PhotoPlus Expo Announces First Annual “Your New York Minute” Photo Contest

Thousands of Dollars in Prizes including Nikon Cameras and NIKKOR Lenses to Grand Prize Winners

PhotoPlus Expo, the largest photography conference and expo in North America, has announced its first annual PhotoPlus Expo photo contest, “Your New York Minute.” Whether you’re a native New Yorker, or just a New Yorker at heart, you are eligible to enter the contest. All entries must have been taken in any of the city’s five boroughs Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island and the other city islands including Roosevelt, Randalls, Liberty and more to qualify for a chance to win thousands of dollars in prizes and gear from official camera sponsor, Nikon. Deadline for entries is September 5th, 2016.

Designed for professionals in the photographic and imaging industries, as well as enthusiasts, PhotoPlus Expo showcases the latest advances in photography, digital imaging and filmmaking. Held annually at the Javits Convention Center, attendees have the opportunity to explore an inspiring array of photography and imaging products and services — all from the industry’s leading manufacturers. The show also offers seminars and intimate Photo Walks and Master Classes taught by world-renowned experts that focus on cutting-edge innovations and techniques.

The “Your New York Minute” photo contest will be open to both professional and amateur photographers. Photos should be entered in the appropriate category based on where the photograph was taken. Two entrants will be awarded Grand Prize and will receive either a Nikon D500 or Nikon D7200 kit as part of their total prize package. All winning images will be on display during the PhotoPlus Expo at the Jacob Javits Center from October 20-22, 2016 which welcomes more than 25,000 visitors from around the world each year.

“We wanted to celebrate PhotoPlus Expo’s home city, and thought there was no better way to do that than with a contest that highlights each amazing part of it,” explains Lauren Wendle, vice president & group publisher of PDN, which hosts the annual PhotoPlus Expo. “Hundreds of great New York moments are captured with cameras and mobile devices each day. The contest is an opportunity for visitors and residents alike to share those special moments with us.“

Contest Rules and Deadline

The call for submission is now open for the “Your New York Minute” photo contest. There will be a fee of $20 per professional entry and $15 per amateur entry for each photo entered into the contest, but contestants may enter as often as they would like. PHOTO+ members will receive a 30% discount for each photo entered and a portion of all fees will be donated to City Harvest Food Bank in New York City. There are no time restrictions as to when a photo was taken in New York, its outer boroughs, or Staten Island and the other city islands including Roosevelt, Randalls, Liberty and more.

Contest Categories and Prizes

The “Your New York Minute” photo contest will consist of two Divisions: Professional and Amateur. Each Division will consist of six (6) categories: Bronx, Brooklyn Manhattan, Queens, Staten Island and the other city islands including Roosevelt, Randalls, Liberty and more. First-Place winners in each category will qualify to become the Grand-Prize winner. At the judge’s discretion, honorable mentions may be selected in some or all categories, and will not qualify for prizes but will be included in a special exhibition at 2016 PhotoPlus Expo at the Jacob Javits Center.

Grand Prize Package (Pro Division) — $5,300 value

• Nikon D500 16-80mm VR Lens Kit
• Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-1000
• G-Technology rugged G-Drive with Thunderbolt
• Full Conference Pass to PhotoPlus Expo (full access to seminars, classes, and Expo)
• Whitewall.com Photo Under Acrylic Print
• Tether Tools Tether Table Aero
• Additional prizes will be included in this prize package

Fall is “Couples Season” at Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea

Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea, the island’s celebrated Forbes Five Star Resort, has announced Couples Season 2016, set for September through November this year by offering guests who book a stay the best rates of the year, no resort fee, special pricing in the restaurants, spa and boutique shops, and many more complimentary activities. Add to this, guests who book the Resort’s popular Experience More package receive a Resort credit of up to USD 100 per night for rooms and USD 200 per night for suites that can be applied toward incidental charges, including services at The Spa and at three of Hawaii’s most acclaimed restaurants – Ferraro’s, DUO and Spago.

Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea (PRNewsFoto/Four Seasons Resort Maui)

The property is nestled on 15 acres of the breathtaking Wailea Coast. The 380-room oceanfront property is world-renowned for its comfortable opulence, impeccable service, luxurious amenities and for living in harmony with its environment and community. A TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence Hall of Famer, the resort in Maui is also home to one of the nation’s top-rated spas committed to wellness and three of Hawaii’s most acclaimed restaurants–Ferraro’s Bar e Ristorante, Spago Maui and DUO, a premium steak and seafood restaurant. This sophisticated home away from home caters to the needs and interests of all generations–offering world-class activities with no Resort fee and one-of-a-kind Unforgettable Experiences, a museum quality art collection, three pools overlooking the azure-blue Pacific Ocean including an adults-only Serenity Pool with exclusive Missoni-designed cabanas, and more.

Four Seasons Resort Maui Serenity Pool at Sunset (PRNewsFoto/Four Seasons Resort Maui)

“September through November are special months at Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea. The kids are back in school, the weather is perfect, and the staff provides a menu of complimentary amenities and services. During Couples Season, guests have access to both the best possible rates and to special features designed just for them,” says General Manager Jean Claude Wietzel.

Stand up paddling (SUP) yoga, cocktail classes, cooking demonstrations and other surprises are among the extra complimentary activities awaiting couples this season.

And because the Resort recognizes that every couple is unique, the award-winning concierge team can customize guest stays to meet the individual interests and needs of guests:

• For indulgence, couples vacationing in Maui can enjoy poolside spa services while relaxing at one of the Resort’s 58 complimentary cabanas at the beautiful Fountain Pool or reserve one of the Missoni designer cabanas at the adults-only Serenity Pool.
• For adventure, there is everything from ocean outrigger canoe paddling to exploring Maui’s picturesque beauty aboard a helicopter, feeling the adrenaline rush of zip-lining or hiking Maui’s Bamboo Forest Pipiwai Trail, or mastering the art of spearfishing skills.
• For romance, guests can luxuriate with couples massages in one of the Resort’s oceanside authentic Hawaiian hales and enjoy the completely customised oceanfront Ultimate Dinner followed by an evening arm-in-arm stroll on Wailea Beach drinking in a starry sky. Live music nightly and weekly Aloha Receptions add to the feel.
  

  Four Seasons Maui Photo by Marco Garcia

  

• Savvy couples looking to maximise value during their Maui couples retreat will appreciate the guidance of the concierge team to learn about and take advantage of Resort features such as the self-guided tour of the curated Hawaiian-inspired art collection and the use of the Resort’s courtesy house car. The tennis courts are complimentary as are introductory scuba lessons and the use of snorkeling gear.  

  

To make reservations for Couples Season and the Experience More package, call toll free (US/Canada) 1 800 334 MAUI (6284) or contact the Resort at reservations.mau@fourseasons.com.

All Images Provided by Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea

Famed Portraits Of Benjamin Franklin By Duplessis On View In Focus Exhibition At The Met

Exhibition Dates: August 22–November 28, 2016

Exhibition Location: The Met Fifth Avenue, European Paintings, Gallery 624, 2nd floor

Several works depicting the brilliant writer, inventor, politician, patriot, and statesman Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790), who has been the subject of hundreds of portraits, will go on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in a focused exhibition opening on August 22. The most famous of these was painted by Joseph Siffred Duplessis (1725–1802), Louis XVI’s official portraitist, after Franklin arrived in Paris in 1776 to seek French support for the American war of independence. Portraying Franklin in a red coat with a fur collar, and with an astonishingly elaborate frame decorated with his attributes, the oval painting was greatly admired when Duplessis exhibited it at the 1779 Paris Salon.

Joseph Siffred Duplessis (French, Carpentras 1725–1802 Versailles). Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790). 1778. Oil on canvas. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Friedsam Collection, Bequest of Michael Friedsam, 1931.

