LATEST ADDITIONS

While hiking an overlook at Capitol Reef National Park in Utah I came across this wonderful juniper tree as a storm was approaching. The tree’s gracefully gnarled and twisted bark tells a story of survival. The tree’s very existence is the result of surviving the storms that sweep across the ridge helping to form and shape it.

Nik Software’s Snapseed is a photo application designed specifically for the iPad. It enables you to create amazing photos with a wide variety of filters and tools. Filter choices include Grunge, Vintage, and Drama. Snapseed features U Point technology in touch devices, bringing precise selective adjustments to change lighting, color, and more by simply touching and swiping the screen. Snapseed allows users to enhance, edit, and share their photos via social networks, e-mail, and even print via Apple’s AirPrint Wi-Fi printing standard. Snapseed for the iPad is available on the App Store (www.niksoftware.com/buysnapseedipad) for $4.99. Tutorial videos are available at: www.niksoftware.com/snapseed.

POV—point of view—is what this month’s Picture This! was all about. We asked readers to send in photos made from sometimes dizzying heights to show us all how where you stand and the lens you use can make for some great photo ops. Readers responded with some very exciting images of architecture, nature, and even people made from above. The results might just inspire you to take camera in hand and gain vantage points that make us all see the world in a brand new way.

If Dustin Hoffman’s character in The Graduate were graduating from photo school this year, the advice he would be getting instead of “plastics” would be “speedlights,” and why not? When compared to a monolight, the biggest advantage of using a shoe-mount flash is that they’re small and portable, which means you can take them anywhere. Today’s shoe-mount flashes—or speedlights as camera manufacturers like to call them—are sophisticated, seamlessly blending natural light and flash as well as having the ability to group several flashes together, trip them wirelessly, all the while calculating the correct exposure.