I spend a lot of time thinking about my own photographic practice, but not nearly as much time doing anything about it. I have ideas for individual photos, for series I want to start or expand and concepts I would like to explore deeper. I’ve thought of different ways of printing and hanging my work, in case I ever get to show any of it. But when it comes to actually making the work, my follow-through is often lacking.

That tension was on my mind this week while attending Sony’s Kando event in Vermont, where Sony invited me, along with fellow press and other image-makers. One session in particular, Works in Progress, brought some of those thoughts into focus.

Works in Progress is modeled after National Geographic sessions, where photographers briefly present a single project they are currently working on in order to get feedback and find inspiration from each other. At Kando, individuals get seven minutes to share images or videos and a little bit about the body of work.

The session isn’t about gear at all; in fact, it was rare for someone to mention their setup and no technical details were mentioned. Instead, each presentation focused entirely on the ideas and images from a particular project they are passionate about and currently developing.

Abby Ferguson

That passion is my favorite part of the session: seeing people’s commitment to the work. Ira Block, a Sony Artisan of Imagery who co-chaired the session, summed it up well after the presentations: “Nothing is more inspiring than watching the inspiration of others.” There were remarkable photographs and videos throughout, but what stayed with me was watching people stand in front of a room and talk openly about the projects that matter to them. It made me look at my own work with a bit of renewed lens.

I could give a long list of reasons for pushing my own photography to the side. I have a full-time job and teach a college photography course. My husband and I just bought a house that needs a fair amount of work. My studio space is not really a studio at the moment, and it may not be for some time. It is expensive. I struggle to find the right venues, calls for art, and people to connect with. The list goes on.

Thankfully, I have been slightly more active with my art over the past month, and that feels like progress. I recently made time for a self-portrait that had been on my mind for months, and the process was deeply fulfilling. I also joined two friends to install a small exhibition at the campus gallery where we teach. Even better, the work I hung was from a series I have barely shown or discussed. 

Katie Tasch

Those were small steps toward finding my artistic voice again. They were a small flex of the creative muscles. And they also reminded me that I need to make something regularly, even if it is small.

I also need to remember the value of being around other creative people from time to time. I have written before about how joining local photography groups helped me find community in what can be a very solitary practice. This was a different kind of gathering, but it offered a similar reminder: making work can become isolating, especially when it keeps getting pushed behind work, responsibilities and everyday life. Being in a room with people who are actively wrestling with ideas, taking creative risks and sharing unfinished work can be an important kind of fuel.

That is what the Works in Progress session offered. Seeing what others were making and the care they were bringing to it gave me a burst of energy to return to my own work. It was a reminder to keep making photographs, even if I don’t yet know where a project is going, whether anyone will like it or whether it will ever see the light of day.

I know this session won’t be a magical kick in the pants that suddenly makes me create on a regular basis. But hearing that voice in my head more often can only help. And maybe my writing this can be that voice for someone else who also needs a gentle push to get out that camera or make some art. I hope it is.

Meet Lester Lefkowitz

Home base: New York State, USA

Community member Lester Lefkowitz is a frequent contributor to two notable DPReview forums: Fujifilm X System Talk and Macro & Still Life Photography. Once we told him that his photography and story would be featured, he also provided a really great look at his gear, which you can check out below. His gear bag has one of the most unique spreads of accessories we’ve seen yet in this series.

“A moderator of the Fujifilm X System Talk forum asked me to create a special post about the automatic focus bracketing feature of Fuji cameras, so I was happy to oblige. I enjoy discussing photography and showing my work in the community.”

Our ‘What’s in your bag?’ community spotlight series features readers sharing their favorite gear and photography, including from past DPReview collaborators. See below for what Lester has to share.

How did you get started as a photographer?

Lester Lefkowitz

“I taught myself photography while working on my college yearbook. After graduate school, I ran a technical and scientific photography service at a university with occasional needs for macro photography.

Eventually, I transitioned to teaching at the college level, then became the Director of Education at The International Center of Photography, and eventually went into commercial photography (30 years), specializing in industrial, scientific and medical fields (again with an occasional need for macro work).

Along the way, I was recommended to write a major textbook on macro photography (the bestseller in the Popular Photography Book Club, back in the day). Recently, I decided to make a total rewrite of the macro book, resulting in the recently published two-volume set The Manual of Close-Up and Macro Photography, Volumes I & II, which has become the definitive work in the field.”

