There is still time to enter our competition to win the new digital SLR by Pentax, the K-7. To enter the competition, click here.

'Le Photographe' is the oldest French photography magazine. It was funded in 1910. However, it won't get to celebrate its first century next year, as its publisher, Mondadori, has decided pull its financial backing and close down the title. The June issue of the magazine was the last one to see the newsstands.

Mondadori is Italy's biggest publisher. It has more than 40 titles across Italy and France. However, it has now decided to concentrate its resources behind magazines with 'larger audiences and potential' (i.e. magazines such as Grazia...)

And, of course, the decision to get rid of a 99-year old photography magazine was made after the June issue went to press, preventing the staff from alerting their readers. However, the journalists are not giving up. They have set up a blog (in French) here and have asked for the support of readers and photographers. They are now studying various options to allow the title to continue and reach its 100th year of existence.

Sadly Bill Jay died earlier this year, but his website lives on. His essays and articles are freely available on it (although you need to observe copyright if you want to publish them), including gems such as Do Not Disturb: Photography, censorship and the Iraq war, and Diane Arbus: A personal snapshot, the latter describing a very strange encounter indeed.

'Diane Arbus noticed my bedraggled look and asked if I would like a jelly. The idea of a cold fruit dessert on such a day was appealing. While she mixed up the contents in a dish, she constantly needled me with remarks like: "Photographers are so boring I can't imagine why you would want to see them", or, "All magazines tell lies and yours is no exception". The jelly prepared, she placed it in front of me on the table and straddled the bench so that her skirt rode up her thighs, revealing a clear view of her panties. She either did not know, or care, and looked at me belligerently. I took a mouthful of the jelly, and thought I would vomit. It was the most foul-tasting stuff I had ever encountered, like a mixture of dishwashing liquid and gravy. Arbus' eyes were on me. By this time I had had enough, both literally and figuratively. I spat out the mouthful and said: "That's the most disgusting stuff and if I have any more I will spew all over your table". I was angry.

'Then Arbus astonished me. She suddenly burst out laughing. And at the end of her outburst, said: "OK. Now we can talk about photography".'

Harman Technology, in conjunction with the British Journal of Photography, invite you to register for a Free Prize Draw. Running for two months, the winning entry will be drawn at random, at the end of June and July. The winner will receive £200 of HARMAN CRYSTALJET RC Inkjet paper.

Additionally the first 500 entrants will receive a free A4 pack of HARMAN CRYSTALJET RC Inkjet paper comprising 5 sheets Gloss and 5 sheets Luster.

HARMAN CRYSTALJET RC is the latest photo-quality inkjet paper from HARMAN technology. Designed to produce superior levels of imaging performance and priced to provide excellent value for money, it has a paper weight of 260 gsm and is a quick drying paper that enables the printing of high quality images.

Click here to enter the competition.

Since its announcement in September last year, the Leica S2 flagship camera - a 37.5 million pixel portable mastodon - has been the subject of countless rumours. At some point, it was thought that the project was doomed from the start or that delays would affect the ultimate release of the camera. Last year, when Leica presented the camera to the press, a summer 2009 release was announced. But, the appearance of an ad in the Norwegian photography magazine Fotografi has sparked rumours of delays, as the ad says the camera will only be released in September.

A quick check online or in a good almanac should put photographers' fears to rest: the last day of summer is 21 September.

Winning a high-profile competition can help a photographer make a name for him/herself. Here is a list of some of these competitions:

16 July: Photobook.Now invites photographers to submit their best photobooks for a chance to win a cash prize of $25,000 to start or finish a project of their choice. Three categories are open for submissions - fine art, editorial and commercial. For more details, visit photographybooknow.com.

31 July: The British Wildlife Photography Awards has a prize fund of £15,000, with the overall winner receiving £5000. The winning entries will also form part of a series of nationwide exhibitions. For more information, visit bwpawards.org.

