Dan Havlik

Fine Art photography can mean so many different things to so many different people, it’s almost impossible to define as a category. For starters, the subject matter can be wide-ranging: it can include landscapes, cityscapes, macros, wide angles, long exposures, abstracts, portraits, nudes, semi-nudes, black and whites, color photos, surreal photos, hyperreal photos, nature photos, and on and on and on. But while looking over the excellent group of entries from Shutterbug readers for this month’s Fine Art Photography assignment for Picture This! (page 16), I kept thinking to myself: art may be hard to define, but I do know it when I see it. Put simply, it’s beauty for beauty’s sake.

When we first told you about Affinity Photo back in February, the software’s parent company, Serif, had launched a free beta version of the app that garnered tons of attention from photographers seeking to leave the subscription-based Photoshop CC behind. That beta has ended and now a final version of Affinity Photo is available for Mac computers.

If you’re looking for a small and portable yet powerful camera that’s a good alternative to heftier digital SLR models, Olympus’ OM-D line of mirrorless compact system cameras are some of the best options out there. These retro-styled shooters recall cameras from the film era, resembling miniaturized SLRs. In short, if you feel all warm and fuzzy at the sight of classic cameras, you just might find Olympus’ OM-D models to be absolutely adorable. But there’s more to them than simple nostalgia.<

Olympus just announced that it is bringing its compact and wireless Olympus Air A01 camera device to the U.S. in July and Canada in August. The Olympus Air A01, which was introduced in Japan earlier this year, is a small, cylindrical gadget with a 16-megapixel Live MOS image sensor that can wirelessly connect Micro Four Thirds lenses with mobile devices such as smartphones.