What’s in Lester’s bag

Lester Lefkowitz

Favorite cameras(s): Fujifilm X-T4

Favorite lens(s): Fujifilm 80mm macro, 18-55mm, 70-300mm,
Fujifilm 1.4X and 2X teleconverters and a Laowa 65mm 2X macro

Must-have accessories: “I laid out in the photo all of the main accessories I will consider taking with me on a photography trip. There’s quite a bit of stuff, so here’s the list for your perusal:

• Raynox DCR-150 and DCR-250 achromat close-up filters and adapter rings
• Godox V350 flash with a X2T wireless remote and spare batteries
• Swebo focusing slide
• Vello mini-softbox for flash
• Gitzo carbon fiber tripod
• Benro geared head
• SmallRig cage
• Wired remote shutter release
• Bracket with a magic arm for off-camera flash
• And a bunch of plant ties, garden snips, a homemade adjustable ground-level pod and a rocket blower.

Not shown in the photo above: ThinkTank backpack (at least 25 years old) and even more miscellaneous items: paper towels, lens wipes, sweatband, sun hat, water bottle and insect repellent.”

Do you recognize these accessories and have them in your gear bag?

What do you like to shoot?

Lester Lefkowitz

“I spent many years with film, and then digital changed everything (I was a very early adopter), especially the ability for immediate feedback. As digital technology progressed, high ISO has become a godsend, as has modern noise reduction and sharpening. Though focus stacking is really the greatest thing to happen to macro photography since the invention of color film.

Macro photography requires patience – lots of it. Another strategy for getting a good photo is to experiment with the same subject, studying it from different angles and magnifications. DPReview folks: if you’re interested, I would be happy to provide examples!”

What draws you to Costa Rica?

Lester Lefkowitz

“Anything small is of interest. As you can see in the photographs I am sharing with you today, I enjoy taking close-up photos of insects and flowers, as well as seashells, minerals and fungi. Nature is amazing and infinitely interesting. But there are lots of things around the house that look pretty cool too when photographed close-up, like food.

There are interesting and unexpected things to photograph all over the world. Some worry that inclement weather will get in the way of their experience, but even then, there are many great subjects I can photograph indoors. When the weather is good, I go to Costa Rica. The variety of flora and fauna is extraordinary there – just be careful exploring around, as there are critters out to get you.”

Take a moment to visualize the scene

Lester Lefkowitz

“As I said before, macro photography requires patience – it cannot be done well casually. There is no such thing as a poor macro lens, and old macro lenses are often a bargain. Just start with an inexpensive set of close-up filters to see if you like the endeavor.”

Lester really enjoyed participating in this spotlight article and would love to hear what you think of his photography and to answer any of your questions in the comments below.

You can check out Lester’s other work at macrophotographer.net.

Editor’s note: This article continues a series, ‘What’s in your bag?’, highlighting DPReview community members, their photography and the gear they depend on. Would you like your photography to be featured in a future installment? Tell us a bit about yourself by filling out this form.

Adobe has announced a new collection of features for Photoshop, including one that it promises will let you do the type of processing you’d previously have to go to Adobe Camera Raw to do, without leaving the app’s standard workspace.

The feature is called the “Light Adjustment Layer,” which gives you control over brightness, contrast, and whites, highlight, shadow and black levels. Like other adjustment layers, it’s relatively flexible. You can use masks to have it only apply to certain parts of your image, and it’s non-destructive; unlike filters, you can easily tweak or remove it after you’ve added it. 

Adobe

As with many of the recent features we’ve seen from Adobe, this isn’t necessarily going to unlock new ways of working for Photoshop pros; most of what the layer does could be achieved with Curves and/or Levels adjustment layers. But it makes things that bit easier and friendlier to beginners.

The other major feature in the release takes that even further, introducing a whole new mode to Photoshop that strips away most of the interface. It’s called the ‘AI Assisted Editor’, and it bundles the tools you’d need to do some common and basic tasks into a simpler UI. The company says it’s designed for people who are new to the software and want to use it to make edits, but who might be overwhelmed by trying to figure out which tool to use, and by a layer-based workflow.

Adobe

As the name implies, many of its features revolve around AI. There’s the maximal version, where you just type a prompt into a box with the edits you want made, which Photoshop will try to carry out using a generative model of your choice, but there are also modes that use some of the other AI tools the company’s built into the app. For example, one pane will let you remove the background, and another will let you remove unwanted objects in your image. Yet another gives you access to the Generative Expand feature, which attempts to fill in the area beyond the edges of your image.

