State of the Art Portraits...Today's Comet Closeup...Brit Photo Controversy...Astonishing Goats

1. The Art of Portraiture

Art dealer and Philadelphia Flyers fan Peter Hay Halpert has launched a program for showcasing the state of the art in figurative/portrait photography. It's called Identity Now, and the idea is to gather imagery from a diverse cross-section of photographers around the world--artists, commercial photographers, photojournalists...all those traditional genres that often don't mean much in today's world. Any photographer can enter; submitted work will be viewed by a selection committee made up of editors, designers, and artists from throughout the photography world, and the best work—judged "solely on photographic merit"—will be published in a book available online and in bookstores. Now, I should note that I'm part of the selection committee, but I'm in great company, as you can see, and I'm really excited about this. This is an area of photography that I am fascinated by, and I'm looking forward to seeing a lot of work. Pass on the word.

2. Closeup of a Deadly Come

As I write this, a NASA probe known as Deep Impact is about an hour away from getting up close and personal with Comet Hartley 2, which is green looking because it is spewing deadly cyanide gas. (It's not going to hit us, so you can go ahead and prepare your submission for Identity Now). The probe is scheduled to fly through the comet's cloud of nasty gas at 10 AM EDT—it's going to pass within 427 miles of the comet itself, and, best for all of us who like to watch, it's equipped with a couple of imagers, one of which sees in visible light. The image of Comet Hartley 2 above was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in September. More info here.

3.Brit Photog Under Fire

Famed photojournalist David Hume Kennerly, who was President Gerald Ford's official White House photographer, put out word on Facebook yesterday that he'd been interviewed by a British newspaper about an unfolding controversy...It seems that  the personal photographer of Prime Minister David Cameron, who has been slashing public spending, is on the public payroll. The flap sounds silly to me—the photographer, Andrew Parsons, who was a former Conservative Party employee, probably isn't a budget buster. And, as Kennerly points out, official photographers document history, so the case can be made that they have a legitimate role to play. But it certainly opened up Cameron, who has called for Brits to make "hard choices," to criticism from political foes. Labor leader Ed Miliband rather deliciously mocked Cameron in Parliament: "There's good news for the Prime Minister—apparently [Parsons] does a nice line in airbrushing."

4. Photo of the Week, So Far

Cingino Dam, by Adriano Migliorati/Caters News

 Finally, my favorite picture of the week so far comes from hiker Adriano Migliorati, who shot the 160-feet-high Cingino Dam in Italy last summer. Those dark spots on the dam above are in fact Alpine ibex—mountain goats—doing what they do best, which is scaling vertical rock surfaces. Here's the story. Below is a closeup: