Photography

Thanks to a gift of 543 photographs from an anonymous donor, the Palm Springs Art Museum is transforming its photography collection and expanding its exhibition program. The donation surveys camera art from the mid-19th to the late 20th centuries, with pockets of strength in early photography and Pictorialist images by artists such as Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen and Julia Margaret Cameron. It also includes views of Egypt and Palestine taken by Francis Frith in the 1850s, street scenes of early 20th century Paris by Eugene Atget, dramatically modern compositions by Edward Weston, experimental pieces by Lyonel Feininger and poetic landscapes by Harry Callahan.

Punk mainstay Mike Watt was out late playing a show at the local ballet school the night before, but early on a Saturday, the bassist best known for his work with seminal indie acts fIREHOSE and the Minutemen is in San Pedro's port waters, in his kayak, a palm-sized digital camera strapped around his neck. He got a late start today - 8 a.m., not 6. So he paddles hard for the harbor entrance, barely stopping for the sea lions that dive and bob. He does, however, pause to consider the pelicans.

Hard-core Harry Potter fans who devoured the books, camped out for the movies and trekked through the theme park now have a new way to relive the boy wizard's adventures. PHOTOS: Making of Harry Potter studio tour Debuting Saturday, the Making of Harry Potter behind-the-scenes tour at theWarner Bros.studios in England will let wizards, mudbloods and muggles pull back the curtain on the movie-making secrets of the most successful film series of all time. Located 20 miles outside of London, the three-hour self-guided tour will take visitors past sets, props, costumes, models and special effects exhibits from the eight "Harry Potter" movies.

'The History of Space Photography' Where: Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery, Art Center College of Design, 1700 Lida St., Pasadena When: Through May 6 Contact: (626) 396.2446, http://www.artcenter.edu/williamson

How can you travel around the world, view images of the past or peek into a person's imagination? Photography is an art form that enables you to freeze moments in time and to view the world from another's perspective. Learn about the history of photography and find out how to take better pictures and even make your own camera through the direct links on The Times' Launch Point Web site, http://www.latimes.com/launchpoint/.

'China: Insights' Where: Pomona College Museum of Art, Montgomery Art Center, 333 N. College Way, Claremont. When: Through April 10. Closed Mondays Admission: Free Contact: http://www.pomona.edu/museum/ or (909) 621-8283 'Brush and Shutter: Early Photography in China' 'Felice Beato: A Photographer on the Eastern Road' 'Photography from the New China' Where: Getty Museum, 1200 Getty Center Drive, Los Angeles. When: 'Brush and Shutter' through May 1; other exhibits through April 24 Admission: Free; parking $15 Contact: (310)

ART Collectors' Favorites, a special exhibition of photographs on loan from private collections of members of LACMA's Photographic Arts Council, features 60 artworks from the 1880s to the present day. The show features masters of photography such as Karl Struss, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Ruth Bernard, Bruce Davidson, James Van Der Zee, W. Eugene Smith, and Heinrich Kühn. Stephen Cohen Gallery, 7358 Beverly Blvd., Park La Brea. Exhibit opening reception, 7-9 p.m. Thu. Runs Tue.-Sat.

A picture, as they say, is worth a thousand words. If you're one of those people who likes to see a good story, here are a few places where the photographs speak for themselves. Friday Learn about photography and the related technologies that support it with a visit to the UC Riverside Museum of Photography (3824 Main St., downtown Riverside. [909] 784-FOTO).

Irving Penn, a grand master of American fashion photography whose "less is more" aesthetic combined with a startling sensuality defined a visual style that he applied to designer dresses or fleshy nudes, famous artists or tribal chiefs, cigarette butts or cosmetics jars, many of them now-famous photographs owned by leading art museums, has died. He was 92. Penn died today at his apartment in New York City, said his brother, film director Arthur Penn. The cause was not given. Penn started contributing to Vogue in 1943 and became one of the first commercial photographers to cross the chasm that separated commercial and art photography until the 1970s.

Some of Morro Bay ’s most spectacular scenery may be found on a “photocache” in which seekers search not for buried treasure but above-the-ground vistas in the California coastal area. The self-guided tour aims to lead photographers — from beginners with a point-and-shoot camera to advanced shooters — to a dozen treasured views in and around the coastal town. The tour is one of more than 30 workshops and events offered Oct. 22 to 24 at the Morro Photo Expo , where participants will receive hands-on lessons in taking pictures from the water, in the garden, of the moon and beyond.

