Pentax Imaging Launches Online Photo Gallery

Pentax Imaging has launched a web site just to show off the work of Pentaxians around the world. The new site, www.pentaxphotogallery.com, was designed for Pentax photographers by Pentax Imaging, setting it apart from the other photo sharing sites that are almost ubiquitous.

In the past, Pentax has selected the best photographs taken with Pentax equipment and bound them together once a year in a coffee table-style book. The online Pentax Photo Gallery will allow people to see the photographer's work whenever they want and in six different languages: English, Spanish, German, French, Japanese and Italian.

At launch, the Pentax Photo Gallery will contain 2,500 images from more than 300 photographers from more than 40 countries. Photographers range in age from 16 to 80. At the site, you can learn about the photographers by reading their bios and viewing their images. If you're interested in submitting photos to the gallery, send Pentax an email for more information (photogallery (at) pentax.com). Images are chosen by artistic and technical merit. An optional voting system can be used to direct the selection of images in the future.

With the new photo gallery, Pentax is trying to achieve the following objectives:

• Create a collective, non-commercial, limitless photography exhibition of the work of the most passionate and talented PENTAX photographers  
• Reveal the personalities of the photographers behind the selected images
• Educate budding photographers about the creative capabilities of individual camera bodies and lenses
• Categorize the selected photography by subject areas
• Offer a unique search selection system by photographer, subject category, camera body and individual lenses

The website has a pretty slick Flash-based interface. It's designed so that it really showcases the art of the photographers on the site. The search interface allows you to search by Pentax camera model, Pentax lens, by photography category, or by artist.