PhotoActive with Kirk McElhearn & Jeff Carlson

PhotoActive is a podcast about photography and the Apple ecosystem, released every two weeks.

Why Apple? The company has been focused on photography and photographers for a long time—it has bundled iPhoto and now Apple Photos on new Macs for years, and it aggressively courted professional photographers with Aperture (the saga of which is a drama in its own right). Apple's photo interest ratcheted up with the release of the iPhone, when the company realized that the camera in a smartphone is sometimes more important to customers than any abilities to make and receive telephone calls.

We're here to share our passion for photography, both as a craft and an art. While some of what we discuss will be Apple specific—hardware, apps, and the like—many of our topics won't be.

We encourage you to subscribe to the PhotoActive podcast, join the PhotoActive Podcast Facebook group, and follow us on Instagram at @photoactivecast. We can be reached by email at photoactive@icloud.com.

Kirk McElhearn

Kirk has been writing about Apple products, software, and security, for more than 15 years. He has written a couple of dozen books, writes for a number of publications, and co-hosts several podcasts, including The Next Track, The Committed, and The Intego Mac Podcast.

You can see his writings on Kirkville, and see his photos on Kirk McElhearn's Photos website and on  Instagram. On Bluesky, he's @kirkville.com. 

Jeff Carlson

Jeff is the author of a ridiculous number of books, including about 20+ books having to do with photography. Most recently, those include Adobe Lightroom: A Complete Course and Compendium of Features, Take Control of Your Digital Photos, Take Control of iPhone Photography, and Adobe Photoshop Elements Visual QuickStart Guide. He's also written books published by Peachpit Press about the Apple Photos app and ecosystem, the iPad for photographers, and a few specific camera models.

He writes regularly for publications such as DPReview, TidBITS, CreativePro, Macworld, and others. He also writes the Smarter Image column newsletter about how AI is changing photography.

Find him on the web at jeffcarlson.com, on Instagram at @jeffcarlson, and Bluesky at @jeffcarlson. His photos can also be found at his online portfolio and at 500px.