Well, I have jury duty today, folks, but over the weekend I built two more galleries of March contest entries. So we have 4 galleries done, containing 200 of your photos in all. As of right now, there are just 72 more photos to feature, but given that you still have until midnight Tuesday to enter, we just may surpass 300 photos.

Here are the galleries I've built so far: Gallery 1 | Gallery 2 | Gallery 3 | Gallery 4

Here's more about the theme, and here's how to enter.

Once I get all the contest entries posted, I'll get back to your Wildlife shots. That's not a contest; that's just a call for photos. And dozens of you have sent in some pretty great pictures.

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Folks, this is what I've been spending my time on: We're launching new discussion forums, article comments, and profile pages Tuesday. You can read more about it here. So I'll post more March contest and wildlife galleries as soon as I can ... thanks.

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By Paul E. Kandarian
Globe Correspondent

Erica Greenberg was a freshman at Sharon High School last year when she read about the Dedham-based nonprofit Hope In Bloom, which plants gardens for free at the homes of breast cancer patients. She said she saw the opportunity to "be able to contribute two of my greatest passions in life, helping others and taking photographs."

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The Armenian National Committee of Massachusetts and the Armenian Library and Museum of America is hosting a photography exhibit at the State House on Beacon Hill this week. The exhibit, called "iwitness," documents the oral histories and black-and-white portraits of survivors of the Armenian genocide by Los Angeles-based photographers Ara Oshagan and Levon Parian. The exhibit is free and runs through Friday. It then will move to the Armenian Library and Museum of America, 65 Main St., Watertown, where it will be on display from April 2 through May.

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A photographer's unsettling look at girls' culture

By Mark Feeney
Globe Staff

NORTHAMPTON - There were 1,600 people in my college freshman class, so it took a lot to stand out. One woman did. Among all those well-fed young faces, she looked as though she could have been her own grandmother: face drawn, skin wizened, fingers as bony as claws. Her appearance seemed strange, of course; but being your basic 18-year-old guy - meaning, a dolt - I thought nothing further of it. When she returned next fall, moon-faced and pudgy, even I understood. She had been anorexic.

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We're up to 138 entries for the March "Nighttime" photo contest. I've built two galleries of your photos so far, each containing 50 photos. Gallery 1 is here, and Gallery 2 is here. More to come.

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Two Newburyport High School students were chosen to exhibit at the Firehouse Center for the Arts in Newburyport, in a juried process that picked their work over many others, including some veteran professionals. Jackson Potter and Shane Levi Silverstein combine their efforts in "Double Exposure," on display through March 29. A reception with the artists is from 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday (March 21). The show presents a new take on photographic portraits and landscapes. Jackson has exhibited at the Newburyport Art Association and worked extensively with G118, a

student gallery he helped organize at the high school. You can see more of his photos on his Flickr page. Shane also has exhibited at the art association. He's treasurer of the high school art gallery and has interned with local professional photographer Dawn Norris. His Flickr page is here.

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By Sinead Carew Reuters Sony Ericsson is betting heavily on camera phones in the United States this year, hoping high-end photography will convince consumers to buy a new phone or replace digital cameras. The Sony Corp and Ericsson venture has seen strong international sales of its

Cybershot camera phones and Walkman music phones, but has yet to make big inroads in the U.S. market.

While some analysts are skeptical about the timing for such devices, Sony Ericsson plans to launch its C905 8 megapixel camera phone (above) in the hope the boost in picture quality and carrier promotions will help it increase sales here.

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It's time for another off-contest solicitation; we haven't had one since your Food shots last month.

As I was shoveling my driveway earlier this month, I was thinking about the weather adage about March, "In like a lion, out like a lamb." Turns out it really has nothing to do with weather, but concerns the positions of the constellations Leo (the lion) and Aries (the ram) at the beginning and end of the month. Also, there were some good zebra shots in the B&W contest, and POTW Caitlin Smith had a nice close-up of a camel.

