PixelatedImage Blog

Perfect Thing #19. Shooting What You Love. Shot this on the island of Goree in Senegal last month. A day to wander, shoot, and hang out with a friend. Life is about these kinds of moments.

I should be slaving away on a million things right now but I’m feeling a little sheepish over the neglect this blog’s suffered recently. This month’s Outside magazine has a feature called 51 Perfect Things and I keep coming back to it;  I think what most resonates with me is that in a time when it seems critical reviews and nit-picking get all the page space, it’s nice to see something so celebratory of simple pleasures. Might be overstepping it call them perfect, but in a world where perfection so seldom comes, these are as close to it as I’ve ever found. These are the things in which I’ve taken particular pleasure over the last year or two.

#1. Chai at the summit of Khardun La, the highest motorable road in the world. For extra points get there on a Royal Enfield Thunderbird.

#2. Film. Digitial gets the glory. But having recently returned to shooting film in an effort to stay fresh and creative, I can’t believe I stayed away for so long.

#3. A steaming bowl of Pho ga in Vietnam. Vietnam is colourful and friendly and I’m dying to go back. Put the camera down and enjoy the local food. On a cold day nothing beats hot noodle soup.

#4. Hasselblads, Leicas, and Carl Zeiss. We’re surrounded by plastic these days. Getting your hands on some old-school engineering makes shooting such a pleasure. Walking around with a 1980’s Hassleblad 500 c/m and listening to the clunk of the mirror return, and feeling the sure mechanisms of the focus and aperture rings reminds me of the joy I took when I was a kid discovering the tactillity of this craft.

#5. The Moleskine Notebook. My shelf is lined with them, full of thoughts and checklists and little pieces of paper I tucked away in the back pocket. They have travelled the world with me.

#6. Blundstone Boots. They don’t come better than this. Ever. After going around the world in them for a few years they feel like slippers. Manly, rugged, slippers.

#7. Shooting at dawn or dusk. Just being awake at this hour seems to have a calming effect, and for me the paint seems to stir easier when things are calm. Also? The light ain’t bad.

#8. My Saddleback Leather satchel (they call it a briefcase). I don’t travel internationally with this, it’s just too heavy, but for domestic travel and every-day use for tossing in the laptop or Hassleblad, this bag is amazing. And as they say in the ads, your kids will fight over it when you’re dead. It doesn’t come cheap, but this’ll outlast a hundred others and gets better looking with every rainstorm and accidental scar. Absolutely perfect.

#9. The Leatherman multi-tool. The original and still awesome.

#10. Arbeg Uigeadall Single Malt Scotch Whisky. If you like single malts from Islay, this one is hard to beat. Amazing.

#11. Michael Kennsa’s Hokkaido series. All his work is stunning, elegant, but his Hokkaido series in particular captivates me.

#12. Being there. We talk and talk about all the places we could shoot, but being there – in mind and body – is a gift. Want to be there this year but don’t want to plan it all yourself? Want to come with me? There are spots left on Lumen Dei Tibet (July) and Lumen Dei Kashmir/Ladakh (September) and I’d love to travel with you.

#13. Gitzo Ocean Traveler Tripod. It’s a particular person who will buy one of these. They aren’t cheap. But they’re amazing. Like all the Gitzo Traveler series, they’re light, strong, and beautifully made. Add stainless steel and sealed mechanisms and a ball head you can field strip and you’ve got a really sexy thing. Price aside, this is the perfect travel tripod.

#14. Waking up in a luxury tent camp as the sun rises into a solar eclipse over Mt. Kenya with the Serengeti between you. Unbelievable. One of the most beautiful moments of my life. The best moments are unrepeatable. I did my first African safari this year; it won’t be my last. A perfect way to spend 10 days

#15. My 13″ MacBook Pro. The perfect travel machine for me.

#16. Icebreaker merino wool socks and underwear. I swear I’ll never travel with another pair of underwear and socks if they aren’t Icebreaker. Amazing. They keep you warm when it’s cool, cool when it’s warm, and they’re comfortable and durable.

