Joe Farace

There are lots of companies making speedlight accessories but what makes Graslon’s different from the others are the mirrors. Most speedlight diffusers work in a similar way: translucent material is placed in front of the flash head to scatter light and soften shadows, but many times that light doesn’t scatter and some gets lost. Graslon’s Flash Diffusers use a series of patent-pending mirrors that enlarge the light source before sending it through the diffuser. This allows the light to travel to the corners of the diffuser so that light coming through the diffuser is balanced and, well, diffuse. Two types of diffusers, or lenses, as Graslon prefers to call them, are available: the dome spreads the light everywhere (think bare-bulb effect) to take advantage of bouncing light off walls and ceilings; the flat lens is more directional and useful when you’re using the flash as fill in no-bounce situations. Much like a Zeiss Softar filter it’s covered in hundreds of mini-lenses or bumps that spread the light evenly across its surface.

When I was a student at the Maryland Institute College of Art back in the film days, there was a bulletin board near the school’s darkrooms where misplaced negatives were pinned. It was officially called “The Little Lost Negative Board” but someone had surreptitiously added, “Someday my prints will come.”

"Life is like an ice-cream cone, you have to lick it one day at a time."--Charles M. Schulz

On October 2, 1950, the first Peanuts comic strip appeared in a daily newspaper. Coincidently, October 2nd is also my wife Mary's birthday, although she's a bit younger than Snoopy and the gang. As a lifelong Peanuts fan, it's kinda fitting that...

“An optimist stays up to see the New Year in. A pessimist waits to make sure the old one leaves.”—Bill Vaughan

Why not make your 2009 New Year’s resolution a commitment to create a new website or update that old one you made when Coolidge was president? Oh, there are lots of ways to produce a new site. You can always hire a designer, if you can find one that will do...