I remember staying up late on July 20th, 1969 and watching those blurry video pictures of the moon landing with so much anticipation and awe. That there could be live video transmitted from the moon was breathtaking in and of itself. How amazing that we could see grainy pictures of the landing and Neil Armstrong stepping off the Lunar Lander onto the surface of the moon for the first time. In fact, the blurriness of it all left so much more to the imagination than today's high definition video could ever impart. Finally a great optimistic dream was realized amidst the horrible unrest of the Vietnam War and the 1960s.

Now we've learned that through an incredibly stupid bureaucratic decision, the original video tape that recorded this historic event was written over for "budgetary" reasons.

However, all is not lost as several other recordings were made around the world. Now, the same technical wizards who have transferred to digital and restored various black-and-white Hollywood movies are in the process of resurrecting this incredible footage, making it far clearer than was originally seen on television.

Here is some of the footage.

Also just released by NASA are photographs of the original moon landing sites made by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Yes, we now have verifiable evidence that we did indeed land on the moon! In some of these incredible pictures, you can see the astronauts footpaths (see above).

View the evidence

And finally, today, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the first lunar landing, NASA and Google announced the launch of the Moon in Google Earth, an interactive, 3D atlas of the moon, viewable with Google Earth 5.0.

To view the Moon in Google Earth, open Google Earth 5.0 and switch modes from "Earth" to "Moon" on the top toolbar. To learn more about the Moon in Google Earth, visit: earth.google.com/moon

The Arles Contemporary Book Award for 2009 goes to JH Engström and Anders Petersen's collaborative book From Back Home, edited and designed by Greger Ulf Nilson and published by Max Ström. The Rencontres d'Arles Book Award is one of the most prestigious awards in contemporary photography.

Here's a link to the book and the booktease.

View JH Engström's website

Our bookstore staffer Ben Lerman pointed me to this new picture rating system just announced by Penn State University.

"An online photo-rating system developed at Penn State is the first publicly available tool for automatically determining the aesthetic value of an image, according to a Penn State researcher involved with the project."

Read more

Now you can upload an image and have a computer instantly "read it" and then "rate it" based on its or more accurately, the programmed picture aesthetic.

We tried the service by uploading an FSA Walker Evans portrait and a Diane Arbus iconic image. Evans passed with flying colors (73.1/100), but the Diane Arbus portrait of the twins (the classic cover image of her Aperture monograph) didn't fare so well (22/100).

In computer thy trust.

People love previewing books online. While it's definitely not the same experience as browsing books in a bookstore, this digital equivalent does help give people a sense of a book. This is why we developed our BookTease™ at photo-eye early on, long before Amazon did something similar. While our BookTease gives a good picture of the layout of a book, it's not meant to capture the complete content, nor does it put the text into a searchable database.

My friend Laurie Tümer turned me on to a recent NPR blog post about the patent granted to Google for their new scanning book technology. The Google Book Search project's extraordinary goal is to digitize nearly every book ever published, allowing a person to search for content easily and thoroughly. Think of it as the Google Search engine for books. Apart from the significant copyright issues, there are other serious, technological problems to overcome. Google needed to develop an incredibly efficient system to scan each page of millions of volumes.

Scanning book technology has been around for a number of years with Atiz being one of the pioneers. Atiz uses a V-shaped apparatus to prevent damage to the books. Other companies apparently destroy the books by cutting each page out sheet by sheet.

Google's technology uses an infrared camera to detect the three-dimensional shape of an opened book. Their proprietary software corrects for the distortion of the type, giving an accurate picture of the information on each page.

Read more here: NPR blog

But perhaps there's an even better way of doing this. Take a look at this interesting comment by Daniel Mitchell on the NPR blog.

"Do you need to open the book at all? Scan it like a MRI - read the book from the outside with a broad spectrum of different wavelengths and focal points. Create a full 3-D image of the "book" - paper, ink and all. Once finished scanning - hand the data over to a computer algorithm to process the information to recreate the text, pages, textures and all the subtleness of the books content. No damage to the book - no need to turn pages."

Makes sense, though MRI technology may not yet be able to resolve the variability of paper and ink. But that would be a fantastic use of technology!