#17. The Nifty Fifty. Canon’s EF 50/1.8 lens is cheap, made of plastic, and has nothing whatsoever to recommend it other than that it’s just that – cheap, made of plastic, and for the money delivers great images with a fast aperture and a short mininum focus distance.

#18. The ScotteVest Travel Vest, in black please. I don’t travel without it. Love it. It’s warm, so forget wearing it all day in Delhi this July, but I still travel to and from locations with it. Even in Senegal where it hit 40 degrees C during the day, I’d wear it in the cooler mornings. Functional, comfortable, and far less geek factor than a classic photography vest ever had. And pockets? Only the Gitzo Fleece can compete.

#19. Photographing what you love without regard for what anyone else thinks. Sure, it’s nice to hear people rave about your images, but at the end of the day the only thing that really matter is that you love them and loved making them. Being a so-called amateur has this strongly in its favour. Don’t ever forget why you do this.

#20. This one’s yours. Comments are open. What would make it onto your list of Perfect things?

I got this email yesterday, and I’m quoting it here in full with only a few edits to protect the identity of the one who sent it:

Dear David,

What do you know and think about stock photography, and which stock photography company would you recommend using? Really any information you have about stock photography will help.

I’m seriously thinking about taking out a loan and upgrading from my Canon 30D to a Canon 5D II, and adding a few L series lenses (the 30D isn’t meeting my expectations any more). But before I do, I want to ask you and a few others to reassure my wife that it will help support us.

Sincerely – Taking Stock, Podunk, WA

So. You know I’m about to launch into a sermon, don’t you? This week we’re talking about issues relevant to the VisionMongers out there. Today’s your pep talk about money, specifically debt. Here is a much-expanded version of my reply.

Dear Taking Stock,

First of all, it’s quite a coincidence but my buddy Gavin Gough is writing an eBook right now called Taking Stock, Vol I and it’s about this very thing. It’ll be released, along with Vol.02 under the Craft&Vision banner and I’ll announce it loud and clear when it’s out. And there’s a little bit about stock in VisionMongers itself. So, let me address the two very separate issues you’ve asked about.

One. Stock. I make a few thousand every now and then on stock. I don’t pursue it and I think those that do need to treat it very specifically as its own market. You need to study it, shoot specifically for it, and spend as much time maintaining your relationships with the clients as any other vocational photographer. If you want to make good money at it, you need think of it like a job and work at it; it is not a hobby.

Two. Loans. This is one I get really fired up about. Don’t do it. Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it.

Yes, there is a time and a place for loans and leasing. When you are buying a proven asset – something that will make you money – then a loan is sometimes a good idea. When you are buying a liability, it is not usually a good idea. In your case, the camera and new lenses might be either. Only you can answer that. But I doubt you can answer it from where you sit right now. You’re gambling. You have a camera. You aren’t currently making money in stock. If you’re looking for a confederate to gang up on your wife, I’m the wrong guy. Listen to your wife.

I’ve been there. I know the allure of the gear and the siren-call of newer, shinier, and better. I know the way that little gear gremlin whispers in your ear, saying things like, “if you had that new camera you’d make more money.” Bologna. If you aren’t making money with the 30D or D90, then you aren’t going to magically make money when the new camera arrives. What you need to do is go out and make a pile of money with the images you have now, or go shoot new images and sell them, but the new camera is very unlikely to help. If you can’t afford to pay for the new camera and lenses with cash, you simply can’t afford them.

The single best way to begin and operate a photography business is in the black. I’ve gone bankrupt. I have friends that have gone bankrupt. It’s a product of this heady cocktail of impatience (I need it now!), delusion (it’ll help me make more money!), and greed (Shiny! My preciousssssss!)- don’t, for the love of Diane Arbus, do it! Yes, a loan can be a good idea. But when it is, you won’t need to convince your wife, the numbers will do that for you. Very, very rarely is gear the asset we believe it to be. It breaks, go obsolete, and is seldom the thing that sells a client on hiring you or buying your images. And when it is, you can rent.

