Happy New Year!

Here's my "toast" to the New Year...

Sad News for fans of Holga cameras

The factory that makes Holga Cameras has ceased operations and will no longer produce the cult toy cameras beloved by many for it's soft focus, wonderful vignetting and quirky light leaks.

In celebration of the Holga camera, the blogger HolgaJen has invited people to submit a favorite Holga photo from 2015 to her blog:

http://holgajen.blogspot.ca/2015/11/call-for-entry-your-favorite-holga.html

I can't wait to see the images posted - I plan to dig out my Holga and submit a photo too!

Flash Photography

Looking for inspiration and help refining my flash photo technique, I recently attended an extremely informative hands-on workshop - Introduction to Nikon Speedlight Flashes - offered through Pacific Photographic Society and led by Larry McDaniel of George's Camera. We worked on various methods for creating better portraits using flash, specifically Nikon speedlights. My favorite was to take the speedlight off camera and bounce the light from walls to create a broader, more diffused light source. I created a cheat-sheet for the setiings to use my speedlight as a wireless remote light source controlled by the pop-up speedlight on my Nikon D7100. I can't wait to try this at my next portrait session!

The Digital Revolution

Digital Abstract © Wolff Studio

All around us we can see the impact that the digital revolution has had on creative endeavors such as art, design and photography.

One of my favorite documentary films,PRESSPAUSEPLAY, explores how this revolution has unleashed creativity and talent while asking the question 'does democratized culture mean better art or is true talent instead drowned out?'

Of course the digital revolution has had an enormous impact on how we access information today by a web search as compared to the past before the internet.

I was talking with a friend about this topic and we both remembered a time when getting information was more difficult. The business practices of professional publishing companies and journalism in general created barriers to entry, only accepted authors/writers got work published. Libraries, universities, and commercial bookstores were also in the role of gate keepers to printed information.

Now anyone can freely write and distribute their knowledge and ideas through blogs and websites. Of course this freedom also results in a wealth of information that ranges wildly in accuracy and taste. In this brave new world we have to work hard to sift and screen the information that constantly swirls around us.

But in my own experience I find that this crowd sourcing of information leads to finding better knowledge faster than my old methods of acquiring knowledge, even accounting for the inevitable need to sift through some drivel and nonsense. My hope for creative endeavors is that overall creativity will be enhanced through crowd sourcing. And enhanced creativity can help to create better art for all.