Editor's Notes

Photography by definition is "drawing with light." It is creating a frame around a play of light that translates to a continuous tonal image. That definition helps identify one of the most important aspects of the craft, which is first seeing and then understanding how the play of light influences the image; how it expresses the photographer's vision and creates...

Whenever I need a visual shot in the arm I take my camera to somewhere I've never been, or switch lenses, or both. As this issue is weighted toward the exploration of optics, I'll focus here on the changing lenses part of the equation.

All of us have a favorite lens, the one that best expresses our vision, and that delivers the crisp images we...

The main focus of this issue is on our reports from the Photo Marketing Association (PMA) Show, the annual trade show of the photo and imaging industry held this year in Orlando, Florida. We had a large team of reporters on site, each assigned a number of coverage categories that matched their expertise and disposition. Their assignment was to bring you the best and brightest of...

It seems only a few months back that I did a similar obit/reminiscence on black and white printing papers from Kodak. The subjects of this month's eulogy include both film and digital passings, with one being a venerable company that has departed photography altogether. I don't write these items for morbid or even sentimental reasons, but to note the passing of an era...

While we did feature some crystal ball gazing in our December issue, I thought I'd use this space to discuss some of the matters we'll be exploring and some of the trends we'll be watching as we move into 2006. In the last year we've done our best to keep you up-to-date on the issues and changes that have taken place in photography, and there's no...

For this issue we asked our contributors to take what they have learned from the last year, mix in a good dose of what they might have heard from peers and manufacturers about what's on the drawing board, and come up with some predictions about what we might expect in the year ahead. Their essays make for fascinating reading, with each contributor discussing an aspect of the...

The news that Kodak is opting out of the silver black and white paper business should not have come as much of a shock, given the company's recent emphasis and direction. But it was a bit of a wake-up call. According to a Kodak spokesperson, the company has been seeing declines in sales of their silver product line for years and could no longer justify staying in that...