Adobe has also introduced other AI tools, such as the ability to have generative edits using its FireFly models only apply to a masked portion of the image, a “markup” mode that lets you guide generative AI edits with drawings and an option in the task bar that lets you type a prompt that will edit the entire image.

Related: Adobe’s new plan to justify its subscriptions: be a one-stop AI shop

Finally, the company has expanded the dynamic text tool, letting you create text that will adapt to a custom shape or path; previously, it only worked with circular, arched or bowed shapes. It’s also added a panel dedicated to Adobe Stock, letting you access the company’s library of stock images and graphics from right within Photoshop.

The AI Assisted Editor feature is launching in beta, while the other features will be available via an update to the app, coming for free to Creative Cloud subscribers (though, as always, many of the AI features will use some number of credits, which you’ll only have a limited number of per month, depending on your plan).

Editor’s note: the text of this article was written by Mitchell, which is who is referred to using first-person pronouns. Abby is credited in the article as she makes up half the conversation it’s based on, and gave input on its content. The lede image was taken in real life, not from a television.

It was a title and thumbnail that was bound to get my attention. YouTuber Hunter Creates Things’ video “The Internet’s Most HATED Photography Trend” shows a blurry picture and with the word “tv.” in red. Clicking on it, I thought it was going to be about shutter drag (“TV” being how some brands refer to their cameras’ shutter priority modes), a photographic technique that’s almost inescapable amongst photographers right now. “I can see why people don’t like this,” I thought, “but I’m interested what this person has to say.”

Treat this video as required viewing; the rest of the article probably won’t make much sense if you haven’t seen it.

That’s not at all what it was about. Instead, it’s about a trend I’d totally missed: one where photographers will use their cameras to capture what’s playing on their televisions, often producing an image that looks very different to the one originally broadcast. I reacted… strongly to both the concept and the video about it, immediately sending it to my coworker Abby Ferguson with the message: “not gonna lie, I don’t think I can get behind this.”

This kicked off a conversation that was interesting enough that we thought it’d be worth sharing with you. But first, a bit of background info for context: Abby has an MFA in fine arts, thus is more well-versed in art history and theory than I am. Meanwhile, I have a background in video, and have even filmed sports for television before.

This image by Matthew Johnson is one of the examples Hunter discusses in his video.

When I first shared the video Abby had, unsurprisingly, already heard of the controversy.

Abby: I remember when those photos of the figure skater came out. I also didn't realize at the time that he was just taking photos of his TV and was pretty disappointed. I have very, very mixed feelings about them.

I replied that two of Hunter’s comments got under my skin in particular: the first was his assertion that “neither you or I are qualified to say whether this is good art,” which both of us disagreed with. The second was when he said “The goal of sports broadcast television is not to be art, but these photos don’t have to be information-first, aesthetics second. If you think about it, I don’t think I would ever take a screenshot of ESPN, and put that on my wall.”

Mitchell: Spoken like someone who honestly hasn't watched a sports broadcast in the last… I dunno, decade. They're so well-produced now, and there's clearly artistic shots and compositions on display?

Related: Abby’s interview with a videographer for the Super Bowl Halftime show

Abby: I do kind of get what he's saying with that line actually. Yes, broadcasts do now have artistic shots and compositions, but they are still more in the realm of documentary/photojournalism. These photos (though I kind of have a hard time calling them photos), take a more abstract approach.

Mitchell: Sure. But if I took a screenshot from that and edited it to produce the same effect that the photographers have, I feel like people would rightly call that plagiarism.

I’m not entirely sure, in retrospect, that this statement holds water. It’s probably more defensiveness based on having been on the opposite side of the TV. Abby pointed out that things are rarely that clear cut.

Abby: Maybe…but in the art world there's a rough understanding that you can take someone's original art and modify it to become your own. There's never been a clear black and white line about HOW modified, so I think these would very much fall into the gray area. They don't look like the original broadcast, so they become something new.

I still have issues with it, but from a legal perspective, I'm not sure they would be considered plagiarism.

We both agreed that things get extra dubious when creators taking pictures of their TV try to obscure what they’re doing, or don’t credit the source. And neither of us thought that taking what is essentially a crop of an existing composition is the same as actually being there and deciding how to capture the scene.

Abby: It feels….lazy? Like he's just doing this from the comfort of his living room while the actual footage is from people working their butts off.

Mitchell: But yeah, to your point, there is an art to the remix

Abby: I like the images, I just wish his process was different. Do that on actual subjects in real life.

