Good stuff, people ... all the eligible photos are here, so look them over in preparation for voting next week. Use the "Full-screen" link to get the best effect.

Meanwhile, don't forget to enter the January contest, and to vote for a February theme. Questions? Email raw@boston.com.

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This week, it was a black-and-white photo by Mary Robichaud of Billerica showing a North End resident feeding pigeons -- the winner of our September "My Neighborhood" contest -- that ran in the Globe's G section.

The caption:

He's got friends in low places
A recent contest on RAW calling for photos with the theme of "My Neighborhood" drew hundreds of entries depicting everything from suburban street parades to rural landscapes. RAW readers judged this black-and-white portrait by Billerica resident Mary Robichaud tops: She called it "Paesan and his Picciones," and it depicts a man in the North End feeding pigeons on a warm summer day. Mary's camera settings were 1/350 sec., f/3.5, ISO 800, with a lens focal length of 25.7mm.

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OK, RAW Dawgs, I just got in from clearing my driveway with my little girlie snowblower, and I'm ready to start building the gallery of the December contest entries. The deadline is midnight tonight, but we won't start judging until Jan. 5 or 6 to give Flickr time to find new accounts. It's frustrating how long it's taking Flickr to find new accounts -- at least two weeks! Thankfully, we're getting our own photo upload tool sometime in the first quarter of next year, so perhaps we won't have to rely on Flickr's API for our contests any more. Stay tuned ... and stay warm.

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Earlier this month, David Pogue, the very funny technology columnist for The New York Times, published a list of photography tips and tricks that he says are the best he's ever run across. Here's an excerpt, and a link for you to read the entire piece:

By David Pogue
The New York Times

It's a crazy time of year to be finishing a book. But in between present wrapping and tree trimming, that's exactly what I'm doing. It's a book on digital photography, which, as you probably know, is among my favorite hobbies.

As I write, I keep coming across these important tips and saying to myself, "Man, this is what people REALLY need to know. I should pull them out into a special list at the back of the book called, 'The Best Photography Tricks of All Time,' so people can't miss it."

So that's exactly what I'm doing. Thought I'd send you the list as it stands today, so you'd have it when you unwrap that shiny new digital camera that you get as a gift. (Most of these apply to consumer cameras, not S.L.R.'s.)

THE BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TRICKS OF ALL TIME

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Thought you might like a roundup of some photo-related events and exhibits to check out over the New Year's weekend:

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A couple of days after Amanda Galvin-Johnston's photo ran on the inside back cover of G, a picture by Globe photographer Dina Rudick was published as a "Parting Shot" feature (G runs an events-related photo every Friday). The photo itself was intriguing enough; but what made the feature of even more interest to amateur photographers was Dina's caption, which outlined her thought process as she composed the photo. Additionally, I found details about her camera settings attached to the photo on our internal photo server:

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A close-up of a leaf by Amanda Galvin-Johnston, our very first Photographer of the Week, graced the pages of the Globe's G section last week.

The text says: "A light summer drizzle had just ended when Amanda Galvin-Johnston, a recent RAW Photographer of the Week, noticed that the raindrops on the plants in her Cotuit backyard were glistening. She grabbed her digital SLR, set it to macro mode, and captured this image of water droplets on a leaf (note the drops even on the blade of grass in the background). She had her 18-55mm lends at a focal length of 55mm, and used an f/stop of 5.6 and ISO 320."

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This month, Globe staff photographer Michele McDonald critiqued the work of Bernadette Markey of Hopkinton. Bernadette told us she takes pictures for fun, but also "to completely torture myself when they just come out wrong, whether it be because they are out of focus or the lighting stinks, or I God forbid chop off a foot/feet, arm or leg."

Michele thinks Bernadette is being a little hard on herself. When she looks at Bernadette's work, she sees someone with a photographer's eye and an interest in creating pictures that are more than ordinary.

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Two exhibits in New York ponder the truths of illumination and illusion

By Mark Feeney
Globe Staff

NEW YORK - Switzerland, that bastion of numbered bank accounts, prides itself on sobriety no less than profitability. Yet the writers and artists it has produced (Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Herman Hesse, Paul Klee, Jean-Luc Godard, Robert Frank) tend to be at least slightly cuckoo - just like the clock Orson Welles says in "The Third Man" is the country's only great achievement. Also, they tend to emigrate.

