Not long ago I mentioned the launch of S&R’s sister site, 5280 Lens Mafia. 5280LM features a number of current and former S&R folks (writers, guest contributors, commenters, loyal readers) and the truth is that the project is off to a start I could barely have imagined. So if you missed it, I’d like to invite you to investigate some of the best so far.

S&R stalwart Dr. Denny is the master of the macro lens.

Our friend Michael Pecaut grew up in (and imprinted on) Hawaii, a state infused with unearthly beauty. That imprint follows him around, it seems, even when he’s in Redwoods National Forest.

Our new friend Manuela Marin Salcedo, a photojournalism student at Syracuse, has a gift for human interest.

Stuart O’Steen is a talented video guy, too. But since this site is about stills, does this one capture a moment of pure family joy or what?

Then there’s Dan Ryan, whom I guess we might describe as slightly quirky. Some of his work catalogs his travels in the Far East, while his stuff from closer to home tends to exhibit a certain jaded whimsy. Like this.

We never really know which direction Dawn Farmer is coming from next. She seems to have her eyes wide open to everything she encounters, and as such she’s as liable to present us with a beautiful flower as she is a parking lot at night, a series on classic aircraft as a ghost ship slipping silently through Puget Sound.

Then there’s our OMG guy, Greg Thow. I barely know what to tell you about his work. He’s taken the best shots of Denver I have ever seen and that’s barely getting started.

Kelly Bearden is another of my fellow Denverites, and while she has an eye for the authentic grittiness of a city, she’s perhaps at her best when cataloguing the unexpected romance of urban working class life.

Greg Stene is one of the most intensely intellectually engaged photographers I know. He thinks deeply and critically about even the simplest subject matter, he understands the technology involved in both taking and processing the shot, and most importantly, he asks a lot of questions about his relationship with the audience. In the end, his work is far more complex than it pretends to be.

Tom Yulsman of the University of Colorado’s Center for Environmental Journalism concerns himself with humanity’s impact on the world we inhabit. His photography is sometimes content to depict the wonder of the natural order, and other times he examines more critically our (often corrosive) relationship with it.

Then there’s me, the newest and least experienced in the crowd. I’m fascinated by so many things and am still in search of my voice as a shooter. Perhaps that’s my calling card – the quest for an identity.

I hope you’ll come visit the Mafia. You can follow us there (click the LIKE and FOLLOW links at the top of the page), and also on Facebook and Twitter. If you like what you see, please tell your friends….