A recent conversation with photographer buddies made me realize that there are a number of photographers out there that don’t work in black & white at all. A number, I’m sure, that’s rapidly growing.

However just because you’re not familiar with (or even like) black & white photography, it still pays to dabble in it every now and then, for a number of reasons. Not only will it be good for your photographs, it’ll be good for your photography.

Overnight, Lightroom became king and Photoshop became the tool I brought out once in a while for more involved retouching. I even avoided taking images into Photoshop after developing them in Lightroom (a common process) simply because Lightroom’s simplicity made Photoshop look positively arcane.

At least, it did. I may be rethinking my stance after playing with the PSKiss Toolkits.

It snowed today, the earliest New York has received at least an inch of snow in recorded weather history. I’d write more but honestly, not much else really need be said. Besides, after a night out (like a little bit of snow is gonna stop anyone) I’m in dire need of some thawing out.

I recently got my hands on a copy of the PSKiss Skin & Scenery Color profile and preset pack, and while I’m not much of a preset kinda guy (aside from a few home-cooked ones and a small handful of black & white presets), I was impressed enough with the camera profiles that I figured I’d talk about it some.

While sorting through photos from a recent road trip through the Southwest a couple of weeks ago, I came across a photo that wasn’t good enough to keep but made a perfect candidate for a quick demo of the salvaging power of RAW images. I cooked up a quick before/after shot (not unlike the one above) and shared it on Reddit.

For those not yet familiar with it, 500px is a relatively new photo sharing site that… okay, yes. I know. Another one? But this one is a little different. Whereas Flickr is meant as a sort of “socially-oriented photodump” and SmugMug is meant as a sort of “pro-oriented photodump,” 500px is more of a “pro-oriented online portfolio” than anything else.

It was gorgeous out on the last weekend before I left for Boston (in case you were wondering why I haven’t updated in a while) so naturally I decided to spend that day indoors at The Met. While wandering the floors of the museum, I happened upon The American Wing which. As I stepped out into the open square where most of the statues were standing, I noticed something that hadn’t registered with me before.

A rare, text-only news item just to point out the obvious: I’ve updated the site. In the five (!) years since I started this blog, my photography’s grown a fair bit as have my needs from a website. When I first started, the “blog” was all of a series of single-image entries with maybe a [...]

Growing up on a tiny island in the middle of the Philippines meant that, for the most part, we were fairly behind on the States when it came to new fads, TV shows, fashion, or other pop culture. While normally an annoyance, it worked in my favor when, in 1985, my best friend came over with this game his dad had brought back from Japan, Dungeons & Dragons.

Tonight I learned that there are essentially two types of people that will venture out into a blizzard-thunderstorm in the middle of the night: dog owners, who gladly brave the cold so that their pooches can do their dirty sinful business, and nutcases who look at the snow pouring down and think “I bet that’d make a pretty picture!”