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By Michael Merline
Franklin

As you enter the "Karsh 100: A Biography in Images" exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, you will see Yousuf Karsh's photography equipment, which includes his camera on a tripod, the camera case, and his hat on the case -- as though you are in his studio for a portrait sitting. And as you stroll through this studio/exhibit, you will see many of his famous (and infamous) subjects who posed in front of this very same camera.

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By Mark Feeney
Globe Staff

Susan Sontag took a trip once to Archer City, Texas, to visit her friend Larry McMurtry. McMurtry, who set many of his novels in the vicinity, later recalled how Sontag teased him about living in his own theme park.

She could have said something similar about herself and photography.

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The photographer's images almost always reflect himself

By Mark Feeney
Globe Staff

"Power" and "performance" have more in common than a first letter and Richard Avedon's avid interest. At their most potent (that letter again), they are all but interchangeable. Think of the hold a great actor has on an audience. Think of how well a leader plays a part before the electorate. It should come as no surprise, then, that several Avedon portraits of the same person appear in both of these very large, very expensive, and frequently problematic books, "Performance" and "Portraits of Power." The problem comes in trying to decide at what point a photographer's greatness can get in the way of his work.

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By Mark Feeney
Globe Staff

Optometrists correct vision. So it's natural Milton Rogovin had optometry for a day job. His ambition with a camera was to correct vision, too. "The rich have their own photographers," he likes to say. "I photograph the forgotten ones."

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Lots of catching up to do this week, gang ... I'll post another On Assignment essay, another critique of a RAW Dawg's portfolio by a Globe photographer, some recent Globe exhibit reviews, and of course, entries for the December "'Tis the Season" contest.

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By John Tlumacki
Boston Globe Staff Photographer

This time of year is the reason why we love our cameras.

Christmas light displays are presents for our cameras, opening up the many challenges that our cameras were made for. Experimentation with lighting will always lead to better photos. I have some ideas that might help you best capture the lights of this holiday season.

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This week it's Kati Seiffer's shot of the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester.

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Derrick Jackson, an Op-Ed columnist for the Globe, is well known for his annual "Graduation Gap Bowl" columns, written at the time of the college football bowl selections, and his gender graduation brackets, published at the time of the NCAA March Madness basketball tournaments. Sometimes, this native Cheesehead bleeds a little green-and-yellow in his columns. And occasionally, you'll get a glimpse of another of his passions: Photography.

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It's never too early, and now that we're running ahead of schedule with the January contest, might as well think about a theme for February. But don't forget to enter the December contest, with the theme 'Tis the Season; the January contest, for pictures that illustrate Cold, is also open for submissions.

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Of this photo, judge Peter Southwick of Boston University's photojournalism department said: "A really engaging image that earned the highest ranking because of the creative angle, and the right choice of lens and shutter speed to accentuate the action. The difficult light is handled well, and the subject's expression made it a winner. Everyone who looked at this picture smiled."

"It looks as though this image employed a lot of Photoshop post-production work, but the final result screams MOTION," Peter said. "Creativity was very much in play in the choice of camera angle and the use of slow shutter that accentuated the motion in the light sources while keeping the main subject sharp."

Peter said this photographer employed "a tried and true technique utilizing a slow shutter and zoom during exposure, but it's not easy to do this successfully. Great care has to be given to the coordination of the zoom and shutter, but even more important is the arrangement of elements in the frame so the viewer feels the effect of the motion. This photographer pulled it off very well."

Every time I show your photographs to whatever professional photographer happens to be judging or critiquing in a given month, they look them over and inevitably say, "Wow -- these are really good." Peter Southwick was no different.

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Anybody else grab some shots of the full moon? I'm looking for moon shots, so whether you took photos this past weekend or last year, full moon, half moon, or quarter moon, send them in. I'll post the best here. Just e-mail your favorite moon shot to raw@boston.com. Keep it clean...

