Santa Fe Photographic Workshops has just posted their schedule for Spring 2009. This is the schedule only; individual course descriptions should be available by the end of September. I’ve taken a number of workshops at Santa Fe and have always had a great experience. If you are looking to take a workshop with guys like Joe McNally or Jay Maisel, register today. Their classes always fill up quickly. If you wait for the actual catalog to be published, your favorite course may be filled already. Santa Fe has a stable of great instructors that return every year to teach. They’ve also added a flock of new, yet equally great, names to their faculty (Michael Britt is a personal favorite as his High-Volume Digital Workflow seminars always speak to my inner-geek), To stay in touch with SFPW, subscribe to their e-newsletter and their blog.

This post last updated: August 3, 2008.

Back in the middle of photography’s dark ages, during the formative years of my youth (circa 1968), listening to shortwave radio was a keen fascination. When I visited my cousin’s house, at night, we would tune in to stations from around the world on his shortwave set. We laughed as the path opened for us to discover exotic languages and music. Other than scrounging up an old receiver and some wire for an antenna, there was no cost to riding the airwaves.

Today, I think the blogosphere is at a similar state of evolution. For only the cost of access to the Internet, I can tune in to the thoughts of photographers (and other colorful thinkers) far and wide. Likewise, the cost of starting and running a blog can be minimal. Consider that WordPress, the most widely-used blog software, is a free download and that thousands of blogs, including some of the most highly-visited sites (like Strobist), are hosted for free on Blogger. [Read more →]

Like many photographers, I am a voyeur. That’s why I love to read Death To Film - the blog of Image Mechanics.

IM is the gang of superheros based in Santa Monica that’s lead by Michael Britt (the fellow who wrote the original Lightroom user’s guide for Adobe.) As digital capture specialists, these guys have to manage as many captures in a day as most non-pro shooters will create in a lifetime.

The greatest thing about the Image Mechanics crew and their blog is that they share virtually all of their secrets. Check out the latest post about their off-line archiving system. Then just start scrolling through their archives. You’ll find tale after tale about being in the trenches of high-volume digital capture. Need more? Then jump over to the IM site for another long session of good reading.