Photo by Valerie Millett

Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous! The theme this week was green (in honor of my three of my colleagues who all wore green yesterday to the office) and we received some beautiful images! Thanks for sharing and don’t forget to “Like” us on Facebook and subscribe to the blog for stories, contests, interviews and more.

Oh! One more thing: if you really love the images in this post (or any other post for that matter) don’t forget to share with your friends and family!

That would be mighty kind of you.

Enjoy!

P.S., don’t forget to tell us where you took your image or we can’t include in our gallery.

Paul

It’s always sad when a grand old company like Eastman Kodak fails. I spent the first 25 years of my career using the unquestionably best photographic products in the world. Kodak film and papers were the best products money could buy, and Nikon had no rivals. Unfortunately, Kodak, like some other venerable companies (U.S. car companies GM, Ford etc.) and a Japanese company called Nikon, forgot how to compete. They believed they could rest on their well-earned laurels and that no one would ever use their rivals. Kodak in particular disregarded the power of the professional user, saying that we only accounted for 5 percent of sales. That’s like Nike saying that the NBA only accounts for 1 percent of their sales, so they can ignore Michael Jordan. People do follow the pros, even if they are buying an amateur version of the product. My father always said, “all you have in business is lead time.” All of these companies gave up their lead time and let their rivals close in and then eventually pass them. General Motors and Ford, after 30 years, are finally starting to compete with Japan again, and Nikon has only recently started making worthy professional cameras to close the gap that they had given Canon. As for Kodak, it gave its innovative leadership away to Fuji and that, combined with the company’s inability to transition to digital, created the death spiral that culminated into last week’s bankruptcy.

It saddens me that this has come to pass. I loved Kodak and was proud to use their products. I believe, and this is only my opinion, that the arrogance of “Too Big to Fail” is what leads to this conclusion.

 ~Paul Markow

Photo by Photography by Saija

Arizona certainly lends itself to some gorgeous photography… the landscapes are simply magnificent and the proof is in this week’s gallery. We said landscapes and the landscapes posted to our Facebook page were stunning. We received so many images — and folks are still posting — so thank you!

Enjoy the beauty that is Arizona and don’t forget to share this post with your friends and family who don’t live in our fabulous state…We think they’re going to dig the photos!

It’s a sad day for many photographers today — the company that gave us the first hand-held camera has filed for bankruptcy. You can read about their Chapter 11 filing from Reuters below……… and don’t forget to check out our blog post about Steve McCurry and the Last Roll of KODACHROME.

Eastman Kodak Co, the photography icon that invented the hand-held camera and helped bring the world the first pictures from the moon, has filed for bankruptcy protection, capping a prolonged plunge for one of America’s best-known companies.

The Chapter 11 filing may give Kodak, which traces its roots to 1880, the ability to find buyers for some of its 1,100 digital patents, a major portion of its value.

It may also help Kodak continue to shrink a business that still employs 17,000 people, down from 63,900 just nine years ago.

Kodak also obtained a $950 million, 18-month credit line from Citigroup so it can keep operating during the bankruptcy process, which it expects to complete in 2013.

“This is a necessary step and the right thing to do for the future of Kodak,” Chairman and Chief Executive Antonio Perez said in a statement on Thursday.

According to papers filed with the U.S. bankruptcy court in Manhattan, Kodak had about $5.1 billion of assets and $6.75 billion of liabilities at the end of September.

In court documents, Chief Financial Officer Antoinette McCorvey said, without elaborating, that Kodak plans to sell “significant assets” during the bankruptcy. Non-U.S. units are not part of the Chapter 11 case.

A FALLEN ICON

Kodak once dominated its industry and its film was the subject of a popular Paul Simon song, but it failed to embrace more modern technologies quickly enough, such as the digital camera — ironically, a product it even invented.

Its downfall hit its Rust Belt hometown of Rochester, New York, with employment there falling to about 7,000 from more than 60,000 in Kodak’s heyday.

Kodak’s market value, meanwhile, has sunk to less than $150 million from $31 billion 15 years ago.

