News
Recent News and Publishing, 2011:
-August 2011: APN (American Park Network) uses Lee’s photos as illustrations in their annual parks books, which are distributed in various parks. For 2011, they used Lee’s photos in their Utah, D.C., and Death Valley books.
-Ongoing: Impact Photographics uses Lee’s photos in their postcard, calendar, and product (such as photos on coffee mugs) mix. Typical recent uses have been images of Yosemite and of Liberty Bell Philadelphia.
-Ongoing: Lee’s accumulating monthly columns on the subject of “apps and ebooks” can be accessed for free by anyone. Lee publishes these columns on Rohn Engh’s photo marketing site, PhotoStockNOTES at http://www.photostocknotes.com/psn. Lee’s columns are gathered, upper right, at the “APPS/Ebooks” tab. The most recent column appears first, with columns then going progressively back to June 2010. On the first Thursday of each month Lee discusses some new aspect of the unfolding drama around us in app and ebook publishing. (Lee has gathered the first 15 of these columns in a page on this website at Columns on Apps and Ebooks.)
-2011: Lee’s website won a Gold Award from the Society of American Travel Writers. Lee’s website at www.fostertravel.com won the Gold Award for Revenue Producing Website in the SATW Western Chapter Awards in Spring 2011.
Judge Jodie Bissonette, Gaslight Media, wrote, “This website is an excellent directory resource of travel related information, and includes well placed banner advertisements and Google ad sense campaigns. The shopping experience has good containment within the website to review items that can be purchased…From a perspective of revenue producing items–this website has a good blend of advertisements and products (App Store) that are generating revenue resources.”
-May 2011: Lee led a tour of 24 international travel journalists in San Francisco for Pow Wow, the travel market event. Lee’s tour combined land and helicopter elements on “How To Photograph San Francisco.” Each participant received a copy of Lee’s book, The Photographer’s Guide to San Francisco (Countryman Press).
-2011: Lee was interviewed extensively about how he survived “cloud failure” when Digital Railroad died, and how in an ongoing manner he prevents a possible cloud failure from damaging him. Comments by Lee conclude an article on this subject in the national ASMP Bulletin, pp. 27-29, Spring 2011 edition.
-2011: Lee has ongoing publication of photos in major magazines, such as a Florida Everglades image in Backpacker Magazine in May, a Wyoming image in Ski Magazine in October, and a Yukon photo in the French magazine Courier International in June.
-2011: Lee is writing seven drives and photographing eight drives for a 24-drive travel guide titled Back Roads California (Dorling Kindersley, 2013 release date).
-2010 Sutro Media released three travel apps by Lee in the Apple iTunes App Store. They are San Francisco Travel Photo Guide, Washington DC Travel Photo Guide, and Berkeley Essential Guide.
-October 2010: Westways AAA magazine ran a review of Lee’s book The Photographer’s Guide to San Francisco (Countryman Press) on p 24.
-Spring 2010: The ASMP Bulletin ran a review of Lee’s book The Photographer’s Guide to San Francisco (Countryman Press) by Elizabeth Barragan on p 10.
-2010 IndiaNIC released an ebook version of Lee’s award-winning 2005 travel literary book, Travels in an American Imagination: The Spiritual Geography of Our Time. The book is in the Apple iTunes App Store, click here.
-2010 Getty, Alamy, and Lonely Planet Images published a range of Lee’s photos in their collections in various media in 2010.
-2010 Lee continued to add blog posts, articles, photos, and updates of earlier articles to his website at www.fostertravel.com.
-Lonely Planet Books, December 2010, ran one of Lee’s photos as the cover of its new Las Vegas Encounter book. As of 2005, Lee had photos in more than 225 Lonely Planet books. The number has continued to grow from 2005 to the present.
-Backpacker Magazine, November 2010, ran Lee’s photo of Yosemite.
-National Geographic, November 2010, used one of Lee’s photos in an Arizona book.
-Arbor Day, November 2010, used one of Lee’s Costa Rican Rain Forest photos in its annual calendar.
-Impact Photos, October 2010, used Lee’s Liberty Bell and Yosemite images in their postcard lines.
-Whitecap Publishers, October 2010, used one of Lee’s photos in its Maryland book.
-Costco Magazine, August 2010, commissioned and ran Lee’s article on New Brunswick, Canada.
-American Parks Network, June 2010, used Lee’s photos in six of their annual National Parks books.