A cultural moment is passing. The space shuttle Discovery, strapped to the back of a Boeing 747, was recently ferried with great fanfare to its new home at a branch of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Virginia. The California Science Center is building an aircraft hangar for its sister shuttle, Endeavour, which is expected to arrive in Los Angeles in the fall. The remaining shuttle, Atlantis, is in Florida, where it will be displayed at the Kennedy Space Center. Useful artifacts of daily life, however rarefied, are moving into the look-but-don't-touch precinct of museum galleries, like ancient Greek storage vases or Edwardian pantaloons.

SACRAMENTO — High school students waiting to have senior portraits taken once filled Richard Givens' photography studio in Rancho Cordova, Calif. Now that studio holds all his worldly possessions. The career school photographer rented out his spacious home a couple of years ago and moved into his studio to make ends meet. The small, independent local school photographer — and others like him — are being squeezed out by increased competition from big national companies, an economy that has left families with little discretionary income and a decrease in interest from teens who would rather use cellphones to take pictures and immediately post them online.

The Instagram app for Android is my new drug. It makes me frame everything as a potential snapshot to share. Beet sprouts in my garden. Dust bunnies in the hallway. Newspapers obscuring my view. A dead cockroach at work. Click, click, click. And the filters make it all look like "art. " Or at least photos that came from my childhood. Apparently, I wasn't the only one jonesing to get the app. Instagram for Android was downloaded a million times in less than 24 hours, CNET reports . Although I've had Instagram on my iPhone since the app was released, strangely enough, I can't remember ever using it. And I'm a snapping fool on my iPhone.

George Eastman introduced the first Kodak camera in 1888. It was a small wooden box covered in Morocco leather with a roll of dry film inside. You no longer had to be a professional carrying a tripod, heavy plates, a darkening cape and liquid developer to take a photograph. Any amateur could hold the box waist-high, aim at a subject like the family and press the button that released the shutter that covered the lens. The box - later just the roll - could be sent back to the company to develop the film.

ART Pasadena Museum curator Michael Duncan makes a case for who should be considered part of the postwar American figurative art movement, which, the curator contends, has been largely written out of the annals of art history. As part of Pacific Standard Time, "L.A. RAW: Abject Expressionism in Los Angeles 1945-1980" features works by 40 artists, from Rico Lebrun to Paul McCarthy, in a variety of media including photography, painting and performance. Pasadena Museum of California Art, 490 E. Union St. Opens Saturday.

To learn more For information on photography classes offered by the Ansel Adams Gallery, go to http://www.anseladams.com . The free photo walks are offered at 9 a.m. on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays and are limited to 15 people. The children's photo walk - which is open to adults - is offered only in summer. Call (209) 372-4413 to reserve space.

Hands scooping up a lake, a giant brown bear cradling a baby, a man wearing a building. The wildly imaginative and surreal images in the new exhibition, "Digital Darkroom," running at the Annenberg Space for Photography thru May, are the products of spectacular digital manipulation. This is artwork that will even amaze the Photoshop generation. The 17 artists from the US, UK and France who created these works use all the tools that technology has to offer to orchestrate captivating results.

Believing Is Seeing (Observations on the Mysteries of Photography) Errol Morris Penguin Press: 310 pp., $40 In the brutally hot summer of 1936, Arthur Rothstein, a young photographer working for a branch of the Farm Security Administration, made a series of images that soon took on a bizarre life of their own. They were photos of a sun-bleached cow skull resting in a bone-dry corner of South Dakota, one of several drought-decimated states...

"Great shot," my friend said. "Yeah, my Canon G10 is really smart. " After two years of mumbling, "Shutter speed, ISO -- I don't know," as I put my camera in auto (or "idiot-proof") mode, it seemed time for me to know as much about photography as my camera knew. So recently I headed to Yosemite National Park and the Ansel Adams Gallery, which offers free camera walks, as well as photo classes and multi-day workshops for a fee, taught by staff photographers. Many of the iconic Yosemite photos I adore were shot by Adams, who died in 1984, and I thought a lesson here would be the nearest thing to learning from the man himself.

Eve Arnold, one of the first woman photojournalists to join the prestigious Magnum Photography Agency in the 1950s and traveled the world for her work but was best known for her candid shots of Hollywood celebrities , has died. She was 99. Arnold died Wednesday at a London nursing home, Magnum announced. The cause was not specified. Starting in 1951, when career women were a rarity, Arnold navigated distant countries and cultures, photographing horse trainers in Mongolia, factory workers in China and harem women in Dubai.