Hey gang, it’s David. It’s been a while!

In 2021, I archived Strobist as a completed project. I can’t honestly say that I’ve missed the breakneck pace of running a solo site. But I’ve definitely missed interacting with so many cool people all of the time.

That said, I am still teaching. X-Peditions gives me the twin advantages much smaller class sizes, plus being in Hanoi every fall. And that’s been wonderful.

Better yet, my new schedule has given me the breathing room to be able build my current project. Like Strobist, this project is designed for photographers. But unlike this website, it has nothing at all to do with flash.



Today I’m introducing my new book, The Traveling Photographer’s Manifesto. It aspires to be for traveling photographers what Strobist always tried to be for lighting photographers.

The premise of the book is that your camera can, and should, be much more than just a pricey recording device when you travel. It can also serve as a passport, opening up new connections and possibilities that otherwise might not have happened.

Using a photo trip to Southeast Asia as a framework, the book walks through many things that you can do to help this to happen.

I have uploaded three documents to help you to know if TTPM might be suited for you:


1. A 5-minute summary: This will quickly give you a feel for the book.

2. A 27-page supplement: Only a small portion of the book, which is unillustrated, is about camera operation. This visual supplement is available for readers who are more visual learners. And it will give you a quick skim of parts 4 and 5.

3. A sample chapter: How to become more comfortable meeting and engaging with people as a photographer.


As you'll see from the summary, most of the book is not about camera operation at all. It’s more about the countless little things that working photojournalists do while on assignment that an enthusiast might not think of.

These little habits, taken together, can start to form the impression of a photographer being consistently, conspicuously lucky. When in reality, luck had very little to do with it.

So, if this is the sort of thing that interests you, I hope you’ll give the book a spin. It is available now, on Amazon.com worldwide.

Just as with Strobist, I welcome your feedback from this project as well. My email is listed on the copyright page and elsewhere. And of course, I will read and take to heart every Amazon review. Because my goal is for the project to continue to evolve and improve over time, just as the material on this website did.

Thanks for your interest, and for your readership of Strobist. As always, please say hi at any time on Twitter at @Strobist.


Cheers,
David


The Traveling Photographer’s Manifesto (Amazon.com)

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2024/06/ive-been-working-on-something.html

In 2006 I started a lighting blog while working full-time as a staffer at The Baltimore Sun. By early 2007, it became obvious that I didn't have the personal resources to give 100% to both Strobist and my job at the newspaper.

That’s exactly the position I find myself in today. For the past year I have been working on a new project. It is photography-based, and will be as unique to the photo space as Strobist was back in 2006.

But, as I found with Strobist in 2007, this project will require all of my focus. So I am shifting Strobist into archive mode to allow myself the time and mental space to do that.

If I had more available brain cells/hours in the day, I would be happy to do both. Alas, I do not. So I am choosing the one I think can make a bigger difference to photographers. When the new project launches, I’ll do my best to make sure you hear about it. So please, stay tuned!

For those of you who are interested in our in-person lighting workshops and/or our X-Peditions trips (both of which are currently on pause during the pandemic) we absolutely are planning to restart them once the coast is clear. Please make sure you are on the relevant notification list(s) by clicking through to the links above.

Finally, I want to take this moment to say thank you to the countless people I have met, and new friendships made, as a result of publishing Strobist over the past 15 years. It is impossible to express how much you all have enriched my life, and that of my family.


Thank you so much,
David

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2021/07/so-long-for-now-and-thank-you.html

When lighting with small subjects, a speedlight is generally all you’ll ever need. Further, because of the scale and distances involved, even with a small flash you’ll be working at low power settings.

For these photos of some of the resident animals at the Howard County Conservancy, we used a single speedlight generally at one-eighth power, and let the environment of the impromptu studio to the rest of the heavy lifting for light modification.
Read more »

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2021/06/slc-1l-13-conservancy-critters.html

Apple’s new AirTags are a straight-up gift for photographers. After testing one for the past couple of weeks, I’ll be hiding an AirTag in my scooter, one in my car and another one in my camera bag.
Read more »

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2021/06/put-airtag-in-your-camera-bag.html

The Paul C. Buff Link monobloc studio strobe ($895.95) delivers 800ws of portable power, and deserves consideration from anyone in the United States who is considering a big gun for use on location.

Please note: This is not a full review.

There have been several thorough examples already published — most notably this one by Mike McGee. There are many others, from the usual suspects, a Google search away.

Rather, this is a quick write-up of some first-hand impressions, thoughts and features I have not seen much mention of elsewhere.
Read more »

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2021/05/notes-on-paul-buff-link-800ws-monobloc.html

Lighting with flash can give you more than just the ability to control the quality of your light. With the inherent consistency of light from (manual) flash, you can layer in slices of time as well. 

But first, you’ll want to lock down two things: the ambient light portion of your exposure, and your camera’s physical position.

Read more »

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2021/02/slc-2l-15-cross-pollination.html

Read more »

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2020/12/slc-oe-08-turning-corner.html

Quick, guess the lighting.

If you said two lights, and use of high-speed sync to get the shallow depth of field, that's a pretty good guess.

If you said zero lights and a rigid high-efficiency reflector, that's an even better (and correct) guess.

When working with an inexperienced assistant — or looking to introduce someone to the world of off-camera lighting — a rigid/high-efficiency reflector is a fantastic and inexpensive place to start.

Read more »

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2020/11/slc-0l-05-lightings-gateway-drug.html

At first glance: a simple, one-light portrait of activist gardener Janssen Evelyn.

Dig deeper: a look at tonal mapping via specular highlights, stretching the range of your modestly powered flash, and how to discover your next project.