So how about sending me your best wildlife shots? No pets, please. Ideally, I'd prefer wildlife unencumbered by fences or cages, but I'll take farm and zoo animals. I expect birds to be a popular subject.

Since I like to display these photos in a full-screen gallery, I prefer 1024 px wide for horizontals, 800 px for verticals. Full-res is fine; I have an Action set up in Photoshop that reduces it to 72 dpi.

Also, let's limit it to no more than 3 shots per person, ok?

Really examine your photos for quality and composition. It's easy to just point your camera and click, but I'm not looking for snapshots. We've all seen enough good photography posted here in the past 7 months to understand that the elements of subject, composition, lighting, context, focus, lack of clutter, color, texture, proportion, and more all come into play to create a great photo.

As longtime Globe photographer Bill Brett used to tell me, "I don't take a photograph; I make a photograph."

So let's see your wildlife creations. As always, email them to raw@boston.com.

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Maria Svigos fell in love with photography after taking one class, and has been trying to hone her skills ever since. She's the subject of this month's critique by a Boston Globe photographer.

Maria is a junior at Bridgewater State College and shoots with a Canon EOS Rebel K2.

Her work was evaluated by the Globe's Jonathan Wiggs, who has won numerous awards since becoming a member of the Globe staff in 1990. His assignments have taken him all over the world, including Iraq, Afghanistan, and Cuba. You can see a portfolio of his work in the section of Boston.com dedicated to Globe photography. Jonathan and his family live on the South Shore.

Here is his critique:

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Getting a head start on posting the contest entries this month. As you know, the theme is "Nighttime is the right time," and we're asking for real night shots: No sunsets, no twilights. Here's more about the theme, and if you want to enter, here's how to do it.

Meanwhile, here's a gallery of the first 50 entries. More to come.

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FIRST PLACE - $100

"This is a photographer who's not afraid to get wet!" judge Stan Grossfeld of the Globe Photo Staff said of the First Place finisher in our February "Black & White" contest. "This photo has great energy and feeling, and uses light very well. It's a beautiful composition, very clean, slightly off-center, with good highlights and shadows and a great full water splash. I can tell the photographer used a wide-angle lens, crouched down, leaned forward, and took one for the team. A high shutter speed was used to freeze every droplet. The fact that you can't see most of the diver is interesting ... sometimes what you don't see makes a photo more alluring. I'm sitting here on a gloomy winter day in Boston, and this photo transports me to where I really want to be!"

SECOND PLACE - $50

"This photographer recognized that when you have a high-contrast composition, you don't need midtones," Stan said during his judging session. "This photo makes a statement with just light and shadow. I know I said before that good black and white photos need black blacks, strong highlights, and midtones throughout, but all rules are made to be broken. A lot of photographers would have moved in and just shot the quartet of horses. This photographer recognized the conflict between man and nature, the clash of two cultures. Without the power lines, it could be a scene from the 11th century. The power lines add an almost spider web effect, and in some ways, the horses seem penned in by man. I would have tried to even out the sky and eliminate the lighter spot in the upper left corner, because light areas draw your eye. But that's a minor point; this is a great photo that makes a statement."

THIRD PLACE - $25

"I just love the composition here -- it's very, very strong," Stan said about the Third Place winner. "And it's a beautiful print, with black blacks, detail in the highlights, and great tones. Not one part of the frame is unused -- there is so much to look at here. This photographer made good decisions about framing. If the photographer had pulled back, the photo may have included too much of the railings and not been so dramatic; closer, and you would have lost the scope, the fact that this is a four-story building. I would have waited even a couple of hours for someone to come up the stairs and catch them up against the white wall on the left one floor down to give the photo some scale, but maybe that wasn't possible. It doesn't matter; this photo still is very eye-catching. Congratulations!"

To see all of the winning photos, visit this full-page gallery.

