Neil Armstrong was an inspiration to countless numbers of people, myself included. He embodied the human spirit of exploration. He never viewed himself as a hero—even said of himself that he was a "test pilot, not an adventurer"—but was still considered to be one by many. I can remember being fascinated as a child, staring up at the moon and thinking people had walked there, had gazed down at the Earth while millions of others gazed up towards them. Part of me wishes I had been alive during the Apollo missions just to be able to experience the sheer excitement and newness of it all. Neil Armstrong during the Apollo 11 mission, photographed with a Hasselblad camera. For more of the Apollo 11 film images, visit the Apollo Image Atlas. "My gaze shifted to the stars. They had never seemed so clear—the trillions and trillions of them. Each of them had their own

Image credit: Shootsac Back around the time of Prince William and Kate Middleton's wedding, Shootsac offered a deal where if you bought a Shootsac, you got a Hip Slip laptop bag (normally $79) for free. Sounded like a great deal since I had been eyeballing the Shootsac for quite some time but was a bit put off by the $179 price tag, and I was in the market for a good laptop bag as well. The Shootsac is meant as a quick change lens bag to wear while you're shooting, so it doesn't have room for a camera body. It does however have room in its rear pockets for little things like your cell phone, wallet, extra batteries and memory cards, etc. The front of the bag sports three lens pockets that will fit even the Canon 70–200mm f/2.8L behemoth (even with the tripod ring attached) with ease. As advertised, I found it

This past weekend I had the pleasure of photographing the lovely Morgan Leigh, a talented country singer-songwriter from Southern California. This shoot was part of an on-location lighting class led by photographer Rob Andrew. Rob is a fantastic instructor and if you are in the San Diego area, I highly recommend his classes. This class was a great opportunity to play with different lighting setups and equipment. Morgan was a great sport, especially when the sun went down and the temperatures dropped! Check out the slideshow above to see the photos from this shoot. This shoot was also my first real chance to play with the new Fuji X Pro-1 in a portrait setting. These photos were all taken with the Fuji 35mm f/1.4 XF R lens designed for the X Pro-1, and I've got to say it's a beauty for photographing people. I'll have a review shortly on the X

For my other life as a planetary scientist, I ventured to The Woodlands, Texas (about half an hour north of Houston) for the annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference. Sounds exciting, right? Well, it is not only the place to learn about the latest happenings in the planetary science community, but it's also one of the few chances per year you get to see a lot of friends and colleagues that you only see at such conferences. Steve and Amy are fellow planetary scientists and good friends of mine. Amy studies "biosignatures"—markers in rocks that can tell us whether life is or was present—in relation to Mars. Steve on the other hand tends to work a little closer to home, studying lunar petrology (Moon rocks), although he's dabbled in Mars as well. He's also a great film photographer, having purchased my old Nikkormat FTn from me a few years ago and

Hello, this is Tanya, and thanks for checking out my blog! You'll find (eventually, as I add them!) posts broken into three different categories for easy browsing: Photo Shoots. These are behind-the-scenes posts about various photo shoots, as the name would suggest. Gear Reviews. Again, pretty self-explanatory: Reviews of photography-related equipment that I've had the opportunity to try out. You'll hear the good and the bad on everything! Behind the Lens. More personal posts about my life to give you some insight into the woman behind the camera. As an introduction, I figured I’d tell you three things about myself: 1. I love photography. Probably a given as this is a photography website. I remember being interested in photography ever since I was a little kid. Did you (or do your kids?) sell books in elementary school? We did, and for every book we sold we got “points.” I saved up these points so I could