The OLPC XO-2 Laptop Prototype.

One of the new technologies that I've been following quite closely is the evolution of the digital book. Yes, e-Books are here to stay, for better or for worse; I actually know people reading books on Amazon's Kindle. Really!

Myself? I have tried various iPhone e-Book applications, but haven't yet started using them. The screen is frustratingly small, and with the type at a comfortable size, after reading a short paragraph it's time to go to the next page. That's not conducive to pleasurable reading. Kindle and the Sony e-readers both seem klutzy and not a real book experience. Ultimately, reading a book on a computer still seems foreign to me. I like the tactile nature of a traditional book and I like the contrast of not always being on a notebook computer. I also miss the art of the book and its great variety of typography and design.

However, there are some interesting new hardware developments that may change some of these complaints shortly. First, there is Apple's forthcoming device, which is still under wraps but due to be released as early as this summer. Dubbed the "media tablet," it will no doubt be a stunningly beautiful piece of hardware. It looks to be a kind of grown-up iPod Touch or iPhone that will include a gorgeous high-resolution, touchscreen display, wireless and app store capability, e-reader, and it will, of course, be sexy.

Here's what this device might look like.

But the e-Book I keep hoping for is not the flat-surface tablet that's been around for years. Instead it's a folding screen device where you could see two pages at once and hold it just like a book.

A project exploring this notion can be seen below. Though these prototypes are all a bit too awkward, they do show great potential.

Now for the elegant device that seems to have the most potential announced last year by the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative. OLPC is the brainchild of Nicholas Negroponte, founder and Chairman Emeritus of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab. OLPC's breathtaking goal is to provide computers at such a low price that they could be put into the hands of almost every child in the world. That would provide a truly profound revolution in global education.

OLPC's beautiful prototype seems to be the almost perfect book substitute. The version 2 of this device can be seen below.

Unfortunately, there is great skepticism as to whether Negroponte can be successful with his mission and whether or not his company can survive long enough to release this product. Even if they don't, Negroponte has opened the eyes of many people as to the potential of his proposed device and his ambitious program. Perhaps others (hint Apple) might run with the idea, albeit at a higher price.

Now, if they could only could make this thing waterproof.

Read more about OLPC: OLPC

Read more about their new device: laptopmag.com wired.com

Founded by photographer Sara Terry, The Aftermath Project supports documentary photographers whose projects focus on countries rebuilding after being ravaged by war.

From The Aftermath Project press release:

Check out Louie Palu's book Cage Call published by Photolucida and our review.

See War Is Only Half the Story published by The Aftermath Project with winners of the Grants given last year: Jim Goldberg and Wolf Bowig, including 2009 winner Asim Rafiqu who was a runner up last year.

Also see Sara Terry's book Aftermath. Bosnia's Long Road to Peace.

Hardly a day goes by that I don't receive a marketing email from powerHouse Books' Sara Rosen. Who is this dynamic person responsible for much of the publicity surrounding the powerHouse line of books?

Check out this Publisher's Weekly interview in their "50 under 40" series highlighting important young executives in the publishing world.

View the video

Not only is it great to get to know Ms. Rosen a bit, but it's also fun to get a glimpse inside of the powerHouse building in the DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) district of Brooklyn.

Publishers announce their new titles months in advance of their official release in order to stimulate interest and for advance sales to booksellers. Nazraeli's list of forthcoming books is always highly anticipated by our staff and their new Winter/Spring 2009 list has now been released. As usual, it's a doozie. Of special note are two new books from their Witness series: Lee Friedlander and Todd Hido.

Witness No. 6: Lee Friedlander is a portrait of the Armenian-born sculptor Raoul Hague. Hague has been a friend of the Friedlander family for many years and these 157 photographs were made by Friedlander over a period of two and a half decades.

Witness No. 7: Todd Hido is a timely book in which Hido combines his own photographs of vacant interiors of foreclosed homes with 1980s portraits made by Leon Borensztein of the inhabitants of surburban homes of Stockton, Fresno, and Bakersfield California. These photographs act as metaphorical equivalents to the families evicted from Hido's foreclosed homes. In addition to this body of work there are 40 pages of images documenting pages of books from Hido's library that have acted as his inspiration during the past 20 years. I'm looking forward to that for sure!