November 2010:
Lee Foster’s life as an author is the subject of a half-hour TV show in the Get Lit TV Series hosted by Peter Crooks, editor of Diablo magazine, for Walnut Creek TV. The program airs locally in California and can be seen on demand via computer at http://bit.ly/aTsaGd. (Note: The TV station streams the video for Windows Media Player, so it reads readily on PCs. Macs will need to have conversion software installed, such as Flip4Mac, http://bit.ly/cvcr5L.) Crooks begins by leading Foster through his boyhood in Minnesota to the publication of his first book, a novel, during Foster’s Stanford years in the 1960s. Crooks then explores Foster’s travel books and pioneering online and Internet publications, starting in the 1980s, bringing the story forward to the author’s work in travel apps today. Foster and several other Bay Area authors in the Get Lit TV Series were honored November 13 at a gala dinner, fundraiser, and book signing event titled Authors Under the Stars: A Literary Affair at the new Walnut Creek Library. Details of the event are at http://bit.ly/cN8sVy. Foster’s 10 books and 3 apps can be seen on his website at www.fostertravel.com.
October 2010:
Two of Lee’s photos won in the annual 2011 Muster Photo Competition event sponsored by the Society of American Travel Writers. Lee’s “Balloon Man” photo of the Gay Pride Parade won in the People category. “California Poppies” won in the Natural Scenics category. Click here to see a post on these awards.
October 2010:
Lee was appointed as a Director of the SATW Foundation, the entity that manages the Lowell Thomas Awards. Lee has been an eight time Lowell Thomas Awards winner, including being named Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of the Year (Silver Winner).
July 2010:
Lee Foster won four awards in the Society of American Travel Writers recent writing competition for its Western Chapter. The awards were announced at the Boise, Idaho chapter meeting in July 2010.
Here are the four awards and comments by the judges:
Western Chapter Writing Award Recipients 2010
Category: Guide Book
*Bronze: Lee Foster: The Photographer’s Guide to San Francisco, Countryman Press
Judge Christine Delsol wrote: “Travel photography guides that scout out the best vantage points in a photogenic destination have proliferated since the advent of the digital camera. Some are aimed at photographers who view the place as a subject, and are dense with tips on technique, equipment, and the physics of light. This one, instead, is for the traveler who owns a camera. It offers some technical advice, but the point is to experience San Francisco in a new way. The author managed to whittle the photo ops down to 74 sites, ranging from such icons as the Golden Gate Bridge, cable cars and Victorians to celebrations such as the Gay Pride Parade and Chinese New Year. It also squeezes in 15 sites outside the city. Few can be called unknown; the author’s talent, applied with evident love and ample humor, is steering the reader toward discovery. Reading the book will reveal much about the city—how the Transamerica Pyramid acquired its distinctive shape, where to find the world’s largest atrium, the origin of Nob Hill’s name—even if you never pick up a camera. But that would just be wrong.”
Category: Internet Travel Article
*Silver: Lee Foster: Five Tips for Photographing San Francisco: PeterGreenberg.com
http://www.petergreenberg.com/2009/07/23/five-tips-for-photographing-san-francisco/
Judge Jeanne Cooper wrote: “When I search the Internet for travel stories, it’s usually for practical advice—not reveries, not book reports, not narratives of 50th birthday trips that transformed lives and ended up in group hugs. And it helps that advice is not only credible but concise, well-organized and distinct from the endlessly reposted Wikipedia tropes. That’s why I decided to honor this story with a silver: It’s eminently useful to a broad audience, but very specific, judicious, and well-considered…Now I know, among other tips, that I should shoot Crissy Field in morning light (and bring a plastic bag to keep the blowing saltwater mist off my optics), that Chinatown is better to shoot in the morning (and exactly where I can find those iconic ducks hanging in windows) while North Beach is better in the afternoon, and that the best seasons to visit Muir Woods (bring a tripod and shoot at high ISO) are Sept./Oct. and April-May…OK, I confess I won’t remember most of the tips the next time I have visitors who want to go take pictures in San Francisco (which happens several times a year), but thanks to the Internet, I can do a search and find this handy guide.”
Category: Revenue Producing Website
*Bronze: Lee Foster: Foster Travel Publishing: www.FosterTravel.com
Judge Jodie R. Bissonette wrote: “This Web site has the most ‘volume’ of revenue items displayed. No matter where you look there are ads comingled top to bottom, sides and in between.”
Category: Blog
*Silver: Lee Foster: Lee Foster Blog: Foster Travel Publishing: www.FosterTravel.com/category/blog/travel
Judge David Molyneaux wrote: “A well written, well researched, guidebook-style blog. Lee Foster is informative and easy to read.”
