I arrived in Dubai on Friday morning, but didn't manage to get out shooting until yesterday afternoon. I took a trip to the Palm Jumeirah, with my good friends Catalin Marin and Robin Nichols, and while my pre-twilight shots aren't great, I'm pleased with at least three of the ones I shot after sunset. I'm not sure if I'll post all three: the post-production is quite different for each one, but they share much the same content. I'll see.

And if you're interested, the original (Camera Raw default version) is here:

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And I would write more, but I have some work to do this afternoon, after which I'm heading off to the Mall of the Emirates to attend the opening night of the in the blink of an eye' exhibition (which features six of my beachcombing images). The other photographers who are exhibiting their work are Joe McNally, Joey L, Melissa Rodwell, Steve Simon and Zack Arias, so I'm definitely feeling honoured that I was asked to take part.

After that it will be time to hit the sack as my first GPP workshop kicks off bright and early at 8.00am ... and I'm so not a morning person ;) I am looking forward to it though :)

This one was taken from the same vantage point as my shot towards our village, and while there was definitely something about it that I liked, the original composition didn't work:

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Once I decided to alter the crop ratio though (from 4x3 to 16x9), flip the image horizontally, and darken and tone the image, I was a lot happier with it. As always, let me know what you think.

This is the second of my 'winter lake' shots, and in many ways I suspect that it might be my favourite. Compositionally, it's not the strongest of the four I'll be posting, but it's the only one I could get to work in colour. As with my previous shot, there was nothing especially complex about the postproduction, but I did spend quite a bit of time amending the colour palette to give a more 'accurate' impression of winter. I also spent quite a bit of time cloning out the power lines, as you can see from the original:

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Let me know if you prefer this one to my previous entry.

And finally, this is just a quick reminder that we are currently offering a 15% discount on our Photoshop tutorials (up until January 1st of next year). Further info here:

http://www.chromasia.com/tutorials/online/

Both the previous two shots that I posted, this one, and the next one, were taken during my landscape workshop at the recent Gulf Photo Plus Fotoweekend. One of the the things that I asked the students to do was to bring along some props. Some brought sunglasses, or flip-flops, or other items that you might relate to being in a desert, but one student brought a plastic dinosaur and a miniature Spider Man. Initially, I was a bit sceptical - there isn't much of a link between the desert and a cartoon super hero - but after seeing the shots I think it was a pretty good idea :)

Incidentally, if you've wondering why Spider Man is buried quite so far into the sand, take a look at this shot of one of my students:

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As you can see, it was rather windy :)

This is probably the last of the shots I'll be putting up from the wedding I shot in Venice a few weeks ago, and while it's not my favourite of the various ones I've posted, I am pleased with how it turned out as it was shot in less than favourable circumstances, i.e. back-lit, low light, and so on.

On a different matter: my apologies for not posting much recently, but as many of you know, I'm currently home-alone with the kids, while Libby is back in the UK waiting for our latest daughter to make an appearance. She's not due until the 11th of November, and they won't be able to fly back to Bulgaria for two weeks after that, so my updates might be rather infrequent between now and then.

I will be heading out to Dubai again though - November 19-22 - as I'm one of the instructors at the GPP Fotoweek event, alongside Bobbi Lane, Robin Nichols, David Tejada, and Chris Hurtt. It should be a great event, and if you're interested in attending, there's a full list of all the workshops here:

http://www.gulfphotoplus.com/fotoweekend-workshops.php

I still haven't managed to get out and shoot any new material so thought I'd post a follow-up to my previous entry, i.e. another mosaic constructed using MacOSaiX. This one is based on one of my favourite beachombing shots, there's nothing on: a shot of an old television that John Washington and I photographed back in 2005.

