The Journal of Optics A (IOP) Special Section devoted to the TaCoNa-Photonics 2008 is now available online at iopscience.iop.org. This special section is on theoretical and computational nano-photonics and features papers presented at the first International Workshop on Theoretical and Computational Nano-Photonics held in Bad Honnef, Germany, 3–5 December 2008.