June 2010: Lee Foster’s travel app on San Francisco recently sold 957 units in a month, 5-20-10 to 6-20-10. The app is San Francisco Travel and Photo Guide (Sutro Media, $1.99) in the Apple iTunes App Store under Travel. The record sales resulted from Lee’s publicity efforts and from Apple choosing the app as a Staff Favorite for the front of the App Store. The app ranked for awhile between #40 and #50 in sales among all paid travels apps, of which there are now more than 11,000. Lee’s royalty on the app is 30% of the $1.99 list, or 60 cents per sale, or $574.20 for 957 sales. More of Lee’s observations on the challenges and opportunities in app sales can be seen at http://bit.ly/cD3vc6.
February 2010:
Lee won several awards in the biannual Bay Area Travel Writers Awards, known as the BATW Best.
Lee was awarded the “Outstanding Achievement” award known as the Rebecca Bruns Award. See details at
http://www.batw.org/contests/rebecca-bruns-memorial-award/rebecca-bruns_jul-2010/
Presenter Lee Daley commented:
“The Rebecca Bruns Award is awarded biannually by Bay Area Travel Writers to one of its members whose dedication, both personally and professionally, has had a significant influence on fellow travel writers and their profession. Naturally, outstanding success is part of the equation, but it is not enough to say that the individual’s professional achievements are laudatory. More than that, the award recognizes originality, individuality and most of all, generosity in giving back to the writing community.
The 2010 Rebecca Bruns Award recipient is longtime BATW member Lee Foster. Lee’s forward thinking, his dedication to professional development and education and his generosity as a teacher and mentor place him in the forefront of travel journalism today. BATW honors Lee with this recognition for his many contributions to the BATW membership and to the travel writing industry.
Congratulations, Lee Foster.”
– Lee Daley
Lee also won several individual awards:
*Bronze for Newspaper or Magazine Travel Photograph of “Man on Log at Rialto Beach, Washington” in AARP The Magazine.
*Silver for Magazine Writing/Photography Travel Article for “San Luis Obispo, a Wine Lover’s Delight” in Distinctly Northwest Magazine.
*Bronze for Internet Travel Photograph for “Kenya Thorn Tree” in National Geographic Traveler.
*Bronze for Magazine Travel Article “Let’s Go To The Movies: California as a Movie Backdrop” in Rand McNally 2009 California Travel Atlas.
Spring 2010:
Lee talked on “Apps and the Future of Travel Journalism” before delegates at the NATJA conference in Reno and the Editors Council of the Society of American Travel Writers in Portland.
January 2010:
Lee was on the faculty of the 15th annual Institute for Travel Writing and Photography, sponsored by the Society of American Travel Writers. Lee helped found the Institute years ago and has recommended it for anyone, whether a novice or pro, who wants to have a weekend immersion with six talented travel journalists. The past Institutes covered all aspects of the current travel publishing scene. Details at http://www.satwinstitute.com.
November 2009:
Lee had an appearance at the Book Passage San Francisco store at the Ferry Building. Quoted from their November/December newsletter: Lee Foster talks about the adventure involved in photographing or viewing our San Francisco Bay Area, the subject of his new book The Photographer’s Guide to San Francisco: Where to Find Perfect Shots and How to Take Them ($14.95). Lee is a veteran travel photojournalist with a parallel new book on Washington DC and photos in more than 225 Lonely Planet books.
September 2009:
Lee launched this totally new WordPress version of his web site for www.fostertravel.com, which has been around since 1995 and has won seven Lowell Thomas Awards for itself and its individual content elements over the years. Lee discusses the strategy of his new web site in some detail at Visions of a Modern Travel Journalism Web Site.
September 2009:
Lee appeared on John Hamilton’s KGO radio program On the Go to discuss his new book, The Photographer’s Guide to San Francisco: Where to Find Perfect Shots and How to Take Them ($14.95, Countryman Press/Norton). For this book and his parallel new book on Washington DC, see Books.
Ongoing:
Each month on the first Thursday Lee has an article on Ron Engh’s PhotoStockNotes on Apps, Ebooks, and Your Photography. Accumulating past articles can be seen upper right on the page as Apps/Ebooks. Site is at http://www.photostocknotes.com/psn.
Efforts are ongoing to augment the more than 5,000 travel images in Lee’s photo collection on PhotoShelter at http://stockphotos.fostertravel.com.
Each week Lee does one blog posting at http://blog.fostertravel.com and announces this on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/leefoster), Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/fostertravel), and LinkedIn (http://linkedin.com/fostertravel). Become a Friend, follow Lee, or link to Lee to see this. You can also sign up for a weekly email notice of new blogs and articles, see right side of this page.
Further news about some of Lee’s recent credits can be seen under
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