Here are my favorite sites from around the world – not surprisingly most of them deal with photography. If you’ve ever wondered where I spend my time when I ought to be shooting, here is the answer. I tried to organize them sites into categories. beware – those are major time spenders.

Lighting

• The Strobist – a great site that deals with lighting and how to get your small buck speedlight to give results like the big guys studio flashes. (check out the lighting 101 and 102 sections – a must for every photographer). Alon with the Strobist flickr pages, this is the most valuable lighting resource on the web.
• Lighting Mods – A friend of the strobist. How strobist know-how comes to life. Plus some very cool non strobis, yet strobist spirited ideas. AKA home of the black straw gridspot.
• dg28 – yet another cool lighting resource – tons of articles explaining Neil’s photographing techniques.

Fun stuff

• Photojojo – It is hard to categorize this one – it is a mostly blog linking to fun photo related locations on the web
  
• Big Huge Labs flickr toys – a nice place to make nice stuff out of the images you put on flickr – put your image on a formal badge (yap you can create that official hoax press badge you always wanted – this is where the icon for this post came from), hang it on a museum wall, make a movie poster out of it or just make a calender. if it involves images and it is cool – it is there.

Reviews and more

• By Thom – If you use a Nikon and have not heard about Thom make sure your camera does not say Canon. Thom is Nikon, or at least the guy who knows all about them.
• Phil Askey’s site, A.K.A dpreview. Phil does a great job reviewing new equipment, his site is a treasure for photographers seeking new equipment

Tutorials

• Digital Photography School – A nice repository of tips to the novice photographer
• Sports Shooter – A site focused on fashion sports shooting
• The online Photographer – A site dedicated to photography with interviews, reviews and lots of good ideas.

Great DIY Places on The Web

• Makezine has a great blog for everything DIY (including a photography section). Be it how to weld without burning a hole though your hand or how to build a paper camera – they have it.
• Instructables is another valuable resource for the novice (or expert DIYer). they also host a DIYPhotography.net group.