Picture Stories by Stephen Alvarez

The new Natgeo Creative site is live

My agency has relaunched itself as National Geographic Creative. Now stock photography, motion and talent are all in one place. Check out the new site here.

Stephen Alvarez

uncompressed video from the Canon 5D MK III firmware update

A long awaited firmware update is available for the Canon 5D MK III (available here). The update brings uncompressed 4:2:2 8 bit video from the HDMI port. 

It also improves autofocus capabilites. I'm downloading now.

Stephen Alvarez

Sewanee, TN

Facebook App sells your photos, no, this is not an April Fools joke

A facebook app called photos at my door -if given permission- lets your facebook friends create and purchase printed merchandise with images from your facebook photos. 

Details here and here.

I'm not certain how this can be legal, but if you don't want your photos turning up on other people's coffee cup and mouse pads go to Facebook Settings / Apps / Apps other people use and make sure "My photos" is turned off. 

Professional Photographers, this is a pretty good reason to watermark your Instagram photos. Whether you know it or not your IG pictures are being copied and re-posted by other social media users. A visable watermark doesn't prevent the copying but it does allow your photo credit to travel with the image. If your photo is going to end up on a coffee mug without your permission at least you should get credit.

Stephen Alvarez

 

promotional video for National Geographic Assignment

My agency, National Geographic Assignment, commissioned this promotional video about my work. Putting it together reminds me of how many talented people I've worked with over the years.

Thanks to video editor Stephen L Garrett, videographers Stephen L Garrett, Benjamin Von Cramen, and Hans Weise. Photographer Robbie Shone and a very long list of assistants including but not limited to Alan Cressler, Matt Oliphant, Nancy Pistole,  Robbie Shone, Paul Aughey, Luke Padgett, Franck Lorriaux, Danielle Voirin, John Benson, Ben Cadell, Max Mills, Joshua Alvarez, Neeld Messler, Jim Hewett, Greg Ryan, and of course April Alvarez.

Thanks also to Alice Keating and Sara Snider Papademetriou my very patient agents.

Stephen Alvarez

Sewanee, TN

A frame from Rope Diplomacy: on the Steeps in Iran

above, practically the first sight that greets a visitor to Iran is the Ayatollah Khomeini. He is everywhere, watching all the time.

A paragraph from Rope Dipomacy

In such an authoritarian society, to control one’s own destiny is a rare and precious thing. For independent-minded human beings, it’s the essence of life itself, and it’s a feeling that consequential sports like climbing deliver in significant measure, for by and large the vertical world exists beyond government. In it, individuals conform to rules of their own making—and bear the oft-times harsh consequences of their mistakes.

“It is very difficult to live here,” said Shaima Shadman, one of our ACI host climbers, explaining how most Iranians cope. “Everybody has two lives, one private, one public. The government knows about it. They have them, too.”

A lovely 36-year old woman whose warm, brown eyes and careful, withdrawing smile demonstrate the tensions of her existence, Shadman was raised in Mashaad, a conservative city in northeastern Iran. She trained as a computer engineer and worked five-plus years in Tehran. But she found being in an office stifling and abandoned her career for a world that gifts her the freedom to act in accord with her true person, where “everything is nature: sun, rain, cloud, snow.”

Shadman now works as a climbing guide, radiating quiet strength. Although most of her days are spent on Damavand, Iran’s highest peak, which she climbs about 35 times a year, she recently led a group of her countrymen to Annapurna base camp, in Nepal. Fixed to her aluminum water bottle was a sticker of Rosie the Riveter. A reticent smile and furtive nod communicated that Shadman knows exactly who Rosie was and what she did. Shadman told me that she dreams of exploring the world’s great ranges. “Mountains is free land,” she said. “Everybody in the mountains is member of this same country.”

Read about Greg and my month long journey through Iran in Rope Diplomacy available for Kindle here. Iphone and other formats here.