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Hope everyone had a great weekend and took advantage of yesterday's weather to practice some outdoor photography. I'll post the winners of the February Black & White contest early afternoon.

I'll also start posting the March entries for "Nighttime is the right time". Watch this week for another Globe critique as well as tips for shooting sporting events from the Globe's Jim Davis.

Also, it's time for another off-contest solicitation; we haven't had one since your Food shots last month. As I was shoveling my driveway earlier this month, I was thinking about the weather adage about March, "In like a lion, out like a lamb." Turns out it really has nothing to do with weather, but concerns the positions of the constellations Leo (the lion) and Aries (the ram) at the beginning and end of the month. Also, there were some good zebra shots in the B&W contest, and POTW Caitlin Smith had a nice close-up of a camel.

So how about sending me your best wildlife shots? No pets, please. Ideally, I'd prefer wildlife unencumbered by fences or cages, but I'll take farm and zoo animals. I expect birds to be a popular subject.

Since I like to display these photos in a full-screen gallery, I prefer 1024 px wide for horizontals, 800 px for verticals. Full-res is fine; I have an Action set up in Photoshop that reduces it to 72 dpi.

Also, let's limit it to no more than 3 shots per person, ok?

Really examine your photos for quality and composition. It's easy to just point your camera and click, but I'm not looking for snapshots. We've all seen enough good photography posted here in the past 7 months to understand that the elements of subject, composition, lighting, context, focus, lack of clutter, color, texture, proportion, and more all come into play to create a great photo.

As longtime Globe photographer Bill Brett used to tell me, "I don't take a photograph; I make a photograph."

So let's see your wildlife creations. As always, email them to raw@boston.com.

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Photographer Liu Zheng is drawn to the outsiders in his homeland

By Mark Feeney
Globe Staff

WILLIAMSTOWN - Imagine trying to represent US society photographically, and in just 120 images - black-and-white images, at that. Even if you gave yourself seven years to do it, the task would still be overwhelming.

Now imagine trying to do the same for China, a society vastly older, far more populous, and undergoing a transformation so rapid as to make the American experience of change seem plodding. Yet that's what photographer Liu Zheng undertook between the years 1994 and 2001. The results can be seen in "Liu Zheng: The Chinese," which runs at the Williams College Museum of Art through April 26.

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The Middleborough Historical Association is looking for old photographs to use in a book entitled "Middleborough, a Pictorial History," to be published by Arcadia Press as part of its "Images of America" series. The association has scheduled a photo collecting day from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday (March 21) in the Grant Building, 40 North Main St. Anyone with unpublished photographs that could be considered for the book should bring them that day. For more information, contact Nancy Gedraitis at 508-947-3823.

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Spring is a natural time to dream about summer vacation. But with the recession, many of us are unlikely to be planning trips very far from home. I don't mind living vicariously, so I asked RAW regular Caitlin Smith, an inveterate traveler, to assemble some of her travel photos and write about her thought process and technique when capturing her images.

By Caitlin Smith
Arlington

I've been taking pictures since I was a little girl, when my dad gave me a gray square camera with a red plastic viewer. I remember watching him prowl around in our greenhouse, crouching down to photograph what looked to me like a bunch of dirt. But projected on the slide screen, his quirky shots turned out to be luminous images of tiny green shoots or intricate networks of roots. My dad also traveled extensively, bringing home photos that captured the colors and personalities of far-away cultures. I caught the travel bug, and the shutter bug, from him.

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Exhibit stresses pure form and color

By Cate McQuaid
Globe Correspondent

Leonardo da Vinci coined the painting term "sfumato" to refer to the blurring of usually sharp outlines to create a sense of depth. It was one of several techniques that contributed to the idealized realism - the spaciousness, the gorgeously described bodies - of Renaissance painting.

Photographer Bill Armstrong borrows images from the Renaissance in his exhibit at Gallery Kayafas, and, blurring the edges, vaults them into the realm of contemporary art.

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OK, folks -- here's the Final 50 for February. Look these over and choose your favorites. We'll post the Voting Machine later this evening.

Stan Grossfeld sent these thoughts after he narrowed the field of 400+ photos to these Final 50:

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By Christopher Shea

The Cambridge-based artist Peggy Nelson has come up with a new "urban intervention" that plays off the Boston tradition of saving parking spaces after snowstorms, and she invites her fellow citizens to join in on Flickr. While Southie residents are famous for using anything at hand to reserve the spots they've shoveled (or even haven't shoveled), Nelson's Cones Project focuses on that icon of space-saving: the orange traffic cone.

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From 1957 to 1981, whatever happened in Gloucester - from fires to football games, politics to parades, kids playing to fishermen at work - was captured on film by Gloucester Daily Times photographer Charlie Lowe. An archive of about 40,000 of Lowe's photographs was donated by the paper to the Cape Ann Museum and has now been electronically digitalized by the museum's photo archivist, Fred Buck:

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The life of US Sen. Edward M. Kennedy gets a retelling in "Ted Kennedy: Scenes from an Epic Life," a collection of images and essays from the Globe archives. The more than 200 black-and-white photographs, most of which have never been published in book form, follow Kennedy from Hyannis to Harvard, from youth to statesman. Left, the senator read to patients at the Boston Medical Center in 2001. Simon & Schuster, 198 pp., $28.

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Photos reveal the daily life and hard truths of the War Between the States

Through April 26, the Medford Historial Society is hosting "Of the People: Faces of the Civil War," an exhibit featuring 50 photographs exemplifying often-overlooked aspects of that war. Globe Correspondent Jon Dyer visited the exhibit:

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Marshfield's Information Technology Department is on the lookout for quality local images to display on the town's website. Officials would like to get a variety of photos of the town's coastline, farms, historical sites, and landmarks. If you have any photos you'd like to contribute, e-mail them to pics@townofmarshfield.org or drop them off at the IT Department in Town Hall, 870 Moraine St..

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Award-winning photographer Beth Hoffer of Holliston is the "Artist of the Month" being featured at the Dover Town Library. "Every Picture Tells a Story" showcases her photos of New England scenes. The monthly exhibition is sponsored by the Friends of the Library as a fund-raiser, with the organization receiving 10 percent of any sales of Hoffer's photos. You can see more of Hoffer's work on her website.

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Dorchester photographer Eugene Richards, known for chronicling his neighborhood in the gritty 1972 black-and-white book "Dorchester Days," was at BU this week to sign his new book, "The Blue Room." In his first color project, the photographer traveled around the Midwest and South, chronicling abandoned farms, shacks, and houses - an obsession that's become strangely timely, given the home foreclosure crisis. "I had no intention of it being so prescient," he said. "It wasn't a project at the time. I was just curious."

He shot in color, he said, because he was so impressed with the cheer people tried to bring, through bright-red bedrooms and blue walls, to their bleak surroundings. "It was totally an attempt at making even a shotgun shack into a home." Richards said he saw things in the homes that made him wonder, such as a hanging wedding dress and ceremonial glasses. "Why would someone leave their wedding dress?" he asked. "Most of the pictures are questions." His next offering, "War is Personal," is a book of interviews and photographs of people affected by the war in Iraq - wounded soldiers, grieving family members - some of whom come off as heartbreaking. "That's the problem . . . people are only doing the stories on people who get up on their prosthesis and run," he said. "It's a pretty helpless feeling, because there's not much interest in the war."

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"Artists in Their Studios," which runs at the Norman Rockwell Museum through May 25, brings together more than 50 photographs of painters and sculptors in their artistic homes away from home. The Globe's Mark Feeney reviewed the exhibit:

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Before I talk more about this month's theme, I want to mention a rule for this month's contest right off the bat: Let's be a little stricter, and therefore a little more challenging, with this theme: These must be true night shots. That means after dark. No sunsets, no dusks, no twilights. Ah ha!

