Microsoft have announced the winners of the Future Pro Photographer competition, with the top prize going to Neil Losin from California for a great picture entitled Twighlight Flight.

 You can see a gallery of the winning images from each of the categories on the microsoft site, though personally I prefer the Sports and Photojournalism category winner by Thomas Simonetti over the awarded grand prize winner.

No disrespect to the 2009 winners, for they produced some great images, but I also prefer the selection of category winners from 2008 over the 2009 set.

I'm sure that many photographers will feel something about this loss of a photographic icon, and maybe the personal stories are better than the press releases. For me Kodachrome first meant looking through family slideshows - I thought Kodachrome was a brand of slide mount! But once photography had bitten properly Kodachrome was a rare treat in a film diet that seemed to feature a lot of Agfa CT18 and CT21 film and an Agfa Silette camera. As the cameras and my abilities advanced the most defining moment was a day of motorsport in the UK where I shot the whole day with films rated below ISO 200 and still have a great 16x20 inch print from a Kodachrome 25 slide that is just awesome.

Kodak has a slideshow of iconic Kodachrome images on it's main site, and also a good article in their blog. AP wrote Sorry, Paul Simon, Kodak's taking your Kodachrome away, and the chilling news for Kodachrome fans is that the supply of the iconic film will probably disappear from retail as early as this autumn. I'm pretty sure that the old 2MB CF card from a 1996 digital camera I still have will not be so iconic in 74 years time. It does make you wonder how much longer film has to run in the digital photography age.

Since it seems like much of the photo industry is either building new products in time for the expected late summer launches or simply out taking pictures. So it's time to get your camers out and shoot the great and the good that is the British landscape - sorry to all our non-UK readers.

From www.take-a-view.co.uk is news of the Sunday Times sponsored Landscape Photographer of the Year 2009 competition. According to the website...

Take a view, the Landscape Photographer of the Year Award, is the brainchild of Charlie Waite, one of today’s most respected landscape photographers.

With a total prize fund exceeding £20,000, plus an eight-week exhibition at the National Theatre and the publication of a full colour book of Best Entries, Take a view will continue to be a desirable annual competition for photographers of all ages for years to come. Britain’s heritage is celebrated by people around the world and entries are welcome from everyone, whether resident in Britain or simply visiting.

There will also be an award for the Young Landscape Photographer of the Year and each of the four main categories has both adult and youth sections.

With 10,000 pounds up for the overal winner, healthy 1,000 pounds prizes for each of the four category winners and 500 pounds for second place that's enough to make it worth your while. Judges also should know what they are doing with Charlie Waite and Damien Demoulder on the panel. The deadline for entries is near being 15th July 2009, but at least that gives you a couple of weeks of great early morning daylight and late evening sunsets to go out and get a winning shot.