Read more »

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2020/10/slc-1l-12-garden-of-ideas.html

There are two main schools of thought when it comes to lighting. One is to light your subject in a way that is not grounded in reality but merely looks cool. And the other is to use lighting to translate the way your eye sees light into a way that your camera can better understand it. 

That latter choice is the option we'll be exploring today in a walk-through of a sunset portrait of artist Wendy Ng for the Howard County Conservancy. 

Read more »

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2020/09/slc-2l-14-fill-in-blanks.html

Whenever you have control over the time of day in which you'll be shooting a location portrait, always remember that the hour that wraps around sunset will offer you at least five different lighting environments in which to work. 

And for today's portrait of birders Jo (left) and Bob Solem, we're going to use three of them. 

Read more »

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2020/08/slc-2l-13-shoot-through-your-sunset.html

Seeing as no one is doing much traveling these days, I thought it'd be fun to pay a visit with a Strobist reader photographing somewhere far away.

Up for a little Lighting Cookbook field trip to Indonesia? Yeah? Then let's go... Read more »

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2020/07/slc-1l-11-planting-rice-at-sunrise.html

Have you tried to buy a new bike lately? Or even a used bike?

The coronavirus pandemic has made them very tough to find. Between homebound people snapping them up and all of the various broken supply chains, most of the bike inventory — other than very pricey specialty bikes — has pretty much vanished.

Which means that if you have a functional bike in your garage that you don't need, it will likely never be worth more than it is right now.

My daughter Emily has an unneeded bike in the garage. It's a Trek 7100, which is decent hybrid. She rode it to middle school. But she's just graduated college and won't be bringing it to her new job.

But right now it should fetch a nice price in the Craigslist Bicycle Hunger Games. Especially if it is photographed and presented well.

So that's exactly what we are going to do today: photograph a bike with a basic two speedlight kit.Read more »

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2020/06/two-light-bike-for-big-bucks.html

There's something about shooting medium format — especially in black and white. The look is unmistakeable: creamy highlights supported by lush, detailed shadows.

So it's perfectly understandable why many photographers shell out big bucks for pricey medium format gear. In fact, it's possible that some of you are at this very moment casually thinking about how cool it would be to shoot with a MF camera system.

And why not? I mean, don't you deserve it?

But a lot of the tonal qualities we often associate with medium format can be acheived on the cheap if you light your photos from the bottom end first.

Take the photo above, which was shot with a small-chip Fuji, a kit zoom and a pair of small, $25 soft boxes.
Read more »

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2020/05/slc-2l-11-magic-of-medium-format.html

Hey, there's a pandemic. Have you heard?

Looks like we might be spending a lot of time in the house with our immediate family these days. Maybe that family includes kids. And maybe they are starting to go a little stir crazy.

Keep reading for some ideas for any lighting photographer who might be looking to make the best of some unscheduled family time.Read more »

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2020/03/slc-1l-10-covid-diaries-shoot-kids.html

How best to put this?

The Godox TT600 is, objectively, a screaming bargain. It is a full-sized manual-only speedlight with power comparable to OEM speedlights that cost over eight(!) times as much.

It features a reliable, built-in transceiver, a suite of different remote triggers and is part of a ridiculously comprehensive lineup of lighting gear.

I honestly don't know how they can possibly sell them for under $70 and still make a profit. Read more »

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2020/02/hot-shoe-go-to-godox-tt600.html

Just a quick note to announce that X-Peditions' 2020 season has opened. Seats are going very quickly, and we expect both trips to fill shortly.

X-Peditions is a collaborative project between Strobist.com and Washington DC-based Focus on the Story. You can learn more about this year's classes, or our program in general, at X-Peditions.com.

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2020/01/x-peditions-2020-trips-announcement.html

The LumoPro LP180 is no more.

You could make a strong case that the LP180 was the best manual hot shoe flash ever produced — and maybe that ever will be produced. It was a beast of a flash, with a fluid user interface and features designed specifically for off-camera lighting photographers. Now, it's the last of a bygone era.

Why did it have to die? What made it so good? And what will replace it as the flash of choice for discerning-but-frugal off-camera shooters?

Read more »

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2020/01/in-appreciation-lumopro-lp180-2013-2020.html

To learn to create evocative light with flash, it helps to better understand how we experience the continuous light we see every day.

To do that, you'll need to wean yourself from auto white balance, and even to abandon familiar waypoints like your daylight WB preset. Because our goal is to learn to exist in a more fluid way along the Kelvin scale. Read more »

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2019/12/slc-0l-04-red-state-blue-state.html

Watching the movie Joker, I felt repeatedly that I was watching a film that Greg Heisler could have lit. The use of color was unique, sophisticated and fearless — almost a character unto itself.

In this outstanding 15-minute short produced by Vanity Fair, Joker cinematographer Lawrence Sher dissects his own use of light and color in the movie. Read more »

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2019/11/slc-0l-03-joker-cinematographer-on.html

Photos by Sara Lando and David Hobby except where noted.

Just as most of us are either right- or left-handed, it is said that we all have a dominant side of our brain as well. Left-brained people are supposed to be more analytical and methodical, whereas right-brained people are more artistic and creative.

For most photographers, one of these two areas is probably a relative strength; the other a weakness. But ideally, you need the whole package. Which is something we were exploring earlier this month in Porto, Portugal. Read more »

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2019/10/slc-2l-10-left-brain-right-brain.html

Apologies for how the lighting workshops announcement went yesterday. They filled within a few hours, and before many of you even saw the email.

Given that I typically only do the small-class shooting workshops once a year, I sat down last night and figured out a fairer way to announce them. If you are interested in perhaps one day attending, click through to learn more. Read more »

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2019/10/lighting-workshop-interest-list.html