If you're thinking of trying this process, using either MacOSaiX (for Mac) or AndreaMosaic (for PC), you will probably find that most of your attempts aren't great. For example, I've tried using at least 20 of my own images as the basis for a mosaic, and have only liked two of them, i.e. this one and my previous mosaic portrait. Part of the problem, in my case at least, is that I just don't have enough images to construct a convincing mosaic, at least not without using the same images more than once. As I've been trying to avoid this – by using each of the 1600+ images I've posted on chromasia just once in each mosaic – most of my attempts have ended up looking far too random.

By the same token, I've found that black and white mosaics work best, as each tile just need to be matched to the source image in terms of contrast and content, but not colour. Again, if you have access to a very large number of images, colour matching might work well, but with the images I was playing around with it simply didn't work.

What did work though, at least I think so, is the technique I used for this image, i.e. I superimposed the original image over the top of the mosaic, changed the blend mode to colour, then lowered the opacity to around 75%. The net result is that the contrast and content is determined by the individual tiles while the base image sets the overall colour.

As with my previous entry, I've posted a much larger mosaic here:

http://www.chromasia.com/iblog/archives/theres_nothing_on_mosaic_3000.php

Oh, and in case you're wondering about why this one was cropped to 16x9: I would have preferred to have retained the 3x2 ratio of the original, but the bottom section of the image was rendered last, using images that were far too bright for this area of the image. Again, had I had more images to work with, a 3x2 mosaic would probably have worked well, but just didn't work out in this case.

While Rhowan and Harmony both appear quite regularly on my blog, Tabby, our two year old, appears much less often. Recently though she has become a lot more interested in being photographed and will often try and join in when I'm shooting the other kids.

In this instance though she needed a bit of persuasion as she was in the middle of a game. And I would tell you what she was playing, but couldn't get a straight answer. What I can tell you is that it involved the huge piece of paper she had stuffed in her pocket, the plastic cups she had pilfered from the kitchen, and her brother's hat. Beyond that though I really have no idea what she was doing other than that she was having fun :-)

If you're interested, the original shot is here:

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As you can see, I mostly concentrated on increasing the contrast and lightening (and extending) the background, but I also spent some time accentuating some of the details in the original scene; i.e. the paper in her pocket and her eyes (as discussed in this tutorial).

I have another shot, taken a few minutes after this one, that I'll post on Wednesday.

This is the last of the shots I took with Theis Dahl the other weekend and, in case you're wondering, this rung was about 10" long and formed part of the internal structure of the boat I put up in this shot.

If you're interested, the original is here:

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In this instance the processing was extremely straightforward; i.e. a 16x9 crop, a Curve to increase contrast, and another masked Curve to add a vignette.

Oh, and this one definitely looks better with the black theme!

And finally, if you didn't read my entry on my previous image, our latest tutorial – Working with textures: part two – has now been published. There's some further info here:

http://www.chromasia.com/tutorials/online/wwt2_info.php

First of all, thanks for all the great comments on my last three IR shots. It was fun to try something different, so it was good to see that they were well received.

As for this one: it was taken on the same trip and I think that the object in the shot is the upturned roof of an old caravan or trailer.

In this instance the post-production was relatively straightforward, but if you take a look at the original you will see that I made quite a few changes:

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The most obvious change is I flipped the image horizontally, but you will also notice that the roof and foreground are quite a bit brighter in the final version. In this case I used Photomatix Pro to produce a pseudo-HDR version (as described in this tutorial), which I then blended with the original image. The final changes involved toning the image, as discussed in this tutorial, and a 16x9 crop.

As always, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

This is a shot of one of the students who took part in my landscape course at the recent GPP Training event.

I don't have a great deal to say about this one other than to let you know that it's mostly a straight shot: and if you're not sure what you're looking at, the windows are a reflection in another window, and the colour is caused by an out of focus piece of abstract art behind the window.

One of the sessions I taught at this year's GPP event was a landscape photography course, and one of the shots I suggested to my students was that they shoot from ground-level; i.e. get down as low as possible and shoot whatever they see.

