lottery

Exclusive photo ops are sometimes only available to those who win an application lottery. The McNeil River bear sanctuary in Alaska is one example -- photographer John Daley recently shared about his experience with that. Here's another one: CERN.

The largest particle physics laboratory in the world is holding a special CERN Photowalk 2015 next month, and a handful of lucky photographers from around the world will be given a behind-the-scenes tour of the prestigious labs.

My trip to McNeil River, Alaska actually started in November of 2014 when I read this PetaPixel article describing it. In the article they mentioned that, due to the tremendous interest in McNeil River, the Alaska Department of Fish & Game has instituted a lottery system.

In a typical year, thousands of applications are received and only 185 are granted. They are given to groups of ten for four-day stays. They also mentioned that you will be closer to the bears than anywhere else in the world (the Alaska Department of Fish and Game website says you will average between 75-200 feet). Having now applied and won a coveted permit, I can assure you, as this video attests, there is nothing “average” about this experience.

Where popular culture is concerned, YOLO might be the new Carpe Diem. The acronym, which stands for "you only live once," has become increasingly popular over the past several years after its first known mention in the NBC reality show The Average Joe back in 2004. Now, almost 10 years later, it's broken into the photography industry with the new site PhotoYOLO.

One of the big stories in the photo world last year was when a set of glass negatives purchased for $45 at a garage sale were found to potentially be Ansel Adams photos worth an estimated $200 million. Unfortunately for the finder, the photos were most likely not Ansel's, and ensuing lawsuits prevented him from making a huge profit from the find. Real estate agent John Maloof, on the other hand, could end up making a fortune from his discovery of previously-unknown nanny and street photographer Vivian Maier.