There's one lens that's part of my 35mm/digital SLR system that I have used longest, continuously now for about 40 years. It is a homemade single-element soft-focus lens inspired by the Rodenstock Imagon lens for large format cameras. There are more images in my library of photographs made with this lens than any other. But why in this modern, high-tech world of...

Paul Aresu
I had worked before with some of the other Explorers. I had even employed and trained one of them. But I had never before experienced the likes of Paul Aresu, a New York-based commercial photographer. His clients are like a who's who of dream customers. Aresu is a freestyler. He shoots just like all the commercial photographers you see in...

Judy Host (www.judyhost.com) only started her business 12 years ago but today you can find her working either in the home of a celebrity creating her award-winning portraits or in Africa documenting conditions in Rwanda and Uganda. By the time you read this, she may be in Ghana and Kenya or traveling to Cape Town, South Africa.

Recently, I attended several excellent Photoshop seminars presented by Software-Cinema.com. These were held in a large meeting room of a city hotel with some 200 people in attendance. Photographic images from the presenter's laptop were projected on an enormous screen, with great clarity and color saturation. They must be using a very expensive projector, I assumed. After...

It starts with the website, which is a key element in wedding photographer John Solano's business. John's goal is to be pre-sold before the client even meets him. "The ideal is that I don't have to show them a picture," John says. "I do that, of course, but the work kind of sells itself, and if they've seen it already, the selling is...

Photographers, by nature, love accessories. But sooner or later we all have to face the fact that we can only carry so much equipment. When I go out I go through a mental check list and include the basic equipment that I've outlined in this article. Please keep in mind this is my personal list; vary yours to suit the terrain, subject, and distance covered.

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Photos © 2004, Roger W. Hicks, All Rights Reserved

We fly less than we used to. Terrorists don't worry us: realistically, flying is still far safer than driving. But we don't like the hassle, three-hour check-ins, restricted carryons, frequent x-rays, and endless security checks. In that sense, the terrorists have made us (and many other people) change...