Are you taking photos for yourself, or are you feeding the social media algorithms for brief dopamine hits when someone praises your images? In this episode, Kirk and Jeff ruminate on how the endless scroll of images is affecting how we enjoy and make photos. And we ask ourselves: what do we really want to photograph?

Hosts:

Show Notes:

(View show notes with images at PhotoActive.co)

Snapshots:

Subscribe to the PhotoActive podcast newsletter at the bottom of any page at the PhotoActive web site to be notified of new episodes and be eligible for occasional giveaways. If you’ve already subscribed, you’re automatically entered.

If you like the show, please subscribe in iTunes/Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app, and please rate the podcast. And don't forget to join the PhotoActive Facebook group to discuss the podcast, share your photos, and more.

Disclosure: Sometimes we use affiliate links for products, in which we receive small commissions to help support PhotoActive.

Don’t know what to photograph? No vacation plans? With macro photography, you can get great results literally in your back yard. What was once a style of photography that required specialized gear is now something you can do well with just your phone — though of course there’s plenty of gear available if you want to go deeper into it.

Hosts:

Show Notes:

(View show notes with images at PhotoActive.co)

Subscribe to the PhotoActive podcast newsletter at the bottom of any page at the PhotoActive web site to be notified of new episodes and be eligible for occasional giveaways. If you’ve already subscribed, you’re automatically entered.

If you like the show, please subscribe in iTunes/Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app, and please rate the podcast. And don't forget to join the PhotoActive Facebook group to discuss the podcast, share your photos, and more.

Disclosure: Sometimes we use affiliate links for products, in which we receive small commissions to help support PhotoActive.

Fujifilm’s new X-Half camera is a curious hybrid: a digital camera with analog feel but a modern price. We also discuss news of OM Systems possibly using AI upscaling in future cameras to boost resolution and look at a few changes in the latest versions of Lightroom.

Hosts:

Show Notes:

(View show notes with images at PhotoActive.co)

Subscribe to the PhotoActive podcast newsletter at the bottom of any page at the PhotoActive web site to be notified of new episodes and be eligible for occasional giveaways. If you’ve already subscribed, you’re automatically entered.

If you like the show, please subscribe in iTunes/Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app, and please rate the podcast. And don't forget to join the PhotoActive Facebook group to discuss the podcast, share your photos, and more.

Disclosure: Sometimes we use affiliate links for products, in which we receive small commissions to help support PhotoActive.

It’s the night before you leave for vacation and you need to choose which camera gear goes and stays. Do you reach for the 300mm telephoto, knowing it can get great photos but is large and bulky? Or do you take the smallest camera you can carry to ensure you have it with you at all times? And what else needs to come along? In this episode, Jeff and Kirk think about being on vacation, equipment they’ve taken on past trips, and what they would take now.

Hosts:

Show Notes:

(View show notes with images at PhotoActive.co)

Snapshots:

Subscribe to the PhotoActive podcast newsletter at the bottom of any page at the PhotoActive web site to be notified of new episodes and be eligible for occasional giveaways. If you’ve already subscribed, you’re automatically entered.

If you like the show, please subscribe in iTunes/Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app, and please rate the podcast. And don't forget to join the PhotoActive Facebook group to discuss the podcast, share your photos, and more.

Disclosure: Sometimes we use affiliate links for products, in which we receive small commissions to help support PhotoActive.

Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference is always the first glimpse at what we can look forward to with new Apple software, including a peek at the photo capabilities of the next iPhones. And with iOS 26 and the Liquid Glass interface, things are going to look a lot different in the fall.

Hosts:

Show Notes:

(View show notes with images at PhotoActive.co)

Subscribe to the PhotoActive podcast newsletter at the bottom of any page at the PhotoActive web site to be notified of new episodes and be eligible for occasional giveaways. If you’ve already subscribed, you’re automatically entered.

If you like the show, please subscribe in iTunes/Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app, and please rate the podcast. And don't forget to join the PhotoActive Facebook group to discuss the podcast, share your photos, and more.

Disclosure: Sometimes we use affiliate links for products, in which we receive small commissions to help support PhotoActive.