If you want to get serious about this, and be able to live and create without the added pressure of the overhead that servicing debt creates, then kick that gear gremlin to the curb, tighten your belt financially, and buy that new gear when the old stuff is making you enough money that it’s not a gamble or a hope but a necessity. And for the love of all things good, don’t use a credit card. I have a credit card with a ludicrously high limit, and the only time I use it is when I can use it like cash – I make the purchase and IMMEDIATELY go online and pay it down. I get airmiles and purchase protection, but I pay no interest. If you must take a loan, take a low, low interest loan. Take it from one who’s been there.

Can I get an Amen? There’s a lot of us out there, many of you even more savy about finances than I am – if you want to echo this please add your voices. Sometimes people need to hear the same thing over and over again before it sinks in. Your life, your family, your marriage, your business – none of these need the stress of debt.

Me. Kiboko Bag by GuraGear, Canon 1Ds MkIII, EF 300/2.8L IS.

I told you I’d picked up an Elinchrom Ranger Quadra (B&H link HERE). It came a week or so ago and I’ve finally had a little time to play with it. Product reviews are always a dicey thing. So because I’ve not had much more than an afternoon to play with this, consider it a reaction instead. I set it up in my living room, still amazed by how tiny the head is. I mounted it to the adaptor that lets you use larger Elinchrom modifiers, then put it into a Lastolite Ezybox, which I’ll talk about in a moment. I set it up as one light, very low power on the left of the frame and put a large reflector on the right. And then I parked my butt on the floor and grabbed a couple of my new favourite toys and took a few self-portraits because the cats weren’t in a helping mood.

The way I judge whether I like a product or not is this – does it do what I bought it to do? Does it meet my expectations? So here’s why I wanted the Quadra. First, I need more power than the 580EX can give me and I am NOT getting into the nonsense of bringing a dozen of them and a crate of Pocket Wizards just so I can have some nice light. I needed it to be portable, un-reliant on AC power for a day in the field, and I needed it to play nicely with my other gear. I want to be able to put one light on a monopod or stand, through a softbox or umbrella, and be able to set it up fast and shoot wirelessly.

So. I bought a Lastolite EZbox because I am so sick of messing with my Photoflex softboxes and I am not bringing a 5ft octa to Africa. It sets up really fast, breaks down quickly and with the Elinchrom speedring and the Quadra adaptor it all goes together fast. Plug the cable in to the pack, turn it on, and you’re ready.

But it gets better. The Quadra comes with a built in Skyport receiver. With the optional Skyport transmitter you’re ready to shoot wirelessly really fast. The transmitter is TINY and though some worry about breaking it, I’m more concerned about losing it. Why this over a Pocket Wizard? I love my PW’s but they require plugging in, and they can’t control the power of the light from the camera. Skyport can, and it’s amazing. You want to fiddle, push the power a little up, a little down, go for it. No more walking back and forth to the pack. It’s all at your hotshoe and in the hour I played with it, it worked great. I can’t tell you how psyched I am about this!

And one more plus – it’s got an LED modelling lamp and for some of the low-light places in which I shoot, this will be all I need – one LED modelling lamp will do wonders in a low-light space and I won’t have to mess with shutter sync. Glorious.

What don’t I like? Elinchrom umbrella shafts are slightly smaller than the standard, so their holes are too. Want to use an umbrella, you’ll need to get one from Elinchrom. The instructions are lousy, as they always are with Elinchrom. And the head comes without a protective cap. Even my 200Ws D-Lights came with a protective cap and they’re the bottom of the pile of Elinchrom’s offerings. The lack of protective cap seems cheap and silly to me. Grumble, grumble.

Is the Quadra for everyone? No. Plenty of folks still want much more power. The Quadra’s 400 Ws which is a lot – 4 times more than a 580EX or SB800. But for some that won’t be enough. For me, it is. And some folks don’t need even this much power, in which case you’ll save a ton by purchasing a used SB800 or 580EX, a battery pack,  and a set of Pocket Wizards and still have money to spare. The Quadra’s about $1500 plus extras. But if you’re asking whether I love mine, yes I do. It borders on mania and I can’t wait to play with it some more and shoot something better looking than the suspicious bald guy up top.