31 July: The City of Levallois Photographic Award is opened to all photographers under 35. The winner, who will receive the EUR10,000 cash prize, and runners-up will see their work exhibited at the Photo Levallois festival. To enter, visit www.photo-levallois.org.

24 August: The World In Focus photography contest has five categories for both pro and amateurs photographers - travel portraits, outdoor scenes, sense of place and spontaneous moments and photo essay. The grand prize for the pro is a six-night stay for two on St Lucia Island. For more info visit worldinfocuscontest.com.

11 September: BJP's International Photography Award is back with a total prize fund worth £12,000. Featuring two categories, one for a body of work comprising up to 30 pictures and the other for a single image, the winners will have their work printed by Spectrum Photographic and exhibited at the AOP Gallery in London. Among the rewards available, the single image winner will collect a covetable Sigma DP2 digital compact. Image (c) Beso Uznadze, winner of the Portfolio Category 2008. Visit bjp-online.com/ipa.

22 September: Enter this year's edition of the International Travel Photographer of the Year contest to win trips to locations such as China, Costa Rica and Morocco, plus thousands of pounds worth of kit is on offer. Visit www.tpoty.com.

30 September: The Magnum Expression Photography Award, which comes with a $10,000 cash prize, is asking photographers to submit up to 15 images around the theme of communities. For more information, visit expression.magnumphotos.com.

30 November: The third International Garden Photographer of the Year competition is now open for entries. The overall winner gets a £5000 cash prize. Visit www.igpoty.com.

04 December: The Sony World Photography Awards are already accepting entries. The professional overall winner will receive $25,000. For more information, visit www.worldphotographyawards.org.

If you’re a collector looking for a hard-to-find photography book, it may be worth stopping by Angela Hill’s Pop-Up Bookstore on St Martin’s Lane. Conveniently located in the centre of London, the temporary store is a stone’s throw from Trafalgar Square.

Inside you will find an eclectic selection of Hill’s favourite books on art, fashion and photography. Though quite pricey, it is certainly worth having a look as you may find a real gem hidden amongst the stacks, especially as stock is refreshed every day.

When asked if the move from the usual Dover St Market location was worth it, Hill said ‘you can do slightly different things here. You also get an amazing variety of people. There’s been a bizarre mix of photographers, rock stars and people into fashion coming here. Agyness Deyn popped in to buy a punk book, we’ve had the whole of Motley Crue in here and the whole of Black Eyed Peas.’

Hill, who is a photographer herself, has been collecting books from a young age, ‘I used to spend my pocket money on Vogue when I was growing up,’ she said, ‘though I doubt my parents were very happy about that.’ If you have some spare time in the capital, it’s certainly worth a look. Open seven days a week from 11am to 10pm Tuesday to Saturday and 11am to 6pm Sunday to Monday, the store will stay in its current location until 29 August.

The BJP has launched a visual petition in response to the growing number of photographers being stopped under anti-terror legislation. The campaign is designed to raise awareness and help change public perception at a potential turning point.

Amateur and professional photographers alike are urged to submit pictures of themselves holding white plaques with the phrases ‘I am not a terrorist’ or ‘Not a crime’ written on them. These self-portraits should then be submitted to the specially created flickr group. BJP aims to gather thousands of these e-‘signatures’ over the coming year as a protest against the increasing restrictions photographers face.

Bearing Witness, a multimedia essay on the Iraq war produced by Reuters Media, has been nominated for a prestigious News and Documentary Emmy Award for new approaches in current news coverage. Reuters is one of six finalists including the New York Times, Globe and Mail and Washington Post.

Launched in March 2008 to mark the fifth anniversary of the war, Bearing Witness recorded for the first time, the personal testimonies of Reuters journalists striving to bring the world news from the most dangerous country for the press. The initiative was originated and led by Ayperi Karabuda Ecer and Jassim Ahmad with the support of the Reuters Baghdad bureau.

Combining pictures, video and graphics for rich visual storytelling, Bearing Witness has already won numerous prizes including Best Multimedia at the 2008 Online News Association and New York Photo Awards.