In recent years, Perez has steered Kodak’s focus more toward consumer and commercial printers.

But that failed to restore annual profitability, something Kodak has not seen since 2007, or arrest a cash drain that has made it difficult for the company to meet its substantial pension and other benefits obligations to its workers and retirees.

McCorvey said Kodak ultimately suffered from a “liquidity shortfall” as some vendors stopped shipping and providing services, and demanded shorter payment terms.

Kodak named Dominic DiNapoli, a vice chairman at business turnaround specialist FTI Consulting Inc, as its chief restructuring officer.

The investment bank Lazard is also providing advice and has been helping Kodak look for a buyer for its digital patents. Kodak’s law firm is Sullivan & Cromwell.

Perez said the bankruptcy would help Kodak maximize the value of its technology assets, including patents related to digital imaging that it said are used in virtually every modern digital camera, smartphone and tablet.

In the last few years, Kodak has used extensive litigation with rivals such as Apple Inc, BlackBerry maker Research in Motion Ltd, South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co and Taiwan’s HTC Corp over those patents as a means to try to generate revenue.

Among Kodak’s many creditors are retailers including Wal-Mart Stores Inc and Target Corp, and movie companies Sony Corp and Walt Disney Co.

WALKING ON THE MOON

George Eastman, a high-school dropout from upstate New York, founded Kodak in 1880, and began to make photographic plates. To get his business going, he splurged on a second-hand engine for $125.

Within eight years, the Kodak name had been trademarked, and the company had introduced the hand-held camera as well as roll-up film, where it became the dominant producer.

Eastman also introduced the “Wage Dividend” in which the company would pay bonuses to employees based on results.

Nearly a century after Kodak’s founding, the astronaut Neil Armstrong used a Kodak camera the size of a shoebox to take pictures as he became in 1969 the first man to walk on the moon.

Those pictures arguably had more viewers than the 80 films that have won Best Picture Oscars and were shot on Kodak film.

Six years after Armstrong’s walk, and not long after songwriter Simon told his mama not to take his Kodachrome away, Kodak invented the digital camera.

The size of a toaster, it was too big for the pockets of amateur photographers, whose pockets now are stuffed with digital offerings from the likes of Canon, Casio and Nikon.

But rather than develop the digital camera, Kodak put it on the back-burner and spent years watching rivals take market share that it would never reclaim.

In 1994, Kodak spun off a chemicals business, Eastman Chemical Co, which proved to be more successful.

Kodak’s final downfall in the eyes of investors began in September when it unexpectedly withdrew $160 million from a credit line, raising worries of a cash shortage. It ended September with $862 million of cash.

PENSIONS IN FOCUS

It remained unclear how Kodak will address its pension obligations, many of which were built up decades ago when U.S. manufacturers offered more generous retirement and medical benefits. Many retirees hail from Britain where Kodak has been manufacturing since 1891.

The company had promised to inject $800 million over the next decade into its British pension plan. It remains unclear how that country’s pension regulator might seek to preserve some or all of the company’s obligations to British pensioners.

McCorvey, the chief financial officer, said in court papers on Thursday that she expects the trustee for the British pension plan to have a “significant” general unsecured claim against the company.

 

>>Flickr pick by Marlinsgirl93

Photo by Logan Brumm

So, what makes a good photo? Well, it’s not up to me to say, which is why I asked the master (a.k.a our photo editor), Jeff Kida, to share his thoughts on YOUR images. From time to time, Jeff will give you his feedback — what worked and why, plus a few tips — on the images you post to our Facebook page.

Let’s start with this photo by Logan Brumm. Logan submitted this photograph when we asked our Facebook community to post their pics of stars.

Here’s what Jeff had to say about Logan’s photograph.

Logan did some serious thinking and pre-planning for this shot.