If you’re looking for more detailed info than this artsy-fartsy, touchy-feely reaction to my new toys, then head over to David Hobby’s Strobist site and read his post about them. Then for the real meat, read the comments. Lots of good intel in there.

Lastly, a quick shout out to Lastolite. I have a couple of their products and they’re just great. I love their Skypanels and this new 24×24 Ezbox (link HERE to B&H product page) is compact, quick up, quick down, and makes some really nice light. I loathe futzing with softbox poles and speedrings, and this rig is light, fast, and rugged. And it’s simple so it doesn’t give me the rage when I’m too tired and jet-lagged to screw with setting up a fussy softbox.

Thus concludes the gear-head post. I don’t do them often and Vision’s better, but hey, Gear is still good when it helps us get a little closer to our vision. And when it’s shiny.

This one is an unabashed, shameless, Gear Is Good but Vision Is Better post. You’ve been warned.

There have been a lot of quiet, but enthusiastic ripples about the new Elinchrom Ranger Quadra system, and I finally caved in. I called B&H and talked it through, then placed my order. I’d been tempted before Photoshop World and then I got to play with them, hold them in my hot little hands, and they amazed me. The picture above doesn’t give any sense of scale, but this is a tiny (no, I mean, really tiny) system. The battery and pack is about 8inches tall and weighs 3kgs, or just over 6.5lbs. The head fits in my hand and cranks out 400w seconds – which means it’s WAY more powerful than my Canon 58Os. And with built-in Skyport it’s ready to use wirelessly very quickly. Am I excited about this? Absolutely. Why? Because one of the reasons I don’t do as much work with my Canon flashes as I’d like is that – excuse my language – I find them to be a right pain in the ass. I’m still wrestling with my new Pocket Wizards, which work well when they work. And I find, after brief experiments with it, that the ETT-L stuff is more work than it’s worth. I would actually take a small unit like this on assignment where larger kits are just too large, heavy, and prohibitive.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the Strobist movement, and in the right setting I like my 580s well enough. But to have more power in such a simple, portable package, with a modelling lamp and built-in Skyport? I’m in love. I’ll let you know just how deep that love goes and if it’s going to last or just be some brief fling powered by gear-lust and infatuation once I’ve had it  a while.You can see more info on the Elinchrom Ranger Quadra HERE.

A couple other housekeeping items I wanted to mention and won’t have time later this week.

1. Matt Brandon’s got a 2010 Calendar for sale over at The Digital Trekker. I haven’t had a printed calendar for years but word on the streets is some people still use these nutty contraptions. If you’re one of those people, you don’t have to admit it here, but check out Matt’s calendar HERE.

2. I was contacted recently by a Vancouver-based photographer, Andy Cotton, who has developed a really cool way of carrying your cameras. It’s called the Cotton Carrier and for outdoor lifestyle and adventure photographers I imagine this will have early adoption – it’s pretty darn cool. Other will want to use them but might have to get over the fact that it makes you look like some kind of Commando/Ninja. But it’s super cool. I’ve played with mine, like the idea and the execution a ton and am just looking for a chance to try it out. Seriously, go take a look at the Cotton Carrier HERE.

3. I got my Gura Gear Kiboko bag last week. You know I love my Think Tank bags, but if there’s one bag they don’t make it’s what I’d call an adventure bag. I wanted something for safaris and more rugged adventures, something that still fit into a tiny overhead bin (like the Embraer or Canada Regional Jets) but still be built to take abuse, haul a ton of gear, and – this was the kicker – have an excellent backpack harness that I could see myself carrying heavy loads over tougher terrain. So when I ordered my bag from the maker, Andy Biggs, himself an accomplished photographer and safari guide, I had high hopes. Man were they ever exceeded. I’ll do a review later, probably after my safari in January, but the Kiboko is incredible. Weighs less than 4lbs, carries a mountain of gear, and is clearly made by someone with control issues and an eye for details. Like I said, review to come, but if you’re looking for a great adventure bag, take a good long look at the GuraGear Kiboko bag (pictured below.)

