funds through the Authors Coalition, which, in turn, distributes payments to its member organizations...

For Los Angeles photographer Jill Greenberg, the fallout continues from her controversial photo session with Sen. John McCain for an Atlantic Monthly magazine cover story.

After posting several unflattering and digitally doctored outtakes from the session on her website (manipulator.com) that lampooned McCain as a monster and a sexist, Greenberg has endured a firestorm of criticism from many colleagues in the photo industry for being misleading and unprofessional...

Photo agency Corbis says it will be cutting approximately 16 percent of its staff over the next year. The move, which will involve 175 layoffs, will reduce the company's size to about 900 employees.

Two of the highest-level executives who will be leaving the company are senior vice president Adam Brotman, who had launched Corbis' microstock site SnapVillage, and chief creative officer Ross Sutherland.

According to Corbis, the layoffs are part of consolidation efforts to remove role duplication between itself and Veer, a competitor that it acquired in 2007. Corbis had previously cut 285 jobs through layoffs in 2007...

A new bill was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives this July that would allow media access to the funeral ceremonies for members of the armed services who have died on active duty.

The Fallen Hero Commemoration Act, H.R. 6662, was introduced by Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.) and has gained the support of press organizations including the National Press Photographers Association and the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

If the bill goes into effect, the Department of Defense would be required to give journalists access to ceremonies of soldiers killed in action, ending the ban that has been in place since the 1991 Persian Gulf War...

Late last year, a print by photographer Andreas Gursky, "99 Cent II Diptychon (2001)," sold for $2.48 million at auction, the second-highest price ever paid for a photograph and the highest price for the work of a living photographer. The record, set last February for a 1904 work by Edward Steichen, was $2.9 million.

The Gursky that sold at Phillips de Pury & Co. in November 2006 is a 22-foot-wide chromogenic color diptych, one of an edition of six, that provides an overhead view of a colorful, crowded...