I’m heads down on prep for Junction City this weekend so I’ve been saving some links for you, right under the rotunda of the Illinois State Capitol… Here we go:

¶Workflow  is one of those individual things that everybody seems to do a little differently. Combine that with using different software applications (like Bridge/CS4 vs. Lightroom) and it varies even more. Check out these two posts from Thomas Hawk – one outlining his workflow from a year agao (pre-Lightroom) and one from now (after switching to Lightroom):

Thomas Hawk’s OLD Workflow
Thomas Hawk’s NEW Workflow

¶Strobist points us to Gavin Hoey, who shows us how simple and easy it is to shoot water droplets with a camera, one off-camera flash, and a few pennies spent on a plastic bag, a tray, and a piece of paper – you know – in case you don’t have those things sitting around your house.

¶Steve McCurry, who took one of the most iconic photographs of the 20th century and is a National Geographic stalwart, is now blogging. This is a long term win for the rest of us.

¶Everyone who’s sat in on the lighting class at the Peoria Art Guild knows just how many $25 items you can buy once you start lighting things. True to my word, here’s a nifty and useful item that costs pretty much 2 x $25. I think it’s a little overprice – but it’s slick – for flashes and whatever else you can think of.

¶Speaking of lighting and spending your $ – Rob Galbraith reports that the good folks at Paul C. Buff are now taking pre-orders for the new line of Alien Bees – the Max.

¶Want a primer on how to light a group shot with just two flashes and one umbrella? Take a look at this post from David Ziser (scroll to the bottom of the article) on Lighting the Group Shot.

¶If you’re a bit of Photoshop junkie like I am, you might enjoy these FREE online tutorials from Russell Brown and Adobe. Lots and lots of ‘em. If you have a little extra cash, I also like the videos from Chris Orwig at Lynda.com – a ton of good photoshop material. The nice thing about Lynda.com is you can buy your classes annually or monthly, and if you do monthly it’s only $25. Just take a month off from life, spend your $25, and download and watch tutorials for 720 straigh hours. Nirvana.