The Big Picture Photography Competition:

This week's Big Picture winner - and recipient of a Nikon CoolPix P6000 camera worth £379.99 - is Martin Brown from London for this picture of girls in traditional dress for a religious festival in Delhi, India. Read on to see this week's other shortlisted entries...

Beautiful images.

Earlier this week, there was a thread on the demise of Kodachrome. In this age of digital photography and all of its versatility, it's sad that we no longer will be seeing the richness of the images it produced.

A great book:

Americans in Kodachrome 1945-1965

From the publisher (by Guy Stricherz): "Introduced in 1935 as the first modern color film, Koda-chrome was used extensively after World War II by amateur photographers equipped with the new high-quality and low cost 35mm cameras. Americans in Kodachrome 1945-1965 is an unprecedented portrayal of the daily life of the people during these formative years of modern American culture. It is comprised of ninety-five exceptional color photographs made by over ninety unknown American photographers. These photographs were chosen from many thousands of slides in hundreds of collections. Like folk art in other mediums, this work is characterized by its frankness, honesty, and vigor. Made as memoirs of family and friends, the photographs reveal a free-spirited, intuitive approach, and possess a clarity and unpretentiousness characteristic of this unheralded photographic folk art. Conceived as a book and nation-wide exhibition, Americans in Kodachrome 1945-1965 is an evocative and haunting portrait of an historic generation of Americans."

'Americans in Kodachrome' edited by Guy Stricherz (Seventh Wedding Anniversary, Hermosa, South Dakota. Irvin Evans, photographer)

'Americans in Kodachrome' edited by Guy Stricherz (Girl Drinking Milk, Allentown, Pennsylvania. H. Donald Bortz, photographer)

'Americans in Kodachrome' edited by Guy Stricherz (River Party, South River, North Kingston, Rhode Island. Eugene Christiansen, photographer)

'Americans in Kodachrome' edited by Guy Stricherz (Sailor with Lady, Erie, Pennsylviania. Hayes W. Houston, photographer)

'Americans in Kodachrome' edited by Guy Stricherz (Blue Prom Dress, Hamilton, Massachusetts. Richard G. Gill, photographer)

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