In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Google announced a team-up dubbed the Creator Labs Photo Fund to award financial support to twenty fine-art photographers. The winners were recently announced, recognizing their exceptional photographic visions with a grant of $5,000 each to sustain their work and practice.

20 winning artists selected by Aperture’s editors
The 20 winning artists were selected by Aperture’s editors based on the strength and originality of their image portfolios. “Aperture serves as an essential platform for artists, fostering critical dialogue in the photographic community—in print, in person, and online,” Aperture’s creative director, Lesley A. Martin, said in a press statement. “We are honored to partner with Google on the Creator Labs Photo Fund. Aperture’s team of editors has selected a dynamic and diverse group of photographers, whose talent, vision, and promise are truly inspiring.”

“We all communicate with images today—and we encourage all photographers to continue their practices ensuring a more rigorous, more expansive range of expressions to the field. Together, Aperture and Google are proud to offer these twenty photographers our support, which we hope will be meaningful for their work and careers,” Martin continues.

The winners of the Creator Labs Photo Fund are:

Daveed Baptiste, Adraint Bereal, Shawn Bush, Jasmine Clarke, Matt Eich, Arielle Gray, Naomieh Jovin, Priya Suresh Kambli, Tommy Kha, Sydney Mieko King, Miguel Limon, Sophie Lopez, Giancarlo Montes Santangelo, Alana Perino, Jade Thiraswas, Bryan Thomas, Maximilian Thuemler, Allie Tsubota, Aaron Turner, and Jasmine Veronica.

Artificial intelligence (AI) & time lapse adding to computational photography
Meanwhile, new camera technology is emerging fast, providing further impetus in the hardware race to corner a U.S. photography market currently valued at $11.5 billion, and growing at 0.8% per year on average between 2016 and 2021, according to figures released by IBISworld.

Time-lapse photography, in particular, is drawing attention as the perfect tool for giving audiences the beauty of something they might otherwise never see with the naked eye. Choose a time lapse camera to produce photographic and video content that is best suited to storytelling, covering events, portraying moments of everyday life slowed down for full appreciation of their beauty, and convey emotion.

For artists working in any medium, time lapse photography is ideal to record months of hard work and play it back in seconds, thereby immortalizing the process and providing a deeper understanding of the value of the final artwork.

Google to launch Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro
Google, for its part, will launch its latest range of Pixel camera smartphone hardware later this fall, with the announcement that AI will fuel some of the latest innovations and allow the company’s technology to exceed computing limitations.

“We set about building a technology platform for mobile that enabled us to bring our most innovative AI and machine learning (ML) to our Pixel users. We set out to make our own System on a Chip (SoC) to power Pixel 6. And now, years later, it’s almost here,” Rick Osterloh, Google Senior Vice President, Devices and Services, stated in a blog post.