• MAC Drivers FOR SONY UP-DR200 Printer! –Macintosh drivers have now been developed for the new SONY UP-DR200 fast 6"x8" event printer. Although SONY have yet to officially release them, the developers say they've passed Beta, so PhotoWeek! makes an unofficial and unsupported release candidate available to our readers here now! – Enjoy! But remember to be careful out there!
• Trainor DOES 7 Prints a Minute at Cannes! –Keith Trainor gave an impressive demonstration of the capability of modern event photography at the SONY World Photography Awards gala VIP ceremony at Cannes on April 24. In just 90 minutes, he and his crew shot and printed 625 live 6"x8" event photos – an average of almost seven a minute![expand story >>>]
Keith used the new SONY Alpha a700 camera to take the photographs, they were displayed via ExpressDigital DARKROOM on SONY Bravia widescreen TVs, and printed on a bank of four SONY UP-DR150 fast event printers. You can see Keith's Event Portraits team in action at Cannes in the YouTube video below:
Keith used simple borders in ExpressDigital Darkroom to put a black keyline and border on the images, and to include the logos of the SWPA and SONY.
• SONY World Photo Awards! – The UK's Vanessa Winship has won the SONY World Photography Awards Photographer of the Year, in the professional category, for her portrait of two little Eastern Turkish girls, "Sweet Nothings – rural schoolgirls from Eastern Anatolia, Turkey". The award was presented last Thursday evening at the SWPA VIP gala ceremonies in Cannes, France.
Vanessa Winship has been working in the Balkans since 1999 and currently lives in Istanbul. She graduated with a BA in Film, Video and Photographic Arts from Central London Poly in 1987 and did her postgraduate Diploma in Photojournalism at the London College of Printing. In 1998 she won a World Press Photo first prize (Arts stories). [expand story >>>]
The 2008 Sony World Photography Awards are the inaugural SWPA awards. The prize for the World Photographer of the Year is $25,000. The judges include Nan Goldin, Bruce Davidson, Tom Stoddart, Elliott Erwitt and Martine Franck.
James Kennedy, General Manager Marketing Communications, Sony Digital Imaging Europe said, “The Awards really are a showcase for the photographic industry at its highest level. It has been wonderful to be part of an event that brings together such phenomenal talent.”
Founder of World Photography Awards Scott Gray added, “This event is the culmination of what has been a fantastic first year for the Sony World Photography Awards. We thank everyone who entered and look forward to the second year already.”
• Keith Trainor Confirmed For Cannes! –SONY have chosen a UK photographer to be the official tog at their SONY World Photography Awards in Cannes on April 24! Keith Trainor, one of the UK's best known event photographers, has been confirmed in the role. This event is going to be one of the most prestigious in photography. The award for the World Photograph of the Year, the l'Iris d'Or, will come with a $25,000 cash prize. [expand story >>>]
Keith has a great deal of experience of shooting black tie events, including the annual Master Photographers Association Awards here in the UK, where his photos raise thousands of pounds for charity. (He is ably assisted at these gatherings variously by his Event Portraits team, his photographer/partner Beverly, and the couple's daughter.) Keith is well known for giving lectures, seminars and workshops on Event Photography throughout Europe and the U.S.A.
Event Portraits bought most of their event equipment – including SONY 6"x8" printers which they will use at the Awards ceremony, and the flight cases these will travel in – from leading eventing specialists www.photomart.co.uk.
• Sony World Photography Awards! –The SONY World Photography Awards will be presented at Cannes on April 24. This is the inaugural year of the awards, and coincides with the arrival of SONY's Alpha system (the corporation's new family of DSLR's and lenses). The presentations will take place at a VIP gala evening in the Palais des Festivals and will include an award to a noted individual for their contribution to photography. [expand story >>>]
Winners in the amateur category have been announced already, and include two Britons – Martin Kharumwa and Kerry Grainger – as well as overall winner Dr. Arup Ghosh, an Indian amateur with a remarkable portfolio of travel photography – shot in the subcontinent – who won with his photograph of a barber at work.
