I’ve had a couple of emails from people in the last week or two asking me which blogs and sites I read on a regular basis; unsurprisingly, most of these are photographic. Some of you may find it interesting, so click away…
mingthein.com – (duh) I don’t know if counts as a daily visit anymore; there’s a window of tabs permanently open monitoring comments, the posting schedule, articles-in-progress, stats, etc…
Flickr – For several purposes: firstly, to take care of my own uploads and hosting; secondly, to look at other people’s images for ideas, or generally to get my daily fill of photographs; thirdly, to moderate and take care of our reader portfolio pool.
The Online Photographer – Perhaps closest in spirit to what I aspired to for this blog when I started out; however, Mike is a great writer but perhaps not so much of a photographer. I love his essays and esoteric discussions on the finer points of printing; above all, it’s intellectual but practical.
DPReview – Which photographer doesn’t visit this site? Reliable news and technical reviews, though these days I’m less interested in the numbers/ test charts and more interested in details of handling – admittedly, they don’t seem to be doing many reviews at all these days, and the site seems to be degenerating into a consumer-goods (phones? books? bad articles? check) blog.
The Luminous Landscape – Michael does some interesting work; not all of it is to taste, but it’s interesting to get a working photographer’s perspective on various things – even if some of those things are stratospherically inaccessible pieces of equipment, like Phase One IQ180s, for instance.
Amazon (referral link) – There are some pretty good deals that pop up (on memory cards, or hard drives, for instance) that make it a lot cheaper to order the ‘consumable’ stuff from the other side of the Pacific. And of course all of those rare photography books that you can’t get here. (Anybody else waiting for the softcover Kubrick photo book?)
Engadget – General tech news, done well.
Facebook – For keeping up with friends in far flung places, as well as interacting with the readers of this blog.
Thom Hogan – For intelligent Nikon-centric commentary, even if he did deride initial reports of D800 AF problems as user idiocy…
Sansmirror – Also run by Thom Hogan, but focusing on CSCs. I personally find this one a bit light on content compared to his main site, but interesting nevertheless.
Ken Rockwell – Polarizing, yes, but I find that he makes some valid and good points – except he doesn’t explain them very well, or at all, in some cases. More for entertainment value than factual knowledge, however; ensure your BS filter is set on ‘high’. Reviews are a bit formulaic (I smell a lot of template copy-and-paste).
Autoblog – I’m a closet petrol head (well, diesel actually) too.
Uncrate – A good place to see unusual design – some of which you can actually buy, too.
Innocentive – If you like a challenge, there are plenty here – with money up for grabs for solutions.
Rangefinder Forums Classifieds – Self explanatory. Good for Leica-specific equipment, and the occasional odd other thing like the Ricoh GR1-V which I still haven’t gotten around to buying yet.
Photomalaysia For Sale forum – Local classifieds; I’m slowly vacuuming up all of the used SB900s. You can never have too many flashes (I think Joe McNally might have said that).
YL Camera @ Shutter Asia used listings – Ditto above; except the quality and variety of gear is usually higher; YL Camera is my normal dealer in Malaysia.
John Sypal/ _valerian – Street photography, Japanese style, but explained in a western way.
Tokyo Camera Style – Okay, I’m a gearhead.
Flickr – contacts – You never know where you might find inspiration.
Aizuddin Danian/ Volume of Interactions – A good friend of mine who’s gotten back into photography recently; I’m rather flattered by the ‘Ming filter’ he applies to everything. Interesting read, too.
Thorsten Overgaard – An excellent photographer and good Leica resource.
DC.Watch – Japanese only site, but has interesting field reviews, news, and a slightly different twist on things.
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I felt so sorry when Michael Reichmann passed away. Since then I couldn’t find a better alternative for his articles. Most of the time I was reading articles on your website though – I like your writings in particular.
Since this is an old post back in 2012, do you have something to update now – any recommendations in terms of in depth review & philosophy on photography?
Sorry, nope. Most of the existing sites have degraded into clickbaited sensationalism (DPR is particularly bad here, as is Petapixel) – or the individuals have moved on to other things. The simple reason why is because nobody seems to be interested anything beyond equipment even though the more capable the hardware, the more skill matters. It’s impossible to build a sustainable business off being honest or philosophical as camera companies and retailers are only interested in you pushing the latest and greatest. Self improvement? Not so much.
Any recommandations for : Strategy, Marketing & Business ?
Honestly? Work in a consulting firm for three years and learn exactly what NOT to do.
I have that under the belt, but I think one should stay up to date on these topics too right ?
Practice >> theory…
http://www.americansuburbx.com/ is great
‘Critical essays, interviews, reviews of books and exhibitions, and, of course, photographs. Dedicated to the examination of photography and culture.’
Thanks for your list.
I find it very useful.
Good to hear, thanks Joseph!
Hey Ming, where is your daily watches dose? Fratellowatches of course, but, Monochrome?, Perpetuelle?, Hodinkee? Purists?
All of those, and the industry announcements on Timezone. But to be honest, I’m involved enough in the industry that I had other…unofficial sources. 🙂
If I might share,
Photography Life http://photographylife.com/ (formerly known as the Mansurovs). Lots of neat info.
Joe McNally’s Blog http://www.joemcnally.com/blog/ Such a funny writer and full of great reports from the field.
Steve McCurry’s Blog http://stevemccurry.wordpress.com/ So much beauty here it’s amazing.
David duChemin’s Blog http://davidduchemin.com/ One of my favorite photographers. I learned a lot from his writing on vision and the photographic process.
The Verge http://www.theverge.com/ Has knocked Engadget off my list for daily tech reading.
The more the merrier. I’m not personally a huge fan of Steve McCurry – his images look too similar – but he is competent.
I found your blog through a post on DPR about your Nikon D600 review, and your now on my daily reading list along with some of the others you mentioned.Flickriver(the best of flickr) is great
Another fantastic daily photo dose would be 1x.com. If you are not already familiar with it you definately should check it out!!
Thanks David! Yes, I do look at 1x occasionally.
Just a heads up: your link to Thorsten’s page might be broken, as I keep getting 404 error redirect to your site when I click it.
I enjoy Mr. Sypal’s blog as well, although my view of digital tech is not as severe as his 🙂 I didn’t know he had such a large following.
I’ll look into it.
Here’s another US blog you might want to add to your list, or at least recommend to your viewers. Mr. Beebe, who lives in Florida, writes frequently about his adventures with small cameras in a very folksy but intelligent way. http://blogbeebe.blogspot.com
Nice blog – he’s a very competent photographer too.
I like Nico van Dijk for old Nikon gears.
sorry, for got the link
http://www.nicovandijk.net/
Handy. Not a daily read though. MIR is pretty good, too.