4. Lastly, how in the world has it taken me so long to get turned out to OnOne Software and their suite of plug-ins for Photoshop and Lightroom? I knew they were out there. I glanced at the site. I kept thinking, I really need to look into this more. And I never did. And then at Photoshop World (PSW is an evil temptress) I saw a live demo that convinced me I needed to look at them more closely. I’ve played with the tools on and off since yesterday, so this isn’t a review, just a reaction – this stuff rocks. If you do any commercial works directly for clients, especially wedding or portraits, or you like to get a little more artistic with your work, the OnOne Plug-in Suite has some cool tools – I especially love the Focal Point 1 and Photo Tools 2 plug ins. Anyways, take a look at them – in Lightroom they act as an external editor in conjunction with Photoshop, but it’s pretty seemless – it goes out, you do the adjustment, it returns to Lightroom. Love it. OnOne has free demos and videos of all their stuff – find more info about them HERE.

OK, enough gear-freaking, get out there and shoot something you love.

I’m going to make this short. If you do any localized work in Photoshop or Lightroom, you are missing out if you’re not using a tablet. I’m not exaggerating my case; you really need to try one, get past the initial awkwardness and discover the pressure-sensitivity goodness in PS and LR that can only be accessed with a tablet. Sure, you can use a mouse for most things, and you’re probably right to be a little suspicious of all these overly-enthusiastic tablet-users. Who knows, they might even be the same wierdos who eat sushi, listen to NPR, and insist the battle between Canon and Nikon is irrelevant. But even so, you owe it to yourself to try these. I use mine all the time in LR with the Adjustment Brush and in PS with masking and it gives me the ability to work on my images with more ease, control, and subtlety. I won’t go into the shortcuts possible in your workflow, but you get used to these things really fast, and if there’s a downside to them it’s that the mouse you now love will, in short order, begin to feel like a giant cumbersome ham in your hand.

And when I begged Wacom to show some lovin’ they didn’t blink and eye. So I’ve got a medium Wacom Intuos4 to give away. The only catch is that I can only offer it to residents of America or Canada. I know. Sorry. But here’s a small consolation. If you live outside the US or Canada, leave  a comment in the comments, along with the others , and indicate clearly which country you are from and I will draw 3 names and send you each a signed copy of VisionMongers when it comes out. It’s no Wacom tablet, but it’s something.

So what do you have to do to be considered eligible? Just leave a comment under this post. The last giveaway – the one for the Drobo – all I asked for was a simple sentence and I still got poems and sycophantic praise. So, this time I’m not going to hold you back. Poems, praise, limericks, heck – anything to catch my attention in a PG kind of way- and I’ll do a somewhat random draw with points given for creativity, in a couple weeks. Just be sure you leave a name and email address when you leave your comments. You foreigners, you know I love you – so you can play too – just be sure to let me know which country you’re from. And no cheating; if you pretend to be from Nova Scotia but give us a mailing address in The Gambia, the jig’s up.

Huge thanks to Wacom for the lovin’. I’ve got one of these for my desktop, one with my laptop, and another on my wife’s desk too. All Wacom’s tablets bring PS and LR functionality to a new level, but the Intuos is an amazing step up from the old Graphire I used to use. I know, I know, it’s not about the gear, Vision is Better, etc. But a great tool can make things easier, and when the technology stops being in the way, it’s a little easier to get where you’re going. Tablets do that for me. Wow, 4 paragraphs in, no sign of slowing down, and I said I’d try to make this short? I suck at brevity.

If you’re not familiar with the whole Wacom line, from their Bamboo to their gorgeous, truly lust-worthy 21″ Cintiq, you can find more about them HERE.

Alright, you know the drill. Good luck. *Updated October 26, Comments now closed. Winners announced tomorrow.

