PixelatedImage Blog

Yesterday my corner of the twittersphere was filled with talk about the “Gear is Good, Vision is Better” manifesto, including some entertaining satire from my friend GKB (he’s on Twitter as @gregkb ) who’s taken on the mantle of the Gear Guru, my arch-nemisis whose manifesto would more than likely be “Screw Vision, Give Me Something Shiny”. It’s exciting to see this all resonating with people, even sarcastically. It’s the beginning of the predicted revolution

But while we’re talking about shiny – Apple announced the sudden appearance of FireWire 800 on its 13″ MacBooks.  Can’t tell you how glad I am to have held off buying a new laptop – I haven’t really looked at the specs, but just knowing they’re reversing the bone-headed no-FireWire decision on the last generation of 13″ MacBooks makes me happy. Now, give me a 500GB SSD drive and I’ll name my first child Apple. Or my next cat. Whichever comes first. The 13″ MacBook is now the 13″ MacBook Pro, and while I’ll wait a little before buying one, I am thrilled it’s happened. I’m predicting this’ll be the new favourite for travelling assignment photographers. Not everyone is going to dig the built-in, non-changeable battery, nor the SD card slot that comes at the expense of an Express slot and is, to me, totally useless. But it’s a longer life battery and I don’t use my second one much anyways. Right now a 13″ MacBook Pro with 4gb RAM and a 256GB SSD drive would run me $2300USD, about $200 less than a similarily spec’d 15″ model. Frankly, I’d pay a little more than the 15″ model just to get a smaller machine.

Love the off-camera lighting mojo that the Strobist revolution has been advancing? David Hobby looks at the Speedlight Pro Kit, a nice-looking portable kit for the budget-minded looking to increase the versatility of your flashes. See it HERE.

And speaking of resonating and being happy, Within The Frame seems to be catching a lot of people by surprise and I’ve never been more excited about something I’ve created. When this all began my goal was not to write a schmaltzy bestseller, but to write something that resonated, something important. Anyways, thanks to all of you who’ve sent in emails – knowing that I’ve connected with you in some way has made the last month truly incredible for me. I’ve got a Within The Frame-related giveaway planned for this month and you’re not going to want to miss it – it’s a chance to win something no one else on the planet has, and the moment it gets here I’ll announce it. Keep your eyes peeled (whatever that means.)

I’m a fan of the satirical news station, the Onion. Someone on Twitter alerted us to this and I found it too funny not to pass on. In risu veritas, as they say (ok, as I say.) Find the story HERE.