Let’s rewind to a little over a year ago. I had just purchased the follow up effort to the Olympus EP1, the EP2. I immediately fell in love with the small format, high quality images that this new breed of Micro 4/3rds camera were capable of producing. Personal interactions with Olympus through their social media outlets and a few pleasant support calls left me feeling like this was a company who really understood the future of photography, so much so I actually wrote a post here on PhotographersHandbook.com about how impressed I was with Olympus as a company.

Oh what a difference a year makes!

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If you are among the new breed of iPad toting photographers these days, you’ve probably quickly realized that yes while you can add photos on your iPad, the standard Gallery software that comes pre-installed leaves little to be desired.

This is where Media Pad Pro by MediMobile comes to the rescue http://www.medlmobile.com/index.php?page=viewapp&appId=68

Media Pad Pro is a complete solution for creative types to organize and display galleries of Images, Videos, Music and Graphics, it’s the new world equivalent of carrying around one of those old giant portfolios.

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I know Twitter can be an information overload at times, but every once in a while I catch a post by one of my followers or someone whom I follow that catches my eye. Yesterday fellow photographer and Twitter user Seshu posted a link to websitegrader.com, a site that lets you analyze and grade your blog or website.

Now I was nowhere near the poster child for the public education system, so every time I see something that smacks of a report card it brings back some of that ol’ childhood anxiety. However what I found with websitegrader.com was a really useful tool for telling me exactly where my website or blogs shortcomings were.

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Minimalist Lighting: Professional Techniques for Location Photography
By Kirk Tuck

If you are looking for a book on super trendy hard lit portable flash photography this book is probably not what you are looking for, but if you are looking to to make bankable portraits without breaking your back or the bank than Kirk Tucks Minimalist Lighting is just the book for you.

The first 88 pages are dedicated to giving you a solid understanding of how to incorporate these little Hot Shoe wonders into your shooting workflow by getting them off of the camera and getting them into a softbox, shooting through a light panel and all sorts of other small flash trickery. Other topics include chapters on A History of Photographic Lighting, Accessories, Modifiers and even a very thorough chapter on powering your portable flashes.

The balance of the book is filled out with Case Studies of Kirks work over the years. Each page showcasing a different client and how the shot was achieved. Each study is complete with lighting diagram. This is the stuff I really love and I’m hoping Kirk’s follow up effort to Minimalist Lighting includes many more of these Case Studies.

My only real critique of Minimalist Lighting is that being a Canon Shooter, I wish the Canon Speedlite system was better represented. Kirk is a Nikon and Fuji shooter and most of the examples, including an entire section on using Nikon SB 600 and 800 flashes in remote mode were illustrated using the Nikon system. I wish there would have been comparable section showcasing Canon gear. Though not a deal breaker for me since both systems are very similar, it just would have been a nicety for beginners just starting out with Canon equipment.

All in all I think “Minimalist Lighting – Professional Techniques for Location Photography” is a great addition to every photographers bookshelf, either seasoned shooter who wants to learn how to lighten their load while still capturing top quality images or the Weekend Warrior, who is just getting into lighting and doesn’t have a 5k dollar budget for a traditional strobe lighting setup. I’m already looking forward to Kirks next book!

Order your copy from Amazon.com