When DROBO first came out I was hooked. All that redundant backup in a black box that’s as smart as it is sexy? Sign me up!

And since then I’ve had a Drobo, now two of them, sitting on my desk. My work comes into my main machine and is immediately backed up to Drobo. Drobo itself has all kinds of science-fictiony stuff going on under the hood that I don’t understand but I know this – my data is protected 24/7 and it’s a scalable storage solution, so when Drobo gets full I just go buy a larger HDD and pop it in. I know some folks whine about the proprietary nature of Drobo and would rather use other solutions, fine, but for me, Drobo gives piece of mind to my decidedly non-techy brain. It’s not my working drive, it’s my on-site backup, and I still have off-site back-ups too, but it does its job really well, it looks great on my desk, and my cats like sleeping on them. We all win.

And now you can win too! (How was that for a segue?) When I was at Photoshop World I asked my Drobo connections about sharing the love and they jumped on it faster than hands off a greased pig. So in the spirit of simplicity, we’ll make this one easy. If you want a drobo, you don’t have to engage in the usual sucking-up. Just leave a comment on this post that has (a) your name, (b) your email address, and (c) this confession: I WANT A DROBO. That is all. At a random date and time I will close the comments, launch Random.org in my browser and let it chose a number between 1 and the number of comments received. Then Drobo will ship you a new Firewire 800 Drobo. You’ll have to buy the drives yourself. Easy-peasy, right? Comments are open, go for it. May the most random person, with the most vulnerable data, win.

Huge thanks to Drobo both for letting me sleep at night and for sharing the love. If you have no idea what I’m babbling on about, check out Drobo on their website HERE.

Update, October 15. The contest is closed, the name is drawn. Look for an announcement on October 16.

My sponsors are awesome. One of the deals I’ve made with all of them at some point is that if I get something, so do my readers. Or at least one or two of you chosen completely randomly. When I left for India early last month I took my new Blackrapid Double Strap to test out, and Ron at Blackrapid said I could give one out too. For two-body shooting this Double Strap is great, and very comfortable. And I’m pleased to say that KarenJ, who was comment #50, and who tells me she’s stalking me, will get to test out her own DoubleStrap. Congrats, KarenJ!

Didn’t win? Well Blackrapid’s not the only sponsor that oozes generosity – DROBO is also putting out and I’ll give you more details on that tomorrow. This is a short post, the next couple days are full of me digging out from the pile that’s accumulated over the last month, and I have only so many hours of digging before the jetlag kicks my butt.

I’ve been home from India for a whole day now, and leave for Vegas tomorrow morning. Can’t imagine a more bizarre cultural shift than going from peaceful Ladakh to the Las Vegas strip.

So, this one’s a hodge-podge of stuff to accompany the release of the October Wallpaper (see post below).

Ladakh was, at it always is, amazing. Weather was warmer than usual and made it much easier to adjust. Matt and I were joined by Ami Vitale, whom you should all by now be familiar with. You should also know she adopted me as her evil twin which is so awesome I can’t begin to tell you. Anyways, I’m back and once I return from my pilgrimage to Las Vegas for Photoshop World I’ll be home for at least a month, slaving away on a couple books, keeping clients happy, and spending some serious time with my wife.

While in Ladakh I was testing out a couple new pieces of travel gear. The first is the BlackRapid Double Strap, the second was another piece of clothing from ScotteVest. So here’s the goods on those.

Blackrapid’s done it again with the Double Strap. When the first one came out I went down to see the folks behind the R-Strap. We talked about options for a two-camera rig. I shared my opinions, and an idea or two. And then they totally ignored those suggestions and came up with something way better, the Double Strap. First, you need to know that my only beef with the original R-Straps was the hardware – both the FastnR and the ConnectR were, um, crap. But they were honest attempts to solve a problem, to which I found my own solution. But in the re-incarnation of those two bits of hardware, the R-Straps have grown up, left the house, and made us proud. I gave one to Ami Vitale and after a couple days using it she gushed about how it revolutionized things for her. If you’ve not played with the R-strap, it’s truly a great product. In fact, the good folks at Blackrapid have agreed to send a Double Strap to one lucky reader. So leave a comment in this post and when I’m back from Vegas I’ll do a random draw.