In his video, Hunter brings up the 1974 series “TV Shots” from famed photographer Harry Gruyaert, where he also took photographs of his television playing the Olympics, sparking a similar debate. But both Abby and I agreed that Gruyaert’s work just… feels different. There are a lot of potential reasons why. Maybe subconsciously we’re appealing to authority; surely it must be more meaningful when a Magnum photographer does it? Perhaps it’s framing. Gruyaert posed his images as an interrogation of the medium of television itself. Or maybe it’s simply technological. A film photo of a CRT television showing a standard definition broadcast with deliberately wonky colors looks nothing like a photo taken by someone who was actually there. With 4K livestreams, the lines between shots for TV and shots of it blur.

We more or less left the conversation there, as we remembered that we probably had more productive things to do. But it’s also easy to see why we wound up talking about a video that I had mostly sent as a throw-away: it, and the pieces it discuss, relate to a lot of hot-button topics in 2026. Ever since YouTuber HBomberGuy released his four-hour magnum opus on plagiarism, there’s been renewed scrutiny around crediting people’s work (further fueled by how many generative AI systems are trained on existing material), and there are still people who, during debates on what counts as art, bring up Marcel Duchamp submitting a signed urinal* for an exhibition in 1917.

That’s part of what made us decide to share this conversation; obviously, we have our own perspectives, but they’re not going to be the only ones. Consider this the start of a discussion, as we’d be very interested to hear your thoughts on the trend and Hunter’s video. Be sure to join us in the comments below.

* Whether he was the one that signed it is up for debate.

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I’m at Sony’s Kando event this week, where Sony invited DPReview to join press, photographers, filmmakers and educators from across its creative community. There’s no new gear being announced here, but the event is a chance to meet people doing genuinely interesting work across a wide range of genres. Below are five of them whose projects, approaches or images caught my attention.

Eli Reed

Calling Eli Reed a creative is like calling the ocean wet; it’s technically true, but wildly insufficient. He was the first Black photographer to join Magnum Photos, coming on in the early 1980s and becoming a full member in 1988. He was also a Pulitzer finalist for his photographs of life in a San Francisco public housing project, and he has taught photojournalism as a clinical professor at UT Austin since 2005.

The core of his work is photojournalism, ranging from Beirut, Haiti and Central America to a decades-long documentation of Black life in America. But he’s also spent years on film sets, photographing Tupac for “Poetic Justice” and stills for “A Beautiful Mind” and “8 Mile.”

Reed has been a Sony Artisan of Imagery since 2014, which is what brought him to Kando. I had the privilege of riding on a bus with him for an hour, listening to him tell stories from past projects and about the people he’s worked with. You can see his work on the Magnum website.

Wild Gina

I love the natural world but prefer tighter images of specific things in it over broad landscapes, so Gina Danza, who goes by Wild Gina, has an approach and a philosophy that resonate with me. Danza is a Sony Alpha Ambassador and Alpha Collective member who describes herself as an intimate landscape photographer and SciArtist, and her work centers on finding what she calls the “intimacy of nature.” In practice, that means a lot of macro and close-focus nature work.

During a panel discussion on this trip, she said she wants her work to feel like a fantasy, or like she’s a kid again. Her images are vibrant and playful, and I love the idea of seeing things with the eyes of a child, when everything still seems fresh. She also collaborates with scientists and shares a great deal of information about what she photographs, which, as someone who strives to be a lifelong learner, is very exciting to see.

Hannah’s Honeycomb

Speaking of macro and science, Hannah Alexander, who posts as Hannah’s Honeycomb, is doing remarkable work in the same close-focus space. She picked up a camera to share insight into beekeeping, and it grew from there. In 2021, she won a Sony Alpha Female+ grant to fund the Pollinator Project, documenting the lives and behavior of pollinator species through stills, video and high-speed slow motion.

An environmental educator by day, Alexander is deeply knowledgeable about all things insect- and plant-related, and she uses her photography to pass that knowledge along and build appreciation for the natural world at that scale. Her photographs of bees, insects and plants show them up close in a way we rarely get to see them. She’s also an ideal person to bring on a photo walk, since she can tell you where to find interesting macro subjects and what you’re looking at.

Criz Quinn

Heading in the opposite direction from macro is Criz Quinn, an aerial photographer and cinematographer who co-founded Aerial Media and serves as its lead photographer. She’s a licensed commercial drone pilot in both the US and EU, and she travels the world shooting aerial landscapes in some genuinely unreal places. She’s part of Sony’s Alpha Female community and won one of its micro-grants, and she’s also a molecular pathologist by training, which puts her in good company on this list.