Night photography can produce some of the most beautiful pictures you've ever seen -- and some of the most disappointing. Here's why:

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The Globe's Stan Grossfeld just finished choosing the Final Fifty for the February contest; we'll build the Voting Machine on Monday and open voting as soon as possible. Stay tuned.

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The Fort Point Arts Community Gallery opens a two-sided photography show today that features light coming in - and more light going out. On one side of the gallery, you'll see Martin Berinstein's images of moving bubbles that let light in. On the other side, you'll see Tom Wojciechowski's flash-heavy photographs of light reflecting off shiny surfaces such as ice, glass, and cars. That's the light going out. Not surprisingly, the show is called "In and Out." Through April 10. Reception Thursday from 5:30 to 8 p.m.; Artists' Talk at 6:30 p.m. March 19. FPAC Gallery, 300 Summer St., Boston. 617-423-4299.

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Anyone who has read Kafka or Milan Kundera has experienced something of Bohemia's special quality of dark playfulness - or should that be playful darkness? So, too, will anyone who sees the 30 images in "20th-Century Czech and Slovak Photography." It runs at Endicott College's Center for the Visual and Performing Arts through March 31. Left, "Hands, Slovak Madonna" by Tibor Honty. A review by Mark Feeney of the Globe:

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Partnerships are bringing photography new fans

By Terry Byrne
Globe Correspondent

At a time when most businesses are cutting back, Winchester's Griffin Museum of Photography is expanding.

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Photo tapestries explore war and identity

"A Tapestry of Memories: The Art of Dinh Q. Le" at the Tufts University Art Gallery showcases photo weavings by Dinh Q. Le. Globe correspondent Cate McQuaid reviewed the exhibit:

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OK, I've finished adding all the eligible contest entries to these four galleries. If you don't see your photo, it may because you entered more than one photo, which is against the rules, or your photo was either full color or had too much color in it to qualify for a black & white contest. Or perhaps your photo showed up in Flickr's Search after I had gone through all the photos, in which case I'll add it if you tell me about it.

If you have any questions, just email raw@boston.com.

Try the Full Screen link to see the photos at a large size.

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I've received a few emails and others have posted comments wondering why their contest entry isn't showing up in one of the three contest galleries below. The photos you upload to Flickr with the three contest tags don't show up in these galleries automatically (ah, wouldn't that be nice!). I post them manually. I build these galleries for two reasons:

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And now it's on to a third gallery ...

Remember to try the Full Screen link to see the photos at a large size.

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Time for a second gallery so that the first one doesn't crash everybody's browsers...

As always, use the Full Screen link to see the photos at a large size.

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So many entries that I'll have to split it into at least two galleries, and perhaps three. If you haven't entered the February Black & White contest yet, read more about it here. The deadline to upload your photos to Flickr is midnight this Saturday, the 28th. And if you want to size up the competition or make sure your tagged photo has made it into Flickr's Search, check the entries on this Flickr page, filtered by the contest tags. As always, if you need help, just email me at raw@boston.com.

Use the "Full-screen" link on this gallery to get the best view of the photos:

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Although many DSLRs use CompactFlash memory cards, some prosumer models (like the Nikon D80 or the Canon PowerShots) use SD or SDHC for storage. With the Eye-Fi Explore Wireless SD card, you can return from your travels, put your camera on your desk, turn it on, and watch your photos be instantly uploaded onto your computer and even your favorite photo website, like Picasa, SmugMug, or Flickr. No fussing with cords and card readers. The 2GB Secure Digital memory card automatically transmits images from camera to computer using your home wireless network or thousands of Wi-Fi hot spots (no computer needed at hot spots).

The card also "geotags" your photos, marking them with data on the location where they were taken, which you can upload to sites like Flickr and Google Earth and view there. It retails for $109.99 at Eye-Fi (877-873-9334), but you'll find it at Buy.com and Adorama.com for $105.

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