Photographer

Marisa O'Neil Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Don Bartletti will bring his travel tales and photographs to Sage Hill School today. Titled "Road to El Norte," the presentation chronicles his journey through Central America and Mexico with Honduran children traveling alone to find their mothers in America. Bartletti, a photographer for the Los Angeles Times, won the Pulitzer for the series "Enrique's Journey: The Boy Left Behind," which he worked on with Times reporter Sonia Nazario.

In spite of an almost five-year battle with cancer that began when he was 4, Sam Guinane, 8, has spent the past few months behind the camera, taking pictures of the places and things that make him “say cheese,” the popular expression a photographer uses to get the subject to smile, Those things include the ocean and sand at the beach in Corona del Mar. Local photographer Barbara Higgins is one of six photographers who became a...

features of the year A feature photo introduces readers to the subject of a story and provides the visual backdrop for the narrative. The feature picture is difficult for photographers because, like much photojournalism, there isn't much time for planning. On the way from one assignment to another with a tight schedule, a picturesque moment may unfold in front of the photographer. He or she has to stop everything -- often the car -- and capture the shot. Other times, the photo goes with a story, and it's unclear how visual the event will be. The photographer has to plan for anything and come away with gold.

Staff photographer Kent Treptow's photograph in Thursday's paper of a male osprey returning to his nest on Shellmaker Island is a beautiful shot. Kent spent many hours photographing ospreys in the Back Bay for his award-winning photo essay a few years ago, so when this assignment came up, Kent was the perfect photographer for the job. This nest is also home to three chicks that are believed to be the first wild osprey births in Orange County. ? Mark Dustindpt.21-photo-week-CPhotoInfoUO1R5P7L20060521izfpo2ncKENT TREPTOW / DAILY PILOT(LA)

THOUGHTS FROM THE SCENE: A picture is worth a thousand words, so the saying goes. Well in some situations, words are worth more. Photographers are often faced with photo opportunities that just don't work. Not every story can come across through a photograph. As with this situation: you have a great story about a student -- Shirin Oskooi of Newport Harbor High School -- winning an essay contest, but there are not very many ways to visually capture the gist of it. This gives the photographer a 50% chances of being visually successful.

Silhouettes are a trick of the trade. No matter what the subject is, a silhouette always catches the eye. Daily Pilot photographer Kent Treptow found a nice opportunity to use this technique in this week's photo. Silhouettes are useful in situations when the subject can't be identified for whatever reason or when a story calls for a generic type shot that doesn't want to single out one person. They also can be used to help the photographer clean up busy subject environments, like Kent's beach shot.

Daily Pilot photographers are always on the lookout for the colorful, candid and quirky moments that occur regularly in Newport-Mesa. Photographers search for them up close and from far away. Once again, there were several discoveries this year, but these images were the ones the staff settled on. In this year?s best feature photo, we see a biker flashing a peace sign during a Patriots Day motorcycle ride on Pacific Coast Highway, and a panning technique to make the rider stand out of the background.

Jennifer K Mahal In soft shades of gray and harsh curves of black, photographer Todd Webb gives us entrance into the New Mexico world of Georgia O'Keeffe. The 39 photographs on display until January at the Orange County Museum of Art's Satellite Gallery in South Coast Plaza span nearly 30 years of the famed painter's life -- from 1955 to 1981. "In Webb's photos of New Mexico, we see the landscape and O'Keeffe through the eyes of another artist," Sarah Vure, curator at the Newport Beach-based museum, said of "Georgia O'Keeffe: The Artist's Landscape," An O'Keeffe painting and its subject capture Webb's lens in one photograph.

Coral Wilson In the last three years of the 1980s, Glen Allison made a million dollars as one of the leading architectural photographers in the world. But when the real estate market crashed in the early '90s, so did his fortune. He lived in his van for nine months until his bankruptcy went through, and then he lost the van, too. And he had to decide, as all people do, would life's obstacles fuel him or drain him? For Allison, it was a catalyst to go after his dream of becoming a travel photographer.

The young artists gathered around the gallery, waiting to talk about their framed artwork hanging on the wall. "Oohs," "ahhs" and "cool" could be heard as students walked in single file through Paularino Elementary School's Room 6, admiring the work of their peers. "I especially like that picture of the iguana," said first-grade student Ethan Elvanter, 6. "It would kind of be cool to have my picture up there. " The Costa Mesa campus was buzzing Wednesday after lunch with the grand opening of 5R6 art gallery, a section of fifth-grade teacher Lisa Roberts' classroom that's dedicated to her students' work, which includes paintings, drawings and photographs on the wall and sculptural pieces on a table.

