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.

Frans Lanting's "LIFE: A Journey Through Time" will be displayed through February 2010 as part of a multimedia orchestral performance in Italy, Mexico and England.

A collaboration between National Geographic photographer Frans Lanting and composer Philip Glass ("La Belle et La Bete," "Dracula," "Les Enfants Terribles"), the performance was first conceived as part of the Cabrillo Festival in Santa Cruz, Calif., in 2006 as a means to create "a lyrical interpretation of life on our planet." The final show of the...

Los Angeles-area photographer Tom Atwood was awarded second and third prizes in the 2009 Worldwide Photography Gala Awards competition. This year's images, submitted from 27 countries around the world, can be seen in The WonderPick Gallery at wonderpick.com.

To combat the impact of the economic downturn in the ever more competitive photography industry, five Portland-based photographers have joined together to create a collaborative assemblage known as PhotoForce (photo-force.com).

The team — consisting of Steven Scardina, Lincoln Barbour, Brian Lee, Stuart Mullenberg and Daniel Root — was established to bring "five top photographers together in one collective."

The group's first major presentation, "Setting the Table," went on display at the Venue Pearl in Portland in January...

While photographing a wine festival in Yantai, China, last September, Oregon-based photographer Janis Miglavs discovered that his most recent book, "Oregon: The Taste of Wine," was one of four finalists in the Gourmand International Book Competition.

Miglavs' book, which highlights up-and-coming Oregon wines, took second place in the Best Book on New World Wine category. The book also won the Benjamin Franklin award for the best regional book in North America.