No doubt these are tough times - times that can get one down, emotionally and creatively. But heck, are you going to let a tanking stock market sink your digital imaging creativity? Hope not! However, if the winds have been knocked out of your creative sails, here are a few ideas that may stimulate the creative artist within. At the very least, I hope they distract your from the stock market chart, which looks like a bad - a very bad - histogram.

As a Photoshop instructor and author, I need to be skilled at using both Mac and Windows machines. And like most of my Photoshop instructor friends, I use a stylus and a tablet for maximum brush control. For my Mac, I use a Mac Book Pro, and I tote my WACOM table everywhere I go. For my Windows machine, I use the Lenovo W700 Think Pad. What's especially cool about this machine is that is has a built-in tablet and stylus. How cool is that.

I'm just back from one of the most incredible photographic experiences I've had - photographing the "blastoff" at Bosque del Apache in New Mexico with my friends from Naturescapes. I'm working on an article that will be posted on my site soon. It wiill also be posted on the Naturescapes site. Here is an expert - the prelude to the photo tech talk.

Just back from teaching for my 4th time at the Maine Media Workshops. What blast! My students learned: painting with light, low light photography, shooting with reflectors and diffusers, Photoshop... and the big hit HDR. We used Photomatix Pro to craft our indoor and outdoor pictures - my HDR image of the Pemaquib is attached. More of my HDR images on the HDR page of my site.

"Reality leaves a lot to the imagination" is one of my favorite John Lennon quotes. Think about it and you'll realize that it's true. I was thinking about this quote when I was photographing a pond near my house. I was trying to envision how the pond would look if I used Photomatix Pro from HDR Software on a set of seven pictures (each taken at a different exposure setting).

How totally cool! Vincent is the man. I will be adding Canon 5D workshops (shooting and editing) to my 2009 schedule. Hope you can make one!

Dick, a former RIT professor, adds: "I always reminded my students that a caption is part of the photograph, part of the gestalt--just as the choice of mat and frame, and the size of the print and the surface of the paper, etc."

Last week I had the pleasure of giving a short lecture at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in NYC. One of my Photoshop heroes, Katrin Eismann, Chair of the Digital Photography Program, had invited me to share some of my photographs and travel adventures from my books, as well as my philosophy on the all-important business side of photography. To start off my session, as I often do, I asked the students to answer this question: What does your photography mean to you?

The majority of famous painters “illuminated” their subjects from above and to the left. For whatever reason, we seem to like that kind of lighting. Here are three of my pictures that illustrate that lighting technique. Hey, if it works for famous painters and if it works for me, it will work for you! In very low light and at night, your eyes have an ISO of about 800. Mid-range digital SLRs have a high ISO setting of 1600, and high-end SLRs have high ISO settings of 1600, 3200 and even 6400! So in effect, a camera can see better at night that you can - so don’t stop taking pictures when the light gets low and when the sun goes down.