Years of guesswork have not produced satisfactory explanations for Stonehenge. Is that about to change? Art courtesy of Library of Congress.

Mike Parker Pearson and Julian Thomas, both NGS grantees, announced today that new dating of burial remains at Stonehenge support their idea that the "first and foremost" purpose of the place was for burial, perhaps of royalty.

In 2007, the same team announced the discovery of a huge settlement at Durrington Walls, near Stonehenge. Their report suggested that these were the people that built Stonehenge. The new dating helps support their idea that Stonehenge was a vast ceremonial landscape, including the settlement, focused around a mortuary function.

Just weeks ago, however, Timothy Darvill and Geoff Wainwright announced that they knew what Stonehenge was for. It was a center for healing, a "prehistoric Lourdes," Wainright was quoted as saying. In a conversation I had with Parker Pearson, he quipped that if it was a healing center, then perhaps it wasn't a very good one, since there were quite a lot of burials there.

The cover story in June's National Geographic explores both of these hypotheses.

I first encountered Parker Pearson when I was writing a children's book called "Bury the Dead." He worked with me as a consultant and I recall how impressed I was with his insight into burial archaeology world wide. Science isn't a horse race, but if I had to bet on a hypothesis, I would bet Parker Pearson and Thomas are right about it being first and foremost a royal burial ground.

What do you think? Burial ground? Healing center? Observatory? Something else?

Two exotic-sounding ingredients have been making repeat performances on Bravo's Top Chef this season.

Ras el hanout has shown up in beet salad with goat cheese and in a foie gras mousse with peaches.

According to Larousse Gastronomique, ras el hanout is "a complex mixture of twenty or more ground spices, used mainly in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. The literal meaning is "head" or "top of the shop." Since the mixture was traditionally made from a market's superior spices, the name is fitting.

So you just bought a new digital camera and now you’re wondering what kind of SD or CF card to use in that slick little device. Should you stick with one of the major brand names, SanDisk, Lexar, or perhaps take a chance on a cheaper card without the name recognition?

My criterion for choosing a memory card is speed: how fast the image data can be written from the camera to the card. You’d think that we could just read and trust the data transfer speeds listed by the manufacturers—you can to a point.

But that point stops when you realize that a single top-rated card will vary in performance depending on the camera brand or model in which it’s paired. Fortunately, if you are looking for the fastest card and camera combinations, you need only look as far as Rob Galbraith’s recently updated CF/SD Card Database. He has posted speed tests on a number of major digital SLR camera and card combinations.

If you are looking to free yourself from one less digital doodad, try leaving your SD card reader at home on your next outing. I know 2-in-1 SD cards have been out for a while but I’ve recently discovered just how well they work. The convenience of being able to remove the SD card from the camera, fold the card back to reveal the USB tab, and directly insert it into the computer is brilliant, simple, and fast.

— Ken Geiger 

"No land in America is more sacred than the square mile of Arlington National Cemetery."

It’s hard not to be changed after seeing a years worth of tears shed over the caskets of American soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. As an editor I had to distill tens of thousands of photographs, taken over the course of a year, which resonated sadness, honor, pride, reverence but most of all loss, into a story that we published in June 2007.

Regardless of what I witnessed in that photographic coverage, I still can’t reconcile the personal sense of loss in the eyes of Capt. Lisa Doring of the U.S. Marine Corps as she buried her husband, Capt. Nathanael James Doring, at Arlington National Cemetery, June 14, 2006.

What I can share this Memorial Day is a link back to those images, which I hope, pay homage to our servicemen and women of these United States of America.

— Ken Geiger

Cornell Capa, Founding Director of the International Center of Photography and Life magazine staff photographer died in New York on Friday, May 23, 2008. “The world has lost a great photographer and a great humanitarian; the world of photography has lost its greatest friend and champion,” said Willis E. Hartshorn, ICP Ehrenkranz Director.

One of the passions of Cornell Capa’s life was a dedication to the example set by his brother, famed war photographer Robert Capa. Cornell Capa’s photographs and those of other photographers he championed, often reveal the richness of an ordinary person’s relationship with the world, encompassing everything from cataclysmic events to the subtle epiphanies of daily life. “It took me some time to realize that the camera is a mere tool, capable of many uses,” Capa wrote in 1963, “and at last I understood that, for me, its role, its power, and its duty are to comment, describe, provoke discussion, awaken conscience, evoke sympathy, spotlight human misery and joy which otherwise would pass unseen, un-understood and unnoticed. I have been interested in photographing the everyday life of my fellow humans and the commonplace spectacle of the world around me, and in trying to distill out of these their beauty and whatever is of permanent interest.”

