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It's time again for the best industry festival in the country. The South by Southwest Music, Film and Interactive Festival is held in Austin, Texas from March 13 to 22. The Music festival begins on the 18th.

Tonight (January 8th), the Hasted Hunt Gallery (cleverly named for owners Sarah Hasted and W.M. Hunt) in Chelsea opens what looks to be a great exhibit — Contradictions in Black and White, 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm. It'll be worth the trek in the cold weather, I promise!

Three separate and unrelated photographer-police run-ins occurred, remarkably, within less than a week at the tail end of 2008.

The Soho Photo Gallery in Lower Manhattan was packed with people last night for the reception of five (count 'em, five!) show openings. The rather large space was so packed, in fact, that Zoom In was unable to get in to part of the exhibit upstairs! What we did see, though, was an eclectic mix of photography and gallery-goers, drinking up the art, the scene, and the free champagne.

Gregory Aiello's section, entitled "City Dreams: Selected Works 1994-2007" was particularly striking. His large cityscape images present the urban, magnified, while at the same time giving a unique perspective on the totality and enormity of modern architecture. The patterns and angles Aiello discovers in these black and white prints are truly captivating. It's one of those things that you have to see in person to truly appreciate. (Ahem, Soho Photo's new hours are Wednesday through Sunday, 1pm to 6pm.)

Shift by Gregory Aiello

When trying to understand global conflicts, it’s easy to get lost in the politics and become somewhat desensitized to the experiences of people living though the violence. A transcendent exhibit by VII called “Georgia: The August War” provides a searing look into the week-long violent conflict between Georgian and Russian forces.

When the Society of Digital Agencies (SoDA) formed in March of 2007, a long and rocky road was laid out before them. Now, in their first full year of existence they are well on their path of, “ … advanc[ing] the industry through best practices, education and advocacy.”

Since the whirlwind of Adobe releases in the past couple weeks (Creative Suite 4, Lightroom 2.1 and Camera Raw 5.1), there's been a lot of conversation about improvements and problems.

Dear reader, I bring you my recommendations for must-see photography shows and photo activities for the week. Kinda like homework, only a lot more fun.

First things first, if you've been thinking about entering the latest photo contest from Hey Hot Shot, the deadline is today! The contest is advertised as "the best thing going for emerging photographers" and they make a pretty good case for it.

With Fall in full swing, many of the Logic users groups that have been on break for a while are starting to kick meetings back into motion on both the East and West Coast and several places in between. Tomorrow, Tuesday the 14th, the Los Angeles Logic Pro Users Group will be meeting at RSPE located at 4130 Cahuenga Blvd. in Toluca Lake. The special guest will be keyboardist and arranger Peter Schwartz.