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The gallery at the Moose Hill Wildlife Sanctuary in Sharon is hosting an art exhibit featuring the photographs that are in the sanctuary's 2009 calendar, which is for sale. Taken by award-winning photographer Fred Martins, the images seek to capture the serenity of Moose Hill. This is the sanctuary's fourth annual calendar. The photo exhibit will run through Jan. 31 in the gallery at the sanctuary, located at 293 Moose Hill St. The calendar is on sale for $15 at the Moose Hill Nature Center, Ward's Berry Farm, and the Gallery in the Square in Sharon Center. Visitors may buy a chance to win their choice of a signed and numbered original photographic print from the exhibit. Tickets are $5 each or 5 for $20, and the drawing will be held Jan. 20. All proceeds support the educational programs at Moose Hill.

Moose Hill is Mass. Audubon's oldest sanctuary and one of the largest with nearly 2,000 acres and 25 miles of trails. The Nature Center is open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Trails are open every day, dawn to dusk. Art exhibits are shown September through June, and the gift shop is open year-round. Call 781-784-5691 or e-mail moosehill@massaudubon.org.

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Holliston resident Dominic Casserly, a Massachusetts College of Art graduate, has been combining his love of photography and adventure since 2006, when he photographed a 600-mile adventure race called Primal Quest for a website, and realized he had some talent. Not long after, Casserly embarked on a cross-country trip, driving to national parks and going on multiday back-country camping expeditions while documenting his journey in photographs. Then, earlier this year, he and a friend spent three months biking 4,500 miles from San Francisco to Key West, Fla. Casserly's photographs are on exhibit this month at the Holliston Public Library, where a reception with the artist will be held tomorrow (Monday the 15th) from 7 to 8 p.m.

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Vanity Fair: The Portraits A Century of Iconic Images By Graydon Carter and the Editors of Vanity Fair Abrams, 383 pp., $65 Irving Berlin, Radiohead. Woodrow Wilson, George W. Bush. Al Jolson, Tom Hanks. Colette, Susan Sontag. W. C. Fields, Whoopi Goldberg. Lionel, Ethel, John, and Drew Barrymore. Images of these and dozens of other famous figures in art, politics, music, sports, and film - which first appeared in the pages of Vanity Fair - make up a volume that's "no less than a history of portrait photography of the last century," says the magazine's editor, Graydon Carter.

Annie Leibovitz's portrait of future California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (above), the cover of the June 1997 issue, falls toward the end of the book, which ranges from 1913 to 2008. Many of the photographers in the collection are as renowned as their subjects, among them Cecil Beaton, Mary Ellen Mark, Andre Kertesz, Edward Steichen, Irving Penn, Man Ray, and Robert Mapplethorpe.

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By Cate McQuaid
Globe Correspondent

Photographer Lyle Ashton Harris is best known for his self-portraits - unnerving, provocative pieces in which he dons costumes to push at the edges of Americans' assumptions about race and sexuality. Lately, though, Harris has been working in Ghana, photographing street scenes, markets, and the beach.

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Catherine Opie's work takes in a whole country

By Mark Feeney
Globe Staff

NEW YORK - The most famous Opie in American culture, a cute little tow-head, is the son of the widowed sheriff of a small North Carolina town, Mayberry. Far from any city, it's full of folks with names like Goober and Aunt Bee, all of them ardently straight and sexually oblivious.

Catherine Opie is no relation.

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East Somerville residents hope photo exhibit
changes the neighborhood's rough reputation

By Danielle Dreilinger
Globe Correspondent

For many people in the western two-thirds of Somerville, the McGrath Highway might as well be an ocean. On its far reaches, bounded by Interstate 93, Charlestown, and Washington Street, lies mysterious East Somerville.

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Eloquent Nude: The Love and Legacy of Edward Weston and Charis Wilson
Film at the Museum of Fine Arts next Saturday (Dec. 20) at 10:30 a.m.

By Sebastian Smee
Globe Staff

She was preposterously beautiful, their story intensely romantic. But Charis Wilson, who was once the lover, model, and collaborator of photographer Edward Weston, wants you to know above all how to pronounce her name. It's "Karis," folks.

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Wall mural and exhibit at the Worcester Art Museum tackle social issues

By Cate McQuaid
Globe Correspondent

WORCESTER - Three microphones appear in "Actions Speak," the new giant mural by the artist duo THINK AGAIN at the Worcester Art Museum. One caked with lipstick lies beside a second covered with a red condom. The third hangs bare over a pile of human bones, as if waiting for the dead to rise and speak. Ashes and salt fill the background with a grim black and white. Text floats down beside the first two microphones: "smear," "violate," "misquote," and more aversive words.