Also announced:

Steve Pyke: Earthward

Julius Shulman: The Building of My Home and Studio

Karin Apollonia Muller: On Edge

Eiji Ina: Emperor of Japan

John Divola: The Green of this Notebook

Sasha Bezzubov: Wildfire

Laura Carton: Stripped

Stuart O'Sullivan: Family History

And the fourth title in the "Parr/Nazraeli Edition of Ten" Raimond Wouda, School.

Along with the above, the latest One Picture Book Series have been announced.

Number Fifty-Three: Indian Bingo by Joe Deal

Number Fifty-Four: Doctrine of an Axe by Raymond Meeks

Number Fifty-Five: Ex Post Facto by Mayumi Lake

Number Fifty-Six: Heiden Hotel by Michael Kenna

Please note that sometimes the newest One Picture Books sell out before they are even released. Subscribing to the entire series is the best way to guarantee that you will receive these important limited edition of 500 books. Each one is signed and numbered with a small original print tipped into the back of the book. Truly one of the great bargains of the photobook world!

To subscribe to the series, email our book division manager Melanie McWhorter.

William Eggleston rarely talks about his own work. However in Reiner Holzemer's newly released film, the filmmaker has somehow gotten Eggleston to talk about both his life, and his photographs.

What follows is a fascinating promo piece for Holzemer's film William Eggleston Photographer just released on DVD. You can order the video here.

The 6th annual Lucie Awards were presented last night at New York's Lincoln Center. This event is often quoted as the "Oscars of photography" and has grown into an impressive, prestigious awards program recognizing excellence in various photography genres, from sports to editorial to the fine-arts.

The following are the awards of particular interest to the fine-art and book community from this year's event.

And the winners are:

BOOK PUBLISHER OF THE YEAR
21st Editions | Jamie Baldridge - The Everywhere Chronicles

Other nominees:
Aperture | Richard Misrach - On The Beach

Chronicle Books |Manuel Alvarez Bravo - Photopoetry

Nazraeli Press | Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao - Habitat 7

Powerhouse Books |Helen Levitt - Helen Levitt

Steidl | The Robert Frank Project | Robert Frank - The Americans

PHOTOGRAPHY CURATOR/EXHIBITION OF THE YEAR
Terence Pepper + Vanity Fair Editor David Friend for Vanity Fair Portraits 1913-2008| National Portrait Gallery, London

Other nominees:
Melissa Harris for Josef Koudelka - Invasion 68 : Prague | Aperture Gallery, NYC

Brian Wallis and Cynthia Young for Cornell Capa : Concerned Photographer | International Center of Photography, New York

Virginia Heckert for Bernd and Hilla Becher : Basic Forms | Getty Center, Los Angeles

Jeff L. Rosenheim for Lee Friedlander : A Ramble in Olmsted Parks | Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

PHOTOGRAPHY MAGAZINE OF THE YEAR
EyeMazing

Other nominees:
American Photo
Blind Spot
Foam
Focus
Nueva Luz
Photographic Journal
Photography District News

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Last night's pre-announced achievement awards were given to the following photographers and organizations:

Lifetime Achievement
Gianni Berengo Gardin

Achievement in Fashion
Patrick Demarchelier

Achievement in Sports
John Iacono

Achievement in Documentary
Josef Koudelka

Achievement in Portraiture
Herman Leonard

Achievement in Photojournalism
Susan Meiselas

Achievement in Fine Art
Richard Misrach

Achievement in Advertising
Erwin Olaf

Humanitarian Award
Sara Terry
for The Aftermath Project
Presented by Anne Wilkes-Tucker

Spotlight Award
Visa Pour L'Image Festival (Perpignan, Spain)

View Hossein Farmani, Founder and Creator of the Lucie Awards as he describes the formation of the Lucie Awards.

Visit the Lucie Awards website

View the Lucie Awards Press Release announcing the 2008 winners.

Congratulations to all of the winners and nominees!