Jon Sienkiewicz Blog

My best friend’s daughter just left to study design in Europe and was given the standard litany of safety precautions by her parents. One city she’s visiting is notorious for street thieves—pickpockets and their ilk—so she was advised to be extra vigilant. I won’t name the city for fear of maligning it as a risky place for tourists, but I will divulge that citizens there eat more pasta per capita than anywhere else in the world. Lots more.

To say that the photo backpack category is a little crowded is like saying that a few people try to board the subways in Tokyo during rush hour. If you’ve ever been to the Land of the Rising Sun and attempted to take mass transportation around 1800 hours (6pm) you know what I mean. Hand-to-hand combat is easier, but probably no harder than trying to find a niche for a new product in this overpopulated photo accessory category.

A few years back, while waiting for a beautiful but thoroughly flakey model in the parking lot of a restaurant near Liberty State Park, my boredom was interrupted by a black Lincoln Town Car that slipped suspiciously past me and parked a few spaces away. After several minutes, two men exited the sedan. They were wearing tuxedos and looked rather serious. The trunk lid popped open. Ignoring me completely, they rummaged through the trunk. One of the men removed his tux jacket and strapped on a large black holster. A moment later, the other did the same. I slid down in my seat, wondering if I was about to witness some weird reenactment of High Noon, right there in Jersey City.

The concept isn’t new. Gamers have been using dedicated yokes, rudder pedals and throttles with Flight Simulator and aerial combat games for at least three decades. Even Super Mario racing games can be purchased with steering wheel controllers. But the Palette Kit from Canadian firm Palette is the most comprehensive set of alternative input hardware interfaces for Lightroom and Photoshop ever. 

Ever wish you could make the sky more blue without changing the foreground color and without tweaking the image with software? Or maybe give a daytime shot that sunset look? Welcome to the world of square graduated filters. Welcome to the world of Cokin.

Raise your hand if you’ve ever taken a flash photo and wished a) it wasn’t so washed out, b) it didn’t have those harsh, black shadows behind the subject, c) it wasn’t so bluish all over, or d) it were possible to do it all over again because the results just plain sucked. Does this picture sound familiar? You need a flash modifier. In fact, you may need a BounceLite.

If you’ve ever taken something apart to make it better, or enjoyed building something from Lego bricks, you’re going to love the Platypod Pro. It’s the world’s most compact base for a tripod head, according to its label, but that’s selling it short—it’s really much cooler than that.