Do you love photos? Do you love photos of yourself? Do you love wasting hours online playing around with photos of yourself? Then www.photofunia.com is for you! PhotoFunia is an online image editing tool that lets you upload a photo of a person and transform into a unique print (like the example of me to the left). Amazing!

And when you’re done making funny photos for your Facebook profile, takepart and check out a different photo project that’s helping make a difference-The Heart Gallery of America which helps find permanent families for individual children and raise awareness about adoption. Volunteer professional photographers take portraits of children waiting for adoption for family recruitment purposes capturing their spirit and personality thru the art of photography. Many children have been adopted thanks to the Heart Gallery exhibits across the country. Check out heartgalleryofamerica.org for more info.

Share your election day memories on Flickr. My favorite photo sharing site, Flickr invites members to commemorate this day by joining their “US Election 2008? group and sharing a photo taken today. Flickr will exhibit photos from this group (like this lovely pic taken by John C. Abell) during Inauguration Day activities on January 20, 2009. The group is open to any Flickr member worldwide, and they ask that you geotag your photos to show them on the map.

So takepart grab your camera and start snapping shots to post at http://blog.flickr.net/en/2008/11/04/commemorating-the-us-election-of-2008/

Last week, we told you that photographs were taken of a tribe of reclusive people native to the Peruvian/Brazilian forests.   On the heels of that, the Peruvian government has announced it will take action to protect the tribes and stop loggers from encroaching on the land the tribes inhabit.   From the BBC:

Authorities in Peru’s Amazon state of Madre de Dios now say they will stop illegal loggers who travel deep into the forest in search of tropical hardwoods.

They are often the first people to encounter the tribes.

Aside from destroying the tribes’ homes, the loggers also can bring diseases fatal to the tribespeople - even something as simple as the common cold can kill.

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For the first time ever, a tribe indigenous to the forests on the border of Brazil and Peru has been photographed. The photos were taken by aircraft, and the native people are shown firing arrows at the plane. The expedition was led by José Carlos dos Reis Meirelles, Jr., an expert on native affairs in Brazil. Though the number of native people seems strong, Meirelles has a warning against those that would destroy the ecosystem the tribe resides in. From the UK’s Daily Mail:

Logging is driving uncontacted tribes over the border and could lead to conflict with the estimated five hundred uncontacted Indians already living on the Brazilian side.

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I’m a big fan of Flickr.com. I discovered the awesomely user-friendly site when I was first blogging and needed a place to upload photos. Since then, Flickr has become a place for me and my community of photo snapping pals to share images and create cool photo projects. And now I love Flickr even more because they are giving away free Flickr Pro accounts to nonprofit and other good causes.

As explained on the Flickr site: A photo gives us the ability to see what goes on in the world, but can also move us to care, or motivate us to help. Many individuals and organizations use Flickr to share their mission to make the world better, and this is just a sample of what’s going on on Flickr.We’ve partnered with TechSoup, a US-based non-profit technology resource, to donate 10,000 1-year Flickr pro accounts for good causes. TechSoup and its international partners will distribute these to qualifying non-profit organizations.

One such powerful shot is the one above taken by Jakob Dall of the Danish Red Cross. The International

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If you’re anything like me, you’re pretty overwhelmed with what seems like an infinite amount of social networking sites. I mean wouldn’t it be much nicer to see all these “friends” rather than clicking through the profiles of all these “friends?” Well in the meantime social networking sites offer a way to stay connected with old friend while also providing opportunity for artists, activists and entrepreneurs to mingle. Social network sites allow users to promote their work, find people to work with, and create communities that share interests, goals, and ideas.

Different social networking sites are geared toward different goals, from sharing good books to sharing plans to save the world to simply just making new friends. Here are just 10 of the hundreds of social networking sites available:

1) MySpace: Probably the most popular of the networking sites, MySpace offers an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music and videos for teenagers and adults internationally. MySpace has greatly helped promote new bands, comedians, and social issues. The site is so popular it’s even become a verb aka “hey totally MySpace me!”

2) Facebook: Facebook is a social utility that connects people with friends and

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When “Images of Darfur” photographer Jon Nicholson went with the UN Population Fund to the Sudan, he recalls seeing

Huge camps filled with people , you would think they would be safe, but they are turning into places where acts of violence take place… Hijackings of vehicles, attacks on camps… It’s coming at you from all sides… And the sensation that something can happen anytime anywhere is scary.

And yet, Nichols didn’t want to show images “that shock. I want the viewer to see the beauty and then reflect on the issue that is Darfur.”

Though beauty and genocide may seem contradictory, it is this very balance between the beauty and the tragedy, the “shock” and the almost tranquil photographs, which make the images so effective. It conveys the urgency and trauma of Darfur and the humanity of its victims, without forcing the viewer to turn away or recoil into a state of inaction, and passivity.

How does Nicolson do it? Look at the online exhibit. And when you’re done, and tell your representative to support the Women’s Health and Dignity Act.

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