While they were doing this, I photographed them, and although this isn't of one of the students (it's my assistant, Ayham) the pose was fairly typical :)

It was the penultimate day of the GPP 2009 training event today and I had two one and a half hour sessions: one on 'unlocking the power of aperture' and the other on 'making the web work for you'. The second was a blast, and it was great to team up with Chase Jarvis and David Hobby and talk about blogging, photography, social networking, and a whole load of other web related topics.

The Aperture session was ok too, but got off to a bad start. The basic idea of the session was to provide a work-through of how to use Aperture to manage and edit images, but about three minutes into the session 15 people stood up and said they were in the wrong session. I assumed they meant they should have been in a different session in a different room, but the problem was that they thought the title of the session referred to aperture, not Aperture; i.e. the hole in the lens rather than the programme. Anyway, not a great start, but it did improve after that.

As for this one: it was shot on Wednesday afternoon during my landscape photography class and I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. In terms of the post-processing: as it was deliberately underexposed it only needed a slight tweak in terms of contrast, but I did use a Curve to tone it as the natural light was quite flat and grey.

As always, let me know what you think.

After the rather lengthy (and mildly heated) discussion of HDR photography on my previous entry I thought it was about time for something slightly less controversial and slightly more mellow: a shot of Harmony, partially obscured by the long grass in the sand dunes at Blackpool's south shore. And beyond that I don't have much more to say about this one but would be interested to hear what you think.

After yesterday's rather over-the-top HDR I thought it was about time for something a little less (over-)processed. So here's a reasonably straight shot, processed almost entirely with ACR.

On a related matter: I upgraded to CS4 a little while ago, not because I thought there would be any real benefit, but because I thought I ought to keep up-to-date for the tutorials. Anyway, the changes between CS3 and CS4 aren't massively significant, but one change that I do like is that there is now a post-crop vignette tool within ACR; i.e. you can add a vignette after you have cropped an image. As I often crop to 2x1, 1x1 and 16x9 this is a useful addition, and while it's an effect that can be easily achieved in Photoshop, it's good to be able to add it from the outset.

This is the first of two shots of this structure – a warning beacon, close to the high tide mark on Fleetwood beach – and beyond that I guess I don't have too much more to say about this one. I would be interested to hear your thoughts though.

Here's one last shot taken with the Tamron AF 11-18mm - a shot of Blackpool's North Pier, taken from about five inches above the decking.

Oh, and by the time this gets (automatically) posted I'll be in London. I'm going abroad for a week - I won't tell you where yet - so should have some new/different material to post.

As I mentioned yesterday I'm currently writing a review of the Tamron AF 11-18mm F/4.5-5.6 Di II LD Aspherical [IF] for Digital SLR User magazine so went up to Fleetwood this afternoon to try it out. It was a glorious afternoon - though rather cold and windy - and I got four shots that I'm happy with.

All the ones I'll be posting are partial HDR's, constructed with FDRTools. This one and tomorrow's were constructed from a three shot bracketed sequence, while the ones I'll be posting on Sunday and Monday were created from a single shot. In all four cases I've used the sky from the original shot (or one of the originals).

Of the four I think that the one I'll be posting on Monday is probably my favourite, followed by this one, then Sunday's, then tomorrow's - but I'm pretty happy with all of them.

Oh, and the only other thing I can tell you about them is that they were all shot with a 400D - which I've borrowed to use with the Tamron lens.

I would be willing to bet that Barcelona has more nice legs than any other city in the world. I may be wrong of course, but it definitely has more than its fair share :-)

I'm back in Barcelona again, for the 2008 Europe Photobloggers meetup which starts this evening. I travelled over yesterday, with Paul Hargreaves, and we took a trip to the Palau Nacional (the home of the National Museum of Catalan Art). I didn't get any particularly good shots, but do like this one – a shot of the waterfall in front of the building.

We have various photo-walks planned for the next couple of days so I should be able to get back to posting a bit more regularly.