The winner will be announced at the 30th annual awards ceremony in New York on 21 September.

Julius Shulman, giant of 20th century architectural photography, has died aged 98.

The photographer’s work became synonymous with the laid-back glamour of the West Coast style, summing up the luxurious minimalism of mid-century Modernism. He completed more than 8000 architectural commissions in his 60-year career, including photographing key buildings for leading American-based architects of the 20th Century, including Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies Van de Rohe, Pierre Koenig, Richard Neutra and Oscar Niemeyer.

Perhaps his most enduring photographs, shot free-of-charge, are of the Case Study House Program (1945-62), which aimed to demonstrate the principles of Modernism and their sustainability for low cost housing. And if one photograph has become his signature image, it is Pierre Koenig's Case Study house #22, 1960 (also known as the Stahl Residence), which is said to be the world's most published architectural image. Featuring only a detail from the building, with two women chatting in a corner, seated overlooking downtown LA in dramatic backdrop, it is a perfect example of his combination of instinct and preparation.
He had asked two friends of his assistant to be at hand, if needed, to make the house appear inhabited. 'At one point in the early evening I was setting up inside,’ he told BJP’s Simon Bainbridge in an interview published in December 2007. ‘I walked outside, and the two girls just happened to be sitting in that corner of the house. I brought my camera outside and immediately set up the composition.'
He opened up the camera lens for several minutes - judging the exposure without a light meter - to let in the scene below. 'At a certain moment I called to the girls. "Sit up" and then to my assistant, "Turn on the ceiling lights"' - firing the flashbulbs mounted behind his camera and capturing the whole scene in one shot.'
Benedict Taschen, the publisher of many of his recent books, dubbed him 'One Shot Schulman' for this uncanny ability to judge the light and composition perfectly and get his shot first time. 'The secret to the success of my photography is to always create a proper balance of light,' he wrote the photographer in the introduction to his classic 1962 textbook, Photographing Architecture and Interiors. 'Put your camera down. Don't act like a photographer; instead, act like a human being reviewing a piece of sculpture and understand where you would like the light to be for your exposure.'

Shulman, who had been ill for some time, died at home in Los Angeles on 15 July.

Ever since the launch of the Panasonic G1 and GH1, and especially after the release of the Olympus Pen E-P1, photographers have been inquiring about what has yet to come in the MicroFourThirds world. Well, Panasonic could bring some answers pretty soon, if we are to believe Luc Saint Elie, the manager of new technologies at Panasonic France. In an interview with Photobusiness.fr, a French online magazine, he hints that the next Panasonic MicroFourThirds cameras could be unveiled in September. He adds that the 'platform' could allow manufacturers to come up with radical design such as a spherical camera. You can read the full interview here (in French).

Asked about Luc Saint Elie's statement, Panasonic UK had this to say: "The statement in that article solely reflects Luc Elie's personal opinion. Panasonic is evaluating options to constantly expand the MicroFourThirds product category, which also includes new body designs. At this time however, there is nothing that we would have to announce."

Stay tuned...

It has been just over a week since the BJP launched the ‘Not A Crime’ campaign and already there are over 500 supporters. 137 photographs have been posted with the BJP’s proposed banners, showing there is a genuine concern for the welfare of photography in the UK.

One of the BJP’s own reporters felt the wrath of heritage security in Trafalgar Square when she popped down to take a photo with the office’s ‘I am not a terrorist’ sign. After taking two photographs, she was stopped and asked to explain her motives behind the photograph.

A number of blog-sites have also mentioned and supported the campaign. The BJP wishes to thank the following: talkphotography.co.uk, markwilson.co.uk, photopix.co.uk, indymedia.org and gsnowdon.com.

An article of note was mentioned on the BJP’s Flickr group, discussing the ‘war’ on photography. It’s a good read and has a link to a site where you can download a copy of UK photographers rights guide, version 2.

Don’t forget to check out commercial photographer, Spike Brown, on Sunday 02 August at 10pm, who will be supporting the campaign on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square.