I did a 30 seconds edit of that picture at the airport in Albuquerque and posted it right away on instagram. And it went bananas. I had mixed feeling about this because this is not our work, this is not what I want to be known for. And all of these comments about Star Wars are always making me dizzy (I don’t have a tv, I never watch movies, I have no interest for fiction)....

Curves are one of the most powerful and versatile tools in Photoshop. They can even replace several other tools since you can use them for split toning, or adjusting contrast, exposure, and white balance. But how well do you understand this tool? Can you read the curve chart and figure out how it affects an image? Retouching Toolkit has a fun quiz for you which will tell you how well you understand Curves....

Mastering light — or even just taming it– is one of the biggest and most difficult challenges facing any photographer. Regardless of whether you shoot in a studio full of strobes, or venture out on location with nothing but a reflector, overcoming the stumbling blocks that lighting throws in our way all boils down to the same set of tasks– understanding how light works, and making it work for you. The Web is bursting at its digital seams with lighting tutorials for photographers of every type and skill level....

The first thing I noticed when unpacking the Speedlite EL-1 is that it is noticeably larger than the previous Canon flash heads. I believe that a big part of this is the fan which is integrated inside the Speedlite EL-1. Yes, there is a fan in these to help keep them cool, even when being used heavily. Here is the older Canon 600EX-RT flash laying side-by-side with the Speedlite EL-1. You can see some of the size difference in this photo, but this view does not do it justice....

I must admit, I’ve had a fair share of activities in my life that turned out to be “just a phase.” When I look back, all of them involved something creative, but I ditched each of them after a few years tops. But there’s one thing that’s been around for almost a decade now, and I’m still in love with it: photography. From time to time, I get to wonder – why photography?...