Recently returned from Tibet, Phil Borges is now touring to promote his latest work, which focuses on the changing roles and lives of women on the Tibetan Plateau. Dedicating much of his work to advocate for the empowerment of women, Borges has released several books about this issue, including "Tibetan Portrait" and "Enduring Spirit."

On June 23, Borges will speak at Museum of History and Industry in Seattle to help with fundraising for Bridges to Understanding. For more information, visit bridges2understanding.org.

Bay Area advertising photographer Mel Lindstrom of Mel Lindstrom Images Inc. received bronze-, silver- and gold-level ADDY Awards from the American Advertising Federation (AAF). At the February event, Lindstrom also won Best of Show for the year. In the long history of the AAF program, no other photographer — or entity other than an ad agency — has received this recognition.

Kevin Schafer's photographs of the threatened silky sifaka lemur of Madagascar were featured in a cover story in the April 2010 Smithsonian magazine. Also from this photo series, two images have been selected for the prestigious "Wildlife As Canon Sees It" feature in National Geographic magazine.

Craig Varjabedian, founder of Eloquent Light Photography Workshops, has been awarded the 2010 Outstanding Photography Book Award by the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum for his sixth book, "Ghost Ranch and the Faraway Nearby." Over the past seven years, Varjabedian compiled more than 90 black-and-white landscape images for the book, which focuses on the centuries-old Ghost Ranch in New Mexico.

In March, commercial photographer Doug Walker was recognized by the Professional Photographers of Washington as the 2010 Commercial Photographer of the Year. Walker, an Olympia-based photographer since 1994, also received several other mentions at the award ceremony, including the second annual Kenmore Camera-Canon Honor Award for excellence in image making.

Also this year, Walker earned the Certified Professional Photographer (CPP) designation from the Professional Photographic Certification Commission.

German photographer Florian Schulz's work has been featured as part of a visual campaign that celebrates the beauty of the Arctic while simultaneously warning of the threats of offshore oil development and industrialization. The campaign, titled "Visions of the Arctic," was launched in April and is comprised of a series of public presentations by Schulz. A traveling exhibit of the photos opened at the G2 Gallery in Los Angeles on May 7.

An active member of the J. Paul Getty Museum since 1986, Judith Keller was recently named senior curator of photographs at the Los Angeles-based museum. Keller has been the acting head of the department since January 2009, following the retirement of the department's founding curator, Weston Naef.

Keller's achievements at the museum include more than 20 exhibitions and 10 publications, including...

The Photo Imaging Education Association (PIEA), a Photo Marketing Association member group, has announced that Marcia Rubenstein, of the Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, Calif., has assumed the office of PIEA president.

The Worldwide Community of Imaging Associations has named Brian Wood, of PhotoVision in Salem, Ore., as the new Photo Marketing Association (PMA) president for 2010-2011. Prior to his position as president-elect in 2009-2010, Wood served as PMA vice president and treasurer.

Irving Penn, the man whose stark, minimalist black-and-white fashion images adorned the cover of Vogue for many years, died in October 2009 at the age of 92.

Born in 1917, Penn was a renowned celebrity fashion and portrait photographer. Beginning his artistic career as a painter and designer at the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art, he quickly transitioned into photography when he was offered a position as a fashion photographer for Vogue in the 1940s. Within a short period of time, Penn's modernist portraiture style landed him a...