There are fewer than 1,000 wet plate collodion artists practicing around the world, and as far as I know, I am the only one in the state of North Dakota. 5 years ago, I didn’t own a camera and knew nothing about photography. I saw a wet plate online and I was immediately drawn to it, and thus my journey began.

2017 started off with the panic of an administration change and the profound experience of attending the Women’s March in Los Angeles along with 750,000 of our closest friends, mirrored by actions of millions of protesters around the globe. It’s been a most unusual year filled with a full range of emotions, but we want to end it with a few of our Favorite Things.

Who better to predict where visual storytelling is going than those who handle it on a daily basis? With 2018 right around the corner,  Libris by Photoshelter asked a few to make predictions on what they see as the dominating trend of the upcoming year.

Sometimes, great things come out of defeat. Especially in the startup world. As we look back at the year past, we take one last look at what failed, with the hope that they will generate great, unsuspected outcomes.   As well, we take a peek at 2018 and its probable heroes, with the firm understanding that our vision just might not be that accurate.

It has only been a few weeks, but I can already feel the events in Las Vegas slipping away from me. The horror that unfolded there is indelible: A single shooter killed at least 58 people and injured hundreds more. And yet the horror is not indelible; it is fading, as most public tragedies eventually do. (You might even have wondered, reading the above, Which events in Las Vegas?) Since Oct. 1, there has been a terrorist attack in New York City, a mass shooting in Texas and other gun violence throughout the country, as well as numerous distressing public scandals. What trace of these events remains for those of us not personally affected by them? Names, dates, photographs, videos: all retrievable, but most archived away in a cloud of faint memory.

This year is the 65th anniversary of Aperture, which has shaped the conversation around photography through its magazine and books. Chris Boot, the executive director of the nonprofit Aperture Foundation spoke with James Estrin about the state of photography and its future. Their conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Exhibitions, workshops, and portfolio reviews — at first glance, Addis Foto Fest sounds like any photo festival around the world. But this festival is in Ethiopia. With a long history of the African continent and its people being defined by western eyes and ideas, the festival presents unique challenges and opportunities. Festival founder and director Aida Muluneh tells me that the biannual festival started in 2010 in Addis Ababa, Ehtiopia, and continues to grow as a way to mentor young photographers, exhibit projects from emerging photographers, and build connections within the photo industry in Africa and around the world.

To promote a new camera, Nikon enlisted 32 photographers from Asia, Africa and the Middle East to try it out and tell their stories on the company’s website.

But Nikon couldn’t — or didn’t — find any women to participate. All 32 were men.

The launch of the Nikon D850 in the company’s 100th anniversary year has brought almost universal praise for its technology, leading to months-long waitlists. But the din of outrage permeated social media as Jason Vinson asked “Is the Nikon D850 for Men Only?” referring to a team of 32 professional photographers assembled to promote the camera – all of them men (Nikon’s USA Ambassador program has 7 women out of 24 total photographers).

Unsurprisingly, building a platform of free photos rubbed many professional photographers the wrong way. So much so, that co-founder Mikael Cho recently penned a defense of the business. I don’t believe that Cho has any malicious intent to harm the photographic industry, but I think the unplanned success of Unsplash has helped him to justify some untenable positions. Let me challenge some of Cho’s claims.