Photographer John L. Blom, who has been taking custom portraits in Corona del Mar for more than three decades, has sold his East Coast Highway studio. Blom said he will continue photography from his Newport Beach home, working with families by appointment and shooting on location. "By mid-May, I won't be here anymore," he said. "I'm cutting back. My real love is photographing families and kids, and I'll do that more on location. " Blom studied photography at the Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara, then worked at a photography studio in Phoenix.

NEWPORT BEACH — Some people in the audience gasped as the aerial photo flashed on the screen at the front of the room. They were reacting in wonderment as a color shot came up of the so-called "Loop," a section of the Green River that snakes through Canyonlands National Park in Utah. Two sets of bends in the river, a tributary of the Colorado River, seemed so close to each other in the frame that they almost touched — but isthmuses separated them. Photographer Peter McBride took the picture from his father's Cessna 180 as part of a project to document the length of the nearly 1,500-mile Colorado River in photos.

Costa Mesa is giving all you shutterbugs out there something else to shoot for this winter besides annual Christmas cards or vacation photos. The city announced Monday its first Celebrate Costa Mesa photo contest, where amateur, professional and youth photographers can compete in six categories with prizes worth more than $1,000. Photographers can enter six categories: characters (local people), environment (open spaces like parks, wildlife, landmarks), life (education, sports, night life events)

COSTA MESA — More than 200 veterans, spanning multiple generations and wars, were honored Friday morning at the annual Mariners Christian School Red, White and Blue Breakfast. "It's about respect and honoring the sacrifices that those who came before us made," said Dwight Hanson, 42, who served in the Marines during the Gulf War. Hanson followed in his father's footsteps, who served during World War II, and said he would be proud if any of his three children enrolled at Mariners, who span second to eighth grade, also enlisted.

On the day in October when Jeff Delaney sat down to write the forward to his book, "Newport Beach: Then & Now," a backhoe began demolishing the Balboa Market, a favorite destination on the Balboa Peninsula. "Change is inevitable, but it's always unfortunate when we allow a landmark to be leveled in order to provide a few more parking spaces," Delaney said about the demolition of the market and its iconic mural in the 600 block of E. Balboa Boulevard. Local history buff Delaney's latest book was released April 18. The first in a series of book signings at area bookstores will take place on Friday night at the Barnes & Noble Metro Pointe in Costa Mesa.

A famed Newport Beach fitness photographer accused of having sex with a 15-year-old girl has married his alleged victim now that she's an adult, county records show. Jason James Ellis, 36, who is facing statutory rape charges, married the 18-year-old woman in Laguna Hills on Feb. 28, according to an Orange County License and Certificate of Marriage. Prosecutors said the woman has stopped cooperating with authorities in their felony case against Ellis and his ex-fiancée, Michelle Hecker, who are accused of sexually assaulting her in 2007 and 2008.

"The Great Picture" made its international debut at the Art Museum at Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing on March 8. The world's largest silver gelatin print, which is in the Guinness Book of World Records, captures the former El Toro Marine Corps Air Station and future Great Park in Irvine. At three stories high and 11 stories wide, the photograph was developed in 2006 using a developing tray the size of a swimming pool. The muslin that it's printed on was imported from Germany from one of only two mills in the world that could create it. A hanger converted into a pinhole camera took the shot.

Want to express your love for mom in the hometown paper? The Daily Pilot is accepting Mother’s Day notes and photographs to be considered for publication May 9. Please observe the following guidelines, otherwise we cannot publish your special messages and/or photos:  Messages and/or photos will only accepted via e-mail at dailypilot@latimes.com (submissions sent via regular mail will not be accepted).   Your e-mails should say “Mother’s Day’s message” in the subject line.

Between packets of hot chocolate and tubes of lip balm, sixth-graders from Temple Bat Yahm’s religious school tucked personal letters into care packages heading this week to U.S. troops in Afghanistan. “I told them basic stuff, like where I live and what I like to do. I also tried to ask a lot of questions, too,” said 12-year-old Alex Roude, who attends school at Vista Verde Elementary. “I hope they write back,” Alex said. The students stuffed boxes of goodies for troops as part of the Newport Beach temple’s annual Mitzvah Day program.