Alex Trebek is a do-it-yourself host. On a lunchtime break from his duties as chief interrogator for National Geographic’s National Geography Bee on May 20 and 21, he picked up a dictionary and got busy. He had his list of questions (and answers) in a binder. If he saw a name he wasn’t sure how to pronounce—like Jengish Chokusu, a mountain peak on the China-Kyrgyzstan border—he’d look it up and insert diacritical marks to guide his tongue (the accent goes on the middle syllable of Chokusu). A consummate multitasker, he agreed to be interviewed while juggling questions and place names and sipping a glass of wine. “I have to work, so I must be half-tanked,” he joked.

Have you learned a lot of geography from hosting the Geography Bee for 20 years?
I’ve learned some stuff. But I’m not likely to retain the information. Keep in mind I have another program I do based on information that takes up a lot of my available random access memory. [Hosting the Bee] has taught me that many of our young kids are very well informed about the world. But I get to see the crème de la crème.

How would you do in the Bee?
Not particularly well. Any of the kids could beat me.

Most Bee contestants are male – as they are on Jeopardy, right?
There are now more women on Jeopardy than men, though that’s not always been the case. I think we’re about 55/45 women to men. Maybe it augurs well for the Geography Bee.

You’re Canadian. If you had to write a question about Canada for the Geography Bee, what would it be?
Most people don’t realize that this Canadian city lies directly south of a major American city.

Is it … Windsor?
Yes, it is Windsor … and Detroit!

Will there ever be another Jeopardy contestant like Ken Jennings, who won $2.52 million on 74 consecutive shows?
How do you even begin to dream that there is the possibility of another Ken Jennings? There might be, but it took us, what, 20 years to get Ken, and it might well take 20 more years to come up with somebody who will achieve or surpass Ken’s mark. Unless we find some contestant on steroids.

Do you have any favorite place names you get a kick out of saying?
Some names just sound great. Samarkand. In Asia. You cannot say Samarkand without thinking of something exotic. Just the sound of the word: Samarkand.

Any favorite North American place names?
Piscataway, New Jersey. Pis-CAT-a-way. Not PIS-ca-tawee. You drive through New Jersey and you want to exercise your pronunciation skills, just try to correctly pronounce a lot of the Indian place names. Your normal approach to pronounciation is thrown a curve. What’s the one in Florida? Kis-SI-mmee. Looking at it you’d think Lake KISS-a-mee!

It’s impressive that Jeopardy has become such a part of the fabric of people’s lives.
I got a letter recently from someone who told me about his mother dying. She went into a coma. They knew she was on her last hours. And his sisters went in and spent time. And because she had always watched Jeopardy, they turned on the program. One of the clues came up. She opened her eyes, and gave the response. And died. Came out of a coma and said, you know, “What is Panama … whatever.” Boom. Gone. I thought it was an amazing story.

Are you always being recognized by fans who go, “Alex, I’ll take potpourri for $100?
A lady recognized me on the street here in D.C., and she said, “Pat Sajak!”

Think you can match the 11-year-old who won the 2008 National Geographic Bee? Test yourself with the five questions from the championship round, then watch video of the tense final minutes.

-Marc Silver

Last year about this time David Griffin, National Geographic’s director of photography, and Elizabeth Krist, a senior photo editor, walked into my office and asked if I had any ideas on how we could photograph Stonehenge in a way that would be new and different. It was a natural question. David was already thinking about high-dynamic-range photography, and I’m the digital-tech guy at the magazine. I had an idea, but it came with a catch—I wanted to be the photographer, anything to get out of the office and into the field.

In the photograph, a snow leopard emerges from the shadows of the rugged Himalaya. Its thick, soft coat is lovely, but even more enchanting is its tail. It is nearly the length of its body. This is my first opportunity to really study a snow leopard; I can see the rosette spots, penetrating yellow eyes, and broad, delicate paws. I’ve photographed leopards throughout Africa, but never one to match this creature’s beauty.

In a darkened room, Steve Winter shows his next photograph—another snow leopard, this one with a dusting of snow on its back.

The snow leopard’s long tail helps stabilize the cat on rough terrain.

I read George Schaller’s Stones of Silence 20 years ago and ever since have wanted to make a photograph like this. Schaller’s book transported me to the Himalaya; I dreamed of seeing snow leopards at those heights. The dream remains unfulfilled, but for now Steve is there for all of us. His commitment to this beautiful animal has produced the finest images of snow leopards I’ve seen. But reality casts a shadow on these pictures. As few as 3,500 snow leopards may survive. If I want to photograph them, I should move quickly. Schaller’s words still hold the same urgency they had nearly three decades ago: “The snow leopard,” he wrote, “might well serve as symbol of man’s commitment to the future of the mountain world.”

Photograph by Steve Winter

View Steve Winters stunning photography from the June 2008 "Snow Leopards" story.

Innovative "pinwheel" photo gallery design from thewhalehunt.org.

