How to Look Great on Your Passport

Fact: most people on the planet—including roughly two-thirds of Americans—do not have a passport.

Without a passport, you won't be traveling internationally any time soon. And even if you have no immediate travel plans, just having a passport is kinda like having a muscle car at a red light. You won't always squeal tires when the light turns green, but you know you could.

If you have never held a passport before, it's a neat feeling when it arrives in the mail. For perhaps the first time, you feel like a citizen of the world. Merely having the possibility of international travel is better than not having a passport and being guaranteed you can't go.

Even better, unlike your crappy driver's license or student I.D. mugshot, your passport photo is something you can control. So if you are gonna be a jet-set traveler, you may as well look good doing it.

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Hasselblad HD5 Comment Win.

On Strobist, I try not to merely echo content seen elsewhere. I just don't think rote aggregation adds much to the conversation. But I am making an exception on this Hassy HD5 BTS vid, which you may have seen recently on other sites.

That's because the video itself (which, to be fair, is quite cool) is not the subject of the post. Nope, this post is about a comment on this video from long-time Strobist reader Duncan Bell.

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In-Depth: The New Fujifilm X100s

UPDATE: I recorded a ~40-min webcam walk-thru of the camera's best features and how to use them at the bottom of the post.



Short Version: It's a remarkable, sync-at-any-speed camera with a no-apologies 16mp chip. I'll probably make more pictures with this camera over the next year than all of my other cameras combined.

Why, below.

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Welcome to The f/64 Club: A Front Row Seat at the 2013 GPP Shootout

Sure, the Gulf Photo Plus shootout might be fun to watch. But for the photographers competing, it is all about a week of anticipation, stress and nervousness. And come shootout day, all of that is on display live in front of an audience of 350 armchair quarterback photographers.

Below, the shootout video, how each photographer handled the stress and a challenge for you.

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BTS: Heisler Photographs Alonzo Mourning

Having just spent a week with Greg in Dubai at Gulf Photo Plus, I have now heard him express the following thought multiple times:

There is light you create that is a photographic reaction to light as it exists in the world, and there is light you create just because it's cool.

I think it's safe to say that this photo he made of NBA star Alonzo Mourning, for ESPN Magazine, is the latter. How he did it, below.

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Travel with Speedlights and a Smartphone? Get One of These.

I very rarely review gadgets on this site. But this is something that may be new to many of you.

When I travel I try to take as little gear as humanly possible. But the Tekkeon MP1580, seen above at bottom right, is on my must-take short list every time I fly with a camera.

Here's why. Read more »

2013 GPP Shootout Challenge: Photograph Greg Heisler

The Gulf Photo Plus 2013 Shootout just concluded, and boy was it a doozy.

The challenge: make a portrait of Greg Freakin' Heisler, soup to nuts, in front of 350 people in 20 mins flat. No pressure there.

Major props to John Keatley, who managed to not crack under the pressure and actually make a portrait of Heisler that was consistent with the slightly off-center Keatley style.

Completely seriously, I want a 16x20 of this for the Strobist Cave.

And here's the thing: Keatley didn't even win it. This year's winner was Zack Arias, who suffice to say has a brass pair for what he did. You'll definitely want to watch the video when it comes out.

Whatever you have to do to get to Dubai for GPP, make it happen.

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Genius: Make a Gaffer's Tape Key Fob

Like most photographers—especially lighting photographers—I love me some gaffer's tape.

Today, a great way to carry enough gaff on your physical person at all times to fix a light mod, tack a piece of fabric to a wall for a headshot backdrop, hog-tie a captured smuggler or whatever.

Get your MacGuyver on, below.

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PocketWizard Plus X Remotes Break the $100 Barrier

This is what I have wanted from PocketWizard for a long time: a sub-$100 remote.

Basically, the new Plus X transceiver has everything you really need—and nothing you don't. Full details below.

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