The painting, which has been in The Met collection for 85 years, will be a focal point of the installation Benjamin Franklin: Portraits by Duplessis, along with the preliminary pastel portrait of Franklin, a life study by Duplessis. The pastel, which is rarely exhibited and will be on loan from the New York Public Library, shows Franklin in the same pose as the painting but wearing a gray, collarless jacket and waistcoat. The image will be familiar to many: it is the same likeness that is replicated on the current one-hundred-dollar bill. The installation will also explore the processes of image transfer and replication in the 18th century.

Franklin arrived in Paris on December 21, 1776, as a commissioner of the American Continental Congress, and lived in nearby Passy until he returned to America in 1785. He promoted the treaty of alliance between the fledgling nation and the government of Louis XVI that was signed on February 6, 1778. The American Revolutionary War was an enormously popular cause in France, where the elderly statesman’s simplicity of dress and manner were admired. The “Fur Collar Portrait,” or “VIR Portrait,” by Duplessis was commissioned by the entrepreneur Jacques Donatien Le Ray de Chaumont. The oval canvas, exhibited in the frame in which it is still displayed, became the object of extravagant praise. Versions from the artist’s workshop and by other hands were in demand and the portrait was replicated dozens of times. A fine replica by or after Duplessis, also belonging to The Met, is so close in design that the contours must have been transferred from the 1778 picture.

Franklin understood the importance of circulating his image and gave sittings to some half-dozen French artists, but he did not enjoy doing so. He did not wish to sit for the same painter twice, sending away in later years those who applied to him for an original and suggesting that they instead commission a copy. An X-radiograph of the “Fur Collar Portrait” reveals that Franklin’s coat was originally much simpler, with small buttons and a narrow collar. In this connection, the exhibition will draw attention to the Duplessis pastel portrait of Franklin that was given to the New York Public Library in 1896. For more than a century, the pastel has been conscientiously protected from damage due to overexposure to light and thus has rarely been exhibited. Traditionally, the pastel had been assigned to the early 1780s, but technical examination reveals that it dates to 1777 or early 1778 and is preliminary to the “Fur Collar Portrait“—its design precisely matches the composition revealed in the painting’s X-radiograph. Pastel is a portable medium, and Duplessis probably took his pastel crayons to Passy to set down the direct likeness of Franklin.

Benjamin Franklin: Portraits by Duplessis is organized by Katharine Baetjer, Curator in the Department of European Paintings at The Met.

Visitorship of 6.7 Million Sets New Annual Attendance Record at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Thomas P. Campbell, Director and CEO of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, announced that the Museum welcomed a record number of visitors—6.7 million—during the fiscal year that ended on June 30 (FY16). This is the highest number of visitors since The Met began tracking admission statistics more than 40 years ago. The total includes attendance at all three of the Museum’s locations—The Met Fifth Avenue, The Met Cloisters, and the new Met Breuer, which was launched in March to present modern and contemporary art-themed programming.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art presents over 5,000 years of art from around the world for everyone to experience and enjoy. Since it was founded in 1870, The Met has always aspired to be more than a treasury of rare and beautiful objects. Every day, art comes alive in the Museum’s galleries and through its exhibitions and events, revealing both new ideas and unexpected connections across time and across cultures.

Visitorship to The Met has now exceeded six million for the fifth consecutive year. The FY16 number was 400,000 higher than that of the previous year, due to an increase of approximately 200,000 visitors at The Met Fifth Avenue and The Met Cloisters combined; and attendance of 185,000 during the inaugural four months at The Met Breuer.

Mr. Campbell said: “We are thrilled that the public continues to respond so enthusiastically to the Met’s exhibitions, collections, and programs. Our audiences are local, national, and international, reflecting the depth and breadth of the extraordinary works of art in our galleries. We are delighted that our visitors have also embraced our expanded programming at The Met Breuer as an integral part of The Met experience. And they continue to take advantage of the groundbreaking resources in our ‘fourth space’—digital—in greater numbers than ever before.”