I took part in the annual Fleetwood Wreck Trek today, a six mile walk over the sands of Morecambe Bay with guided visits to the Wyre Light (an abandoned lighthouse) and the site of Stella Marie wreckage on North Wharf Sands. When I got back I discovered that most of my shots of the lighthouse were terrible, which didn't surprise me as it was raining when we got there and the sky was dull and flat, but what did surprise me though is how much my legs ached - I obviously need to get off my bum a bit more often :-)

Anyway, my shots of what's left of the Stella Marie wreck were also pretty hopeless, but I did shoot a series of shots of this structure. As with most of my recent HDRs, this one was constructed from a seven shot sequence using Photomatix Pro.

I'll take another look of the shots I took of the Wyre Light, and the wreck, and will post something tomorrow if I can salvage any of them.

Despite the fact that yesterday was the longest day of the year the weather has been quite atrocious, and when we took the kids down to the sea-front this afternoon it was all we could do to stop them blowing away. Harmony (who's now five) just about managed to stay on her feet, but if I hadn't had hold of Finley he would have been blown over on several occasions.

As for this shot: it's a view you've probably seen before on chromasia, and while I'm normally quite happy to suffer for my art, today was not one for hanging about taking photographs :-)

I'm not going to say too much about this one as it was taken with a new lens that I haven't really had the chance to evaluate yet. Once I've used it a bit more thoroughly I'll post some more information, but for the time being at least you'll have to remain curious. What I will say is that it isn't an expensive lens, and certainly isn't the 85mm f/1.2 that I've been talking about recently.

Feel free to guess though ;-)

Anyway, new lens aside, I am happy with this one and would be interested to hear what you make of it, not least because it's quite different from a lot of the stuff I've been posting recently.

All the shots I've posted this week were from the Blackpool Pride 2008 festival, and all were shot on Blackpool's North Pier. This one, on the other hand, was taken from the North Pier, and as you can see, the beach was a lot quieter than the pier.

Update: following a couple of the comments below I re-evaluated the composition and decided that it would look better if the horizon wasn't placed in the centre of the frame. So, I've gone for a 16x9 crop this time instead of the original 2x1. If you're interested, the original crop is here:

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If you flick through the other shots I've taken of Blackpool's Central Pier you will see that this is a vantage point I've used quite often, and its one that I'll probably use again.

I thought it was about time for a change from all the HDR stuff so here's another one to add to the the beachcombing gallery.

I went out for a while this afternoon, but the weather was terrible and I hardly got any shots that I like. In fact, I only got this one – the rest are just grey cold shots of a grey cold landscape.

This one though, I like and, in case you're wondering, it is a straight photograph (with a bit of tweaking here and there).

As I'm putting up three shots from the Heat the Streets event that took place in Blackpool last night, and as tomorrow's will be called heat the streets #3, I guess this one should have been number two of the series, but I couldn't resist a different title for this one ;-)

And if you're interested, there's a slightly larger version of this image here:

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I doubt there are many more beautiful sights that the sun setting or rising over water but, as I'm almost totally non-functional in the mornings, I'm glad that I live on the west coast ;-)

By the way, this one looks a bit flat in Firefox (on a Mac), but much better in Safari - which correctly reads the colour profile of the image. Firefox, on the other hand, assumes a generic profile which hasn't done this image any favours.

Taking a good photograph is a strange business. Sometimes I can spend hours out on my own, concentrating on getting the best shots possible – and I'll come home with a series of disappointing images that never see the light of day. Yesterday, by comparison, I only went out for a short time, had to take most shots one-handed as I had Finley hanging from the other, and came back with five that I like (including yesterday's portrait of Fin). Of the remaining four, I like this one because it's a bit different, tomorrow's is Libby's favourite, the one after that is possibly the weakest of the four, and I'll post my favourite last (i.e. on Thursday).

As for this one, as you can see, the original is quite flat:

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Normally I try to avoid clipping the highlight or shadow details in an image, but in this instance I think the end result is a lot more interesting. As always, let me know what you think.