Surrounded by photographers working with models and chasing wildlife, Quinn pointed out that she photographs “things that don’t move.” Though she’s underselling herself a bit: her subjects may be patient, but the light and the weather aren’t. If aerial work is your thing, she’s worth following on both YouTube and Instagram.

Becca Farsace

Lastly, switching gears again is Becca Farsace, who was The Verge’s senior video producer and the face of much of its camera coverage before going independent in 2024. She now runs her own YouTube channel, where, as she told me, she covers “anything with a battery in it.” That includes cameras and accessories, but also mobility aids, projectors and plenty more. Her videos are highly approachable and engaging, and an easy way to keep up with new tech or trends in the creator space.

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Samsung has announced the P9 and P7 portable SSDs at Gamescom 2026. While the company made gamers the focus of the announcement, both SSDs feature specs that will undoubtedly interest photographers and video creators, particularly since Samsung is a familiar brand among content creators. Both models are available in 1TB, 2TB, 4TB and 8TB configurations. 

The P9 is the higher-performance model and is aimed at workflows where sustained throughput is a priority, such as recording video directly from cameras or rapidly offloading data from multiple memory cards. Samsung claims it can hit 4,000MB/s read and 3,800MB/s write over USB4, which is roughly twice the throughput of the the T9 model, and says it’s the world’s first 8TB USB4 portable SSD

The P7 also runs over USB4, but Samsung says it’s designed to prioritize broad compatibility, with plug-and-play support for computers, gaming consoles, smartphones and cameras. It also claims the P7 has a drop resistance of 2m (6.6′), making it a rugged option for those who need it.

Both drives promise to deliver significantly higher throughput than previous-generation USB 3.x SSDs, and Samsung positions the P-series as a generational step up from the T9, which used USB 3.2 Gen 2×2, and maxed out at a theoretical 2,000MB/s; USB 3.2 Gen 2 drives top out at around 1,000MB/s.

Samsung

Do photographers and videographers need USB4 speeds?

Based on our own testing, whether you’ll actually benefit from the increased speed depends on your workflow, the volume of data, and whether you have a card reader – and a computer – that supports USB4.

In an earlier article, we directly compared the performance of a different USB4 SSD to Samsung’s popular T7 Shield, a USB 3.2 Gen 2 SSD that theoretically maxes out at around 1,000MB/s, and the headline finding was that while the speed gap is real, it’s context-dependent. In that prior comparison, the USB 3.2 drive wasn’t meaningfully slower when copying hundreds of Raw/JPEG pairs from a CFexpress or SD card, and it scrolled through 3,600 photos in Lightroom Classic without a hiccup, but it did take longer to import and build previews for that Lightroom library. 

On the video side, that earlier testing found the T7 Shield could occasionally struggle when editing footage directly off the drive, and that very complex sequences could slow to a crawl – tests the USB4 drive breezed through. But the application also mattered; Final Cut fared better than Adobe Premiere.

Price and availability

The P9 and P7 will be available beginning on August 31. The P9 will retail for $340 for 1TB, $650 for 2TB, $1,350 for 4TB and $2,700 for 8TB. The P7 will retail for $290 for 1TB, $550 for 2TB, $1,150 for 4TB and $2,290 for 8TB. Additional information and full product specs can be found on Samsung’s P9 and P7 product pages.

Samsung

Samsung P7 Portable SSD

• Starts at $290

With Ricoh’s announcement of the GR IVx, due out in “winter 2026 or later,” the company has also said that production of the GR IIIx, IIIx HDF, and IIIx Urban Edition cameras will end in October. It specifies that this schedule is for Japan, and notes that “ending dates may differ for overseas regions.”

The GR IIIx and its variants, which feature 40mm equiv. F2.8 lenses, rather than the GR-standard 28mm equiv. model, have long been a bit hard to get your hands on, facing frequent stock issues in the US. That, taken with the company’s citation of the “availability of certain parts ending” in its announcement of the discontinuation, means that this move isn’t necessarily surprising.

What is a bit odd is that it appears to be happening before the GR IVx arrives, at least by a few months. While production ending before doesn’t ensure stock will run out, it won’t help the camera’s availability issues if people who don’t care about the upgrades coming with the IVx rush to get their hands on them before they’re gone. There’s likely to be some extra incentive there too; the GR IV was substantially more expensive than its predecessor and, while Ricoh hasn’t announced pricing for the IVx, we wouldn’t expect that trend to change. 

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