Ok, so now, the Double Strap. It’s basically a set of comfortable backpack straps without the backpack, and into which are integrated two R-straps. One for a camera on the left, one for a camera on the right. Placed under a jacket the cameras peak out at the bottom, the harness is invisible, and the cameras are comfortably where you need them all day long. I shoot with two bodies a lot and this harness system is fantastic. The hardware is excellent, and where I once loved the product but with the caveat that the hardware was still in its infancy, I truly can’t think of a reason not to love, love, love these straps, and if you shoot with two bodies, the Double Strap rocks.

I also left my prized, and much-loved, Patagonia retro fleece at home in favour of taking the ScotteVest Fleece 5.0 Jacket. The jacket came just before I left and I ordered it because I love their Travel Vest so much. Basically it’s a really beefy fleece jacket with removable sleeves and almost all the pockets of the Travel Vest. Traveling and shooting out of these things is a joy – even if the abundance of pockets encourages you to load it to busting – which makes it really heavy! I don’t know that I’d use it to run to the grocery store, but for traveling, the ScotteVest line of gear is really hard to beat. I’m not much for the reflective trim but overall it’s classy-looking, and is really well built. I travelled over Kardung La in my vest and my Fleece 5.0 and was warm as can be until the very peak, but in hot weather either the vest or the fleece would be too much. If you’re looking for great travel clothing look at ScotteVest. My only nag is that I find the sizing a little too generous, so if you’re one of those people who sometimes take a Medium and sometimes take a Large,  I’d take the company’s suggestion and order both, then return the one that doesn’t fit.

OK, one last gear thing. Each year I take one new piece of kit to play with. I think it’s good – no, essential – to remain a learner and to always play, experiment, and push ourselves from our ruts. This year I brought a handful of Singh-Ray filters to play with. I took 4 ND grads (2 and 3-stop grads in both hard and soft transitions) and two polarizers ( a Blue-Gold, and a warming polarizer). Aside from my issue with the Cokin P filter holders (they’re total crap. The Z holders are nice but my polarizers won’t fit into z-sized holders so I’m left with the Cokin P holders. Did I mention they’re crap?) I had a great time playing with them. Might have over-used them, but I’m OK with that. Singh-Ray quality rocks and while the rest of the digital world keeps yapping on about how filters are no longer needed, I’m pretty sure than they can be as useful as ever, and in some case now more important than before in creating a specific aesthetic or in highlight control. The image at the head of this post was shot with a B/G polarizer and ND grad. I love the colours the B/G polarizer brings and the Lumen Dei crew kept calling it my “magic filter” – it’s pretty cool. If you haven’t played with your filters for a while, dig them out. If you’re looking for new ones, seriously consider giving the Cokin filters a miss and going straight to something with better optical quality.

Alright, that’s about all the gear-talk I can handle for now. Gear’s good, heck some of it’s even great, but Vision? Well, Vision’s still way better. To that end on Friday I released the follow-up to my eBook TEN. It’s called TEN MORE, it’s for people wanting to improve their craft without buying gear, and there’s more info HERE.

OK, gotta run. Nice to be home, sorry I have to leave so soon. Leave a comment – with your name and email – if you want to win a Blackrapid Double Strap.

It’s no secret that I wrestle with packing light. I think I’ve done it, then arrive at the airport only to be mocked by whomever I am traveling with. Clearly what it means to travel light is a subjective thing. I usually travel with two carry-on’s – very heavy – and two checked pieces – also max weight. Well this time I decided to really try. It meant not bringing all kinds of “but what if I want it?” items – no flash, no pocket wizard, no reflectors, no Lensbaby, no Pogo printer, no Hyperdrive. I’m bringing one of everything critical instead of the usual two, except my camera bodies. And I think I’ve done it.