We know, it seems like we just talked about AI in photography, but the field is moving pretty fast. Google announced improvements to their generative AI models, which are both impressive and sloppy at the same time. We also look at new AI-based landscape masking tools in Lightroom, speculate on what WWDC could bring to Apple’s Photo app, and more.

Hosts:

Show Notes:

(View show notes with images at PhotoActive.co)

Snapshots:

Subscribe to the PhotoActive podcast newsletter at the bottom of any page at the PhotoActive web site to be notified of new episodes and be eligible for occasional giveaways. If you’ve already subscribed, you’re automatically entered.

If you like the show, please subscribe in iTunes/Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app, and please rate the podcast. And don't forget to join the PhotoActive Facebook group to discuss the podcast, share your photos, and more.

Disclosure: Sometimes we use affiliate links for products, in which we receive small commissions to help support PhotoActive.

It’s another photo book! We’re joined by photographer Markus Naarttijärvi and publisher Daniel Agee to talk about Markus’s new book A Surrender. When we last talked to Daniel, he was at photo service Glass, but now he’s struck out on his own to form the publishing company Good Fight, and A Surrender is the first title.

Hosts:

Guests:

Show Notes:

(View show notes with images at PhotoActive.co)

Subscribe to the PhotoActive podcast newsletter at the bottom of any page at the PhotoActive web site to be notified of new episodes and be eligible for occasional giveaways. If you’ve already subscribed, you’re automatically entered.

If you like the show, please subscribe in iTunes/Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app, and please rate the podcast. And don't forget to join the PhotoActive Facebook group to discuss the podcast, share your photos, and more.

Disclosure: Sometimes we use affiliate links for products, in which we receive small commissions to help support PhotoActive.

Quintin Lake traversed the Coast of Britain over several years, photographing and documenting the journey. Now, he’s turned his well-received project into a new photo book called The Perimeter. We welcome Quintin back to PhotoActive not just as a guest, but as an in-person guest with Kirk in his house in the UK.

Hosts:

Show Notes:

(View show notes with images at PhotoActive.co)

The Book:

The Project:

Subscribe to the PhotoActive podcast newsletter at the bottom of any page at the PhotoActive web site to be notified of new episodes and be eligible for occasional giveaways. If you’ve already subscribed, you’re automatically entered.

If you like the show, please subscribe in iTunes/Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app, and please rate the podcast. And don't forget to join the PhotoActive Facebook group to discuss the podcast, share your photos, and more.

Disclosure: Sometimes we use affiliate links for products, in which we receive small commissions to help support PhotoActive.

The US government has begun to impose high tariffs on goods brought in from nearly every country in the world. Since most camera gear is made in Japan and China, what does this mean for the industry and, more important, for your own purchasing decisions? Since the policies are changing by the day, we decided to release this episode a week early.

Hosts:

Show Notes:

(View show notes with images at PhotoActive.co)

Subscribe to the PhotoActive podcast newsletter at the bottom of any page at the PhotoActive web site to be notified of new episodes and be eligible for occasional giveaways. If you’ve already subscribed, you’re automatically entered.

If you like the show, please subscribe in iTunes/Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app, and please rate the podcast. And don't forget to join the PhotoActive Facebook group to discuss the podcast, share your photos, and more.

Disclosure: Sometimes we use affiliate links for products, in which we receive small commissions to help support PhotoActive.

With the bonkers success of the Fujifilm X100VI, it seemed only a matter of time before Fuji made a compact camera based around its GFX medium format line. That’s the recently-announced GFX100RF, a new compact-ish, 100 megapixel, fixed-lens, $5,000 camera. We look at the inventions and the tradeoffs incorporated into this high-res entrant into the compact field.

(Image: Fujifilm)

Hosts:

Show Notes:

(View show notes with images at PhotoActive.co)

Subscribe to the PhotoActive podcast newsletter at the bottom of any page at the PhotoActive web site to be notified of new episodes and be eligible for occasional giveaways. If you’ve already subscribed, you’re automatically entered.

If you like the show, please subscribe in iTunes/Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app, and please rate the podcast. And don't forget to join the PhotoActive Facebook group to discuss the podcast, share your photos, and more.

Disclosure: Sometimes we use affiliate links for products, in which we receive small commissions to help support PhotoActive.