It's the latest installation in the "Wall at WAM" series, for which the museum invites artists to fill a 17-by-67-foot expanse in its Renaissance Court, overlooking sixth-century Roman mosaics. The piece - a hybrid of photography, drawing, etching, and sculpture, all captured in a digital print - is a shocking, sobering work, impressive not only in scale, but in its gorgeous detail. For all its darkness, "Actions Speak" has an allure that makes it hard to turn away.

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Lorietta Snyder Shactman, who taught digital photography in the Merrimack Valley and worked at Ritz Camera stores in the region, died of lymphoma at her home in Plaistow, N.H. recently. She was 51.

Mrs. Shactman was born in Malden, Mass. She graduated from Stoneham High School and attended Northeastern University. She taught workshop classes on digital photography in the Merrimack Valley and worked as a professional photographer. She also worked as a manager at Ritz Camera stores in Massachusetts and New Hampshire for 15 years.

Mrs. Shactman leaves her husband, Steven of Plaistow; two sons, Scott of Norwood, Mass., and Jordan of Plaistow; her parents, Carol and Robert Snyder of Plaistow; and two sisters, Wendy Bush of Plaistow and Nancy Nadler of Atkinson, N.H. Burial was in Sharon Memorial Park in Sharon, Mass.

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BU's Peter Southwick is reviewing the 25 photos that received the most votes in the November contest, and is narrowing the field to the Top 10. I hope to post the winners Monday afternoon.

Also next week, I'll put up a poll to choose a theme for February. John Tlumacki is writing a new tipsheet, and another Globe photographer will do a critique of somebody's work sometime in the next two weeks. And our next Photographer of the Week, to be posted Monday, may surprise you.

Meanwhile, be sure to enter the January "Cold" contest.

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Now that's cold! You chose Cold as the theme for the January contest, and we're opening entries now -- no need to wait until Jan. 1.

How can you illustrate cold?

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A photo of his nephew by Dennis P. Sheehan of Boston, part of a critique by Globe photographer John Tlumacki, made the Globe's G section this week.

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Actress Jessica Lange, winner of two Academy Awards, discusses her book of photographs today at 6 p.m. at the Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St., Cambridge (call Harvard Book Store at 617-661-1515 for tickets, $5). "50 Photographs," a portfolio of work in black-and-white, features images from Mexico, Africa, Romania, Russia, Finland, Italy, and France as well as the United States. Lange describes taking photographs as "the opposite of acting."
-- The Boston Globe

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By Mark Feeney
Globe Staff

WINCHESTER - It's hard for a title to set the bar higher than "Humankind."

Modeled on the landmark 1955 Museum of Modern Art exhibition "The Family of Man," it shares its predecessor's forthright support of the party of humanity and commitment to social uplift. But "Humankind," which runs at the Griffin Museum of Photography through Jan. 11, labors under three severe disadvantages.

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I was talking to the Globe Living/Arts editors about tomorrow's RAW photo that will run in G when I realized I had never posted last week's image of the page. If you missed it in print, we ran the October "Get Close" winner, "Green Eye" -- a photo taken by Faye Maier of Scarborough, Maine, of her cat Tilly.

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Beloved shop steps out of the picture

By Justin A. Rice
Globe Correspondent

To the sounds of Sunday morning jazz playing on his stereo, Steve Walker drained bleach and other chemicals from a series of tubes inside a large device that transforms film into printable negatives. While Walker shut down the machine, his friend Raphael Pol unhooked an even chunkier machine that prints negatives on paper.

"This machine has had very little use lately; I used to do 50 to 75 rolls [of film] a day," Walker said. "The last year or two, I've done 20 or 15 a week."

With the age of digital photography in full bloom, Walker's shop, the South End Photo Lab at 597 Tremont St., will close its doors at the end of this month after 20 years in business.

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All of the qualified November entries are now in this gallery. BU photojournalism director Peter Southwick has made his choices of the Final 50, and we're checking the Voting Machine right now and will post it shortly. Make sure you look over these photos at the "Full screen" size so you can better judge which photos you want to vote for.

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Hey, gang -- sorry I was out of commission yesterday ... believe it or not, I have other responsibilities outside of RAW, although a completely RAW life would be a nice indulgence ...

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