The Met continues to be a popular destination for local visitors: 29% of the Museum’s visitors to The Met Fifth Avenue and The Met Cloisters in FY16 came from the five boroughs of New York City, while 40% were from both New York City and the tri-state area. The Museum also continues to be New York’s most visited tourist attraction for domestic as well as international audiences—in FY16, international visitors from around 190 countries visited The Met Fifth Avenue and The Met Cloisters, accounting for 41% of visitors.

Exhibitions

Once again, exhibition attendance at The Met was strong over the course of the year. Twenty-one of the exhibitions on view at The Met Fifth Avenue in FY16 were visited by more than 100,000 visitors each, including Sargent: Portraits of Artists and Friends (254,750); Artistic Furniture of the Gilded Age (210,903); Ancient Egypt Transformed: The Middle Kingdom (187,030); Vigée Le Brun: Woman Artist in Revolutionary France (165,220); Pergamon and the Hellenistic Kingdoms of the Ancient World (which closed on July 17 with a total of 185,266); and Kongo: Power and Majesty (141,376).

Over half of the exhibitions that received more than 100,000 visitors were based on works of art from The Met’s own collection, among them: Masterpieces of Chinese Painting from The Met Collection (247,833 visitors to date; on view through October 11); Grand Illusions: Staged Photography from The Met Collection (147,313); Reconstructions: Recent Photographs and Video from The Met Collection (141,075); Discovering Japanese Art: American Collectors and The Met (140,697); A Passion for Jade: The Heber Bishop Collection (133,572); and The Luxury of Time: European Clocks and Watches (126,787).

Also contributing to the high attendance in FY16 were the final weeks of last summer’s popular exhibitions The Roof Garden Commission: Pierre Huyghe (which closed November 1, 2015, and drew 483,208 visitors) and China: Through the Looking Glass (which closed September 7, 2015, and attracted 815,992 people).

Attendance was also particularly strong during the early weeks of The Roof Garden Commission: Cornelia Parker, Transitional Object (PsychoBarn), which opened April 19 and has had more than 340,000 visitors to date; and the spring Costume Institute exhibition Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology, which opened on May 5, 2016, and has had more than 540,000 visitors to date. Both of these exhibitions are still on view—Transitional Object (PsychoBarn) is due to close on October 31, and the recently extended Manus x Machina will now close on September 5.

Attendance at The Met Breuer in its initial weeks—from March 1 through June 30, 2016—was strong at 185,000. The inaugural exhibitions there included Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible (on view through September 4) and Nasreen Mohamedi. At The Met Cloisters, the final 15 weeks of Treasures and Talismans: Rings from the Griffin Collection took place in FY16, bringing the total attendance for the exhibition to 163,772.

Education and Public Programs

The Met continued to present its broad range of live arts, educational, and public programming throughout the year, for visitors of all ages and interests, from novices to experts, including students, teachers, families, artists, visitors with disabilities, scholars, and others from around the world. In FY16, The Met engaged 220,796 students and teachers in 6,325 school group visits and multi-session school experiences. More than 126,000 of the students and teachers were from public, private, and parochial schools across New York City’s five boroughs; 76,734 of these were from New York City public schools. The Met’s educator programs on integrating art into classroom teaching were attended by a total of 3,812 teachers and school leaders in FY16.

Digital Visitorship

The Met’s digital audience continues to expand. The Metropolitan Museum’s website (www.metmuseum.org) ended FY16 with a total of 32.5 million visits. The Met app, which launched in September 2014, was used nearly 1.9 million times in its first 21 months. The Museum’s Facebook account had more than 1.7 million followers (with a reach of 243 million people) in FY16, and its Twitter feed had 1.5 million followers (with tweets receiving 173 million impressions). The Met’s Webby Award-winning Instagram account had 1.4 million followers at the end of FY16.