I've been using a defunct Pantone Huey Pro to calibrate my display, for pretty much as long as I can remember. While the device hasn't been officially supported for a while, it had continued to function until recently. Since El Capitan came out, the software hasn't been working properly, and my display has been slowly drifting. On top of that, somewhere along the way, the gamma got screwed up, which I didn't realise. So the upshot of this is that my screen was too bright, and so I was outputting my images too dark. 

Late last week there was something of a blog storm over a video photographer Matt Granger posted about his experiences with Sony’s customer service. If you haven’t seen it already check it out. Basically he had a terrible time getting customer service for his professional Sony cameras. After he posted the video, many of those in the photographic community who also use Sony products chimed in with their own similar stories of Sony’s poor customer service. While I haven’t had to deal with Sony’s customer service here on for any of their Photography products, I too have heard the stories, and have had to deal with the company for other issues.

I recently read an interesting post on Medium about the advantages of side projects. In the case of the article I read, it was talking about web development, but it occurred to me that the same thing can be true of photography. Depending on your business model, a side project could actually be quite beneficial to you.

I recently wrote a post about some features that I'd love to see in an upcoming version of Apple's Photos for the Mac. I also have some ideas on photographer friendly features that I'd like to see on iOS at some point. Some of these I've wanted for a while and written about before, so I'm not so optimistic, but these are features I'd really like to see in iOS at some point. I've tried to keep these ideas to things that would be reasonable to implement, or in-keeping with what one could expect at the operating system level.

I normally try to keep the topics on this blog as positive as possible. I try not to court controversy by objecting to anything too strongly, but there’s something that’s been bothering me for a little while now, and it’s Photoshop. With the most recent update, Adobe made some significant changes to the Photoshop interface, and in my opinion, they’re not very nice.

While Nikon may have had the big photographic announcements at CES this year, in my opinion, the more exciting news came from Kodak. Yes, Kodak, remember them? Kodak announced that they’re creating a new super 8 film camera. The new camera and service will blend digital and film technologies, and seeks to capitalise on the analogue resurgence. As someone’s who’s shot Super 8 in the past, I for one am very excited about this.

I knew something wasn't right. My computer, a 2012 Mac Pro, had suddenly decided to go slow. Not just slow, but slow in a very specific way. It was like it was stopping to think every few seconds. It was something that was eerily familiar. I'd seen this before, and I hoped the cause wasn't the same, but I knew in my heart what was happening. My hard drive was failing. Worse, it was my system drive. 

This past year has been kind of a weird one for me. I achieved a lot of what I had planned for this site, and for my photography career, but I also had some setbacks, both personally and work wise. In this post I'll take a look back at 2015, and talk about some plans and goals for the year ahead.

I read some sad, but not entirely surprising news during the week. It seems that the company that makes Holga cameras is shutting down. I’m not hugely surprised by this. The Holga craze of a few years ago was pretty much killed by Instagram and the iPhone. I only noticed recently how many of the places that used to sell Holga cameras had stopped selling them (in lieu of Fuji Instax cameras). 

I’ve been going back and forward about whether or not to write this post. I wanted to say something about the recent horrific events in Paris and yet, I didn’t want it to feel like I was making it about me. But, as Stephen Colbert pointed out on the Late Show, it’s ok to try and find a connection with the city, to show solidarity in whatever form you can. So this is my tribute to Paris. It is what it it. It’s only tenuously about photography, but it’s a subject that I hold dear, as it’s a city I hold dear.

I’m totally blown away by the response to my X-Trans lightroom guide that I published earlier in the week. the response has been amazing, and some of you have sent some lovely kind words of support. It’s the highest volume of traffic my store has seen and it’s been hard just to keep up. So, a sincere thank you to everyone. I really am blown away by the response.

I must confess to being an unashamed Apple fan. I’ve been buying Apple products and following the company’s developments since my first Mac, a PowerPC 7100 (remember them?) It was using a Mac that first got me into using Photoshop and graphics, and without it, probably wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing today. Needless to say then, I’m always interested Apple’s new announcements, and in particular how they relate to my fields of Photography and Design. Last week’s keynotehad lots of exciting potential for Photographers, so I’ll share my thoughts (in a somewhat random order) on these developments and how I feel they may impact photography.

Something occurred to me recently while thinking about photography. You often hear photographers trot out the old trope of “it’s not about the camera, it’s about the photographer” but in many ways that’s not really the whole story either. Another way of looking at it is: “It’s not about the Photographer, it’s about the Image”. Last week, there was a very powerful image in the media, showing once again the importance of photography. The disturbing yet moving photograph of the child’s body washed ashore on the Turkish coastline shocked the world into action, and yet how many people know who the photographer was? Outside of the photographic community, I doubt anyone who is not into photography can name the photographer of that striking image.

One of the interesting things that I've noticed after years of Photography, is that certain types of light act as a sense memory to me. In much the same way that a smell can trigger a memory for many people, I find that seeing a certain quality of light often triggers memories and feelings of nostalgia. 

As much as I love mirrorless cameras, there's one thing about the current designs that unfortunately is a bit of a problem for me. The issue is the viewfinder. My problem is not the electronic display itself, but rather the physical design of the viewfinder. Most of the mirrorless cameras that I've used are a real pain to use in bright light if you're a glasses wearer.