So you've made some great pictures and now you want to share them with the world?  There are many ways to do that and lots of photo gallery and slide show designs published on the internet to use as inspiration.  I asked my friend and colleague Jim Webb to share some web photography galleries that caught his eye.  He sent a group of links to photo galleries that can be created with a range of tools from free web software  through handmade creations designed and coded professionally.

Reading the New York Times while riding the metro into work this morning, I had a flashback to my college days. Rochester, New York, in the late 1970s was dominated by a global powerhouse in photography — Kodak. I still remember driving around the outside of the Eastman Kodak plant looking on in jaw dropping amazement at the miles and miles of pipe that snaked with contorted twists and turns through the vast manufacturing facility, wondering what kind of chemical concoctions were being brewed into the next great film emulsion.

According to the NYT, the “Great Yellow Father” employed 145,300 people 20 years ago; in 2007 its ranks had dwindled to 26,900. Not surprising when you consider the tact taken when one of Kodak’s own electrical engineers, Stephen J. Sasson, invented the first digital camera in the 1970s.

From the NYT:

“My prototype was big as a toaster, but the technical people loved it,” Mr. Sasson said. “But it was filmless photography, so management’s reaction was, ‘that’s cute — but don’t tell anyone about it.’ ”

While I was learning the basics of chemical-based imaging at Rochester Institute of Technology, Kodak was quietly developing pixel-based photography. It’s ironic that 25 years after college it seems I owe Mr. Sasson a personal debt of thanks; his invention is the reason I now work for National Geographic magazine.

Thank you, Mr. Sasson!   

— Ken Geiger 

The May 2008 issue of the magazine is a special, one-topic issue covering China. An interesting—although not necessarily planned—fact is that most of the photographs were shot on film. This could turn out to be the last issue of NGM in which the majority of the photographs were not shot digitally.

Of the five main contributors: Fritz Hoffman, Lynn Johnson and Greg Girard shoot film; while Randy Olson and George Steinmetz use digital.

I had a chance to sit down with Fritz recently to talk about his thoughts on film vs. digital.

Fritz was quick to point out that it is not so much about the method of capture, but for him, more about the camera. Fritz shoots primarily with a 35mm film Leica rangefinder. “If you have ever held one...it’s a love affair” he explained. “A camera is something you become one with...I see in a way that matches the camera and its lens.”

Fritz was an early adopter of digital technology, working with a Nikon SLR six years ago (which indeed were the most primitive days of digital). But he found the cameras simply too bulky for the kind of intimate and personal photography he has mastered. He still feels today's professional SLRs are still too cumbersome.

One digital camera that Fritz does actually carry with him now is a Canon G7 point & shoot (the newest model is the G9). He tends to use it to check lighting, color balance and also as a way to make visual notes—he may shoot a Chinese sign and then later have it translated.

For a shot of Shanghai’s skyline at night, Fritz was using his G7 point & shoot to check the lighting, and then shot the scene using his Leica and film. Later, when editing the story, the digital snapshot proved to have captured detail that was beyond the range of the same scene shot on film. The photo that ran across two pages of the magazine was the only digital photo that Fritz made, and it was shot with his little G7.

When it comes to digital vs. analog cameras, Fritz cites a sentiment that I have heard from other pros: digital cameras tempt you to look at the preview, or constantly check settings. Fritz explains succinctly: “Film keeps me in the moment.”

But Fritz is thinking about moving to digital, but he wants to do it when he feels that he has found an appropriate aesthetic reason for doing so. Fritz notes that “digital images are like sugar-coated Rice Crispies, they’re too glossy. Not that there is anything wrong with that, it’s just not right for what I’m doing right now. When I go to digital, I want to do something new with it.”

“In Shanghai," he explains "there are all these glass buildings that are reflecting light back and forth. I think digital, which has this inherent brightness to it, would be ideally suited to capturing that wild light.”

And finally, Fritz observes that digital requires time to handle the images after they are shot. “With film, the image is pretty much set when you shoot it. But with digital you have to deal with all this post-processing to get the images to look like you saw them.”

Fritz adds: “I have to be out there making pictures, not sitting behind a computer.”

At National Geographic we do not require photographers to shoot one way or another—we support both approaches. Ultimately, we care more about what is being photographed, and less about how.

See more of Fritz Hoffman’s China images here.

Canon has posted a firmware update (Version 1.1.2) which, "Improves the stability of AF accuracy in AI servo AF when shooting extremely low-contrast subjects."

FROM CANON EUROPE:

Dear photographers,

Wednesday April 30, Canon releases world-wide a firmware update to improve the autofocus performance of EOS-1D Mark III and EOS-1Ds Mark III in some shooting conditions and to add new features in personal functions.
Those improvements have been implemented thanks to the feedback provided by professional photographers.

For more info and to download the firmware, click on the links here after:

http://web.canon.jp/imaging/eosd/eos1dsm3/firmware-e.html

You will need your camera serial number to initiate the download of the firmware. For detailed instructions on how to install the firmware update click here.

— Ken Geiger