The photo at the top is my whole 2 week trip to Thailand. One North Face Base Camp duffle, one Think Tank Shapeshifter, and one Think Tank Speed Racer.

It helps that I’m going during monsoon, so it’ll be hot and wet. Less clothing, no sweaters or bulky items. I threw in a diving mask and snorkel as my one luxury item. Not for the monsoon but for the 3 days in Ko Samet at the end. And I threw in a small trekking umbrella. My bag could drop 5lbs if I weren’t a Type 1 diabetic, but I always bring a mountain of snacks and a small Pelican case with extra insulin, needles, etc. It could all drop another 5lbs easy if I could bring myself to leave the laptop, cables, harddrives at home, but I’m just not that hardcore. ( C’mon Henri, you gotta admit this is pretty good, right? )

I’m actually pretty proud of myself, but it’s nothing more than an experiment. As I’ve said before, clients don’t pay you to travel light but to come home with the shots. Case in point, Joe McNally just drove a fully-loaded Suburban from Phoenix to San Francisco. He’s shooting projects there, among them a story for the Geographic. A fully-loaded Suburban. And I’d be willing to bet half of that is accounted for by a half-ton of SB-900’s and 3olbs of CTO gel.

Speaking of Thailand, one of the highlights will be spending some time with Gavin Gough, and Matt Brandon has just posted another of his excellent Depth of Field interviews, part one of his interview with Gavin went up this morning HERE. Look for part two tomorrow. One day I hope to convince Matt to do one of these with me but I think he has a thing about Canadians. Don’t believe me, listen to the way they keep dropping my name and teasing me.

Jonesin’ for more? I’ve got a short article up on Niches, Grooves, and Ruts at DPS, Digital Photography School, thanks to Darren Rowse for his kind invitation to contribute. Find the link HERE.

A late start this morning. I usually write my blog posts the day before and yesterday was Sharon’s’s first evening home for over a week so we sat on the couch, had a bottle of wine and watched HOUSE MD re-runs on dvd. Nice way to spend an evening, sorry you weren’t invited.

Yesterday’s post on Faith and Art stirred some insightful discussion, some of it far more profound than the actual post on which it was based I encourage you to read it if you haven’t. One of the things that came up was a further clarification. I thought I’d been very clear that this was not only a discussion of faith in the religious sense, that what I was getting at was broader and applied to all of us, theistic, athieistic, or whatever lies in the middle; that our core values and beliefs about life, ourselves, the world in which we live all form the deepest parts of us, the most unique parts of us, and when we draw from that well to create our art we have the potential to create art that is more uniquely personal than when we stay on the surface of things.

Ok, so a few detaily-linky items today.

First, I got my HyperMac yesterday. The one I ordered is a 100 watt-hour external battery for my MacBook and it’s sweet. Small, not much heavier than a normal MacBook battery, and it’s reputed to give another 13 hours of working time, as well as being able to recharge USB devices like the iPhone. And it came with a car charger so I can charge the thing while driving. I wish I’d had this in Ethiopia. Had plenty of car time, it was AC power when we got into town that I didn’t have. Check it out HERE.

Ever work in Lightroom on your laptop and find you just aren’t sure which angle to put your screen at to get the right tonal values in your image? My buddy Gavin Gough has a simple, elegant solution and if you go to his blog you can download a gradient that you can set as your identity plate and you’ll never have to fiddle with the screen again. Check it out HERE.

I’ve been using Blackrapid R-straps for just over a year now and love them just as much as I ever did. The weak point has always been the snap connector and they’ve finally got new ones – small lockable carabiner clips that seem beefy and well-made. I’ve just replaced my old ones and while I never had a problem I know others did and this oughta make many of you feel a little more comfortable about these brilliant straps. When I visited Blackrapid in their Seattle digs last year we had a long talk about a 2-camera system, and that rig is now out. I’ve got one and will be taking it to Ladakh in September and will review it then. For now visit Matt Brandon’s blog to see his write-up on both the new clips and the new harness. Check that out HERE.