• He lives in Flagstaff where we have very dark skies (not much human caused light pollution)
• He chose to shoot just before the Perseid meteor shower in mid-August. This means he was more likely to capture an added element streaking across the sky, which of course happened.
• He chose to look south toward Phoenix which produced a yellowish glow in the horizon from 150 miles away. This gave really nice separation between the dark sky and the mountains.
• He framed his horizon line very low making this image about the sky, as it should be.
• He used a high ISO (1600) and a wide lens opening (f 2.8) that allowed him to capture the Milky Way in a 27 second exposure which kept the stars looking like pinpoints and not streaks.
• There’s an added bonus of a red beacon glowing across the water from a distant mountain top. This adds one more point of interest to a very nice photograph.

STOP in Dunbar Springs. Photo by Detritus

Dunbar Springs.

I had never heard of the place until I saw this slideshow courtesy of The New York Times entitled, “Murals and Tasting Menus in a Corner of Tucson.”

Dunbar Springs looks very cool and I want to head south to Tucson to check it out… there are so many groovy spots included in the slideshow like, 801 Gallery, The Tasteful Kitchen and The Red Barn Theater (honestly, the place had me when I saw that “How to Talk Minnesotan” is currently playing this month).

Here’s what the digital version of The Gray Lady said about Dunbar Springs:

People don’t just live in Dunbar Spring, they nest. In the Tucson neighborhood just north of downtown, yards bristle with salvaged scrap metal, along with solar panels and water harvesting tubes. Many houses resemble art installations. Dunbar Spring was Tucson’s first black neighborhood; it is named after two prominent citizens:  the African-American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar and the Swiss-born John Spring, who became Arizona’s first bilingual public-school teacher in 1872. Today, it is a haven for artists, environmentalists and local foods activists.

>>Flickr pic by detritus

Rainshadow Images by Audrey Kanekoa-Madrid

Thought this quote by Hans Magnus Enzensberger summed up this week’s theme rather nicely:

“Culture is a little like dropping an Alka-Seltzer into a glass-you don’t see it, but somehow it does something.”

Perhaps the number one thing that makes Arizona great is our diverse culture (and this week’s theme)… these influences — some of which you’ll see below — have helped to shape and define our state. And we think that’s a very good thing.

Enjoy our culture and keep posting your photos on our Facebook page.

Oh, and don’t forget to subscribe to our blog for stories you won’t find in the magazine.

Photo by Susan Kordish

In honor of the upcoming Martin Luther King, Jr. Day holiday, good old Uncle Sam is offering free admission to all 397 national parks from January 14-16.

“Dr. King led the fight to realize his dream of a nation free of discrimination, where every citizen was able to enjoy the inalienable rights promised to all Americans,” said National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis. “Dr. King’s story and those of so many others whose efforts changed our country are preserved in the national parks, places where history happened. I hope every American can take advantage of the upcoming fee free weekend and visit their parks to experience their history firsthand.”

For us, this means FREE admission to parks like Canyon De Chelly, Tumacácori, Grand Canyon, Montezuma Castle, Yuma Crossing, Organ Pipe Cactus, Tuzigoot, Petrified Forest, Sunset Crater Volcano and Fort Bowie… to name just a few.

Click here for a complete list of national parks in AZ.

If you take advantage of this offer, be sure to take some photos and post them to our Facebook page.

So, I thought I’d share some behind-the-scenes photos of one of the Weekend Adventures & Road Trips featured in this month’s issue of Arizona Highways (on newsstands now). The location was Sonoita — about 45 minutes south of Tucson — and myself, Managing Editor Kelly Kramer, Photo Editor Jeff Kida and Editor Robert Stieve went along for one heckuva ride… a horseback ride with Ron Izzo, owner of Arizona Horseback Experience (the full experience is on page 20 — hint, hint).

FYI, Jeff was behind the camera shooting away…

All I can say is that we had a fabulous time… And as Robert noted in his Editor’s Letter, “the terrain down there is unlike anywhere else in the state, and it’s as beautiful as anywhere else in the world.”

As for that pooch in the slideshow, well, she sure took a liking to our own Jeff Kida… talk about puppy love!

Enjoy.

Kat, Associate Editor