The SONY World Photography Awards are richly endowed, and they're judged by some of the leading names in photography today. The awards ceremony will make a big splash. And SONY have enlisted Magnum to curate an exhibition of the winners, to be displayed alongside some of the most iconic prints in the history of photography.
SONY is an established leader in broadcast systems, and in professional and commercial photo printing. Their sponsorship of these awards, and the corporation's introduction of professional Alpha DSLR models, could be read as indicating how serious they are about competing with Canon and Nikon for mindshare amongst pro photographers. [add comment]
NEW! SONY UPDR-200 PRINTER! This is the machine destined to succeed Sony's UP-DR150 as arguably the king of event printers in the fast 6"x8" class. The biggest changes from the former model include a whopping upgrade in paper capacity and a whole new type of media.
click the play button to listen to our first assessment of the new SONY UP-DR200.
• Unique Paddys Day Presentation! – This time last year a photographer, one of Photomart's innovative eventing customers, called in to the company and asked them to set up an urgent meet with Sony. Intrigued, Photomart management scheduled the meeting. The photographer was a little the worse for wear, having neither slept nor changed his shirt since St. Patrick's Day. He later made a unique presentation to SONY Professional Systems Europe. [expand story >>>]
He wanted to demonstrate the feasibility of using particular Sony products in an application he'd been told the products weren't suited to. "You don't know how good your equipment is!" he told Sony. In front of independent witnesses from the world of eventing, and a representative from SONY, he demonstrated a proven event photography solution of his own, based on the unlikely combination of a SONY SnapLab dye-sub photo printer and a SONY UPX-C200 ID Photography System. (You can watch a short clip from his presentation in the YouTube video below.)
His entire solution packed into a Kata bag slung over his shoulder. Using only portable battery power, he took photographs on the Sony UPX-C200 ID camera, and printed simultaneously to two printers, a tethered SnapLab, and a wireless Sony ID printer. The ID printer output prints through a slit in the Kata bag.
Throughout St. Patrick's Day, in Irish pubs all round London, this event photographer had sold numerous 7"x5" SnapLab prints in mounts, and Sony ID photos in key rings, all from this bag. From his enterprise he had earned what he described modestly for tax purposes, as a "respectable profit"! As we said at the time, Slainte to you sir, and never mind the begrudgers![add comment]
UP-DR150 has been a great success for SONY. In the UK it spearheaded the corporation's further penetration of the event photography market, where it was well received by 6"x8" users for its unbeaten speed, and for image quality the public loved. In the kiosk arena, it was the machine at the heart of the scores of kiosks sold by SONY to ASDA in what must have been the coup of the year in 2007 in the imaging industry.
• Sony UP-Dr200 will have matte print option! – The forthcoming SONY UP-DR200 6"x8" event printer will have Sony's patented and proven ProMatte print technology, the corporation has said. ProMatte allows Sony dye sub printers to make matte prints as well as gloss prints, without changing media. [expand story >>>]
Historically, using dye sub technology to produce matte prints has been problematic. Dye sub media is inherently glossy - it works by reflecting white light back through a dye-absorbing receiver coating. The coating has a smooth surface, and the prints are finished with a laminate overlay. Because of this, few dye sub printers have offered a matte finish option. Of those that have, most provided it on an alternative matte finish media. Sony's ProMatte solution is different. It works by modulating the signal sent to the thermal head, not by switching the media. This approach hasn't been used much on fast dye sub photo printers before, because at high print speeds it tended to produce streaking. Sony have overcome these problems with their ProMatte technology. It has been available on their printers, like portrait printer UP-GR700, for some years now. We look forward to seeing it on this new event printer!
Hi! I'm Simon Towler. I'm the Editor of PhotoWeek! – the UK's free weekly email newsletter for the photo trades! And THIS is our BLOG!
(PhotoWeek! is sponsored by www.photomart.co.uk)
• MAC Drivers FOR SONY UP-DR200 Printer! – Macintosh drivers have now been developed for the new SONY UP-DR200 fast 6"x8" event printer. Although SONY have yet to officially release them, the developers say they've passed Beta, so PhotoWeek! makes an unofficial and unsupported release candidate available to our readers here now! – Enjoy! But remember to be careful out there! 
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