It was the first day of the 2010 Gulf Photo Plus workshops today, and I had a great time. I was down at the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), who were kind enough to host our HDR location shoot and, although I haven't seen many of their images yet, I'm pretty sure my students got some great shots. Catalin Marin has already posted his first one, and I'm sure that plenty more will appear over the next day or so ... including some of my own.

In the meanwhile, here's a shot of one of my students, taking an exposure sequence underneath the DIFC.

On which note, I'm hitting the sack as I have a full day in the labs tomorrow: HDR post-production in the morning, and ‘enhancing portraits’ in the afternoon. It's going to be a fun day :)

This was taken a few days ago from one of our bedroom windows and, while it's a bit of a compositional mess – it seemed like a good idea at the time – I do like the colours. What I should have done of course is gone outside with my tripod and found a better angle, but it was just a bit too cold. So, instead, I rested my camera on the windowsill, snapped a few shots, then went and stood in front of the stove for ten minutes to warm up again :)

Oh, and in case you're wondering, the dark object (top left) is the roof and guttering of the house next door.

I do have another shot of Finley that I'll probably publish later this week. It was taken a few seconds before my previous entry, and clearly shows that he was enjoying his sledge ride. By the time this one was taken though he'd been covered in flying snow and then crashed at the end of the run. As he's generally not the bravest little lad in the world, he was rather upset – as you can see from his rather forlorn expression. I should add though that a few seconds later he was fine ago, and running back to the top of the hill for another go :)

As usual, if you're interested, the original is here:

    .../archives/the_aftermath.php

In other news, the voting for the 2010 Photoblogs Awards has started, so if you are already registered at coolphotoblogs.com it's time to add a voting link to your template. If you're not registered, you can do so here. And finally, if you'd like to vote for chromasia, my profile is here:

    http://www.coolphotoblogs.com/profile3

And finally, I'm pleased to say that our latest tutorial – Digital Workflow: part five – was published late last night. If you're interested, there's some further info about the series here:

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

… more general info about the tutorials here:

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

… and details about our publication and development plans for the remainder of 2010 here:

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

From front to back, this is a shot of Finley (struggling a bit in the spray), Camilla, Harmony, and Rhowan. This is the first year they've been sledging (there's not normally enough snow in the UK), and they've all really enjoyed it - once they got used to the cold at least :)

That said, Finley wasn't entirely impressed on this occasion, as you'll see when I post my next image (probably on Monday).

And if you're interested, the original is here:

.../archives/back_seat_driving.php

There wasn't anything especially complicated about the post-production, but it is worth mentioning that I used Topaz Adjust to bring out the detail in the flying snow, and spent quite a bit of time ensuring that some of the detail in the snow to either side of the sledge was still visible (i.e. a very steep Curve and a mask for those areas).

One of the things I miss from my childhood is the winter, and while they were never especially harsh in the UK, we did used to have snow, sub-zero temperatures, and something that could be recognised as a distinct season in its own right. These days though half an inch of snow seems like an exciting event, and if it's still on the ground half an hour later it's akin to a meteorological miracle.

In Bulgaria, on the other hand, winter is a definite season – it's gradually getting colder and colder this week – and the few inches of snow we had a couple of days ago are still on the ground, with a lot more forecast for later this week. Unfortunately I didn't have time to get out and about today while the sun was shining, but did get four shots yesterday, all of which were shot at a lake a few kilometres from our house. I'll post the next three later this week.

In terms of the post-processing: I haven't done anything especially complex with any of them – other than attempting to give a broad impression of cold, winter, and so on – but I did extend the canvas for this one, i.e. it's not a 3x2 image cropped to be square, rather it was extended upwards (a technique I described in my Portraits: part two tutorial). If you're not sure what I'm talking about, just take a look at the original:

.../archives/winter_lake_1.php

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

On a different matter: 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/

Update: following a couple of comments, that rightly pointed out that the pylons weren't quite straight, I've reworked this one to correct the slightly odd angle.

My apologies for the lack of both updates and new material, but I've been rather preoccupied over the last few weeks. As many of you know, Libby is back in the UK to give birth to our latest daughter, while I'm still out in Bulgaria with the kids. And while it would be an exaggeration to say that I've been worried to the point of not being able to lift a camera, I have been busy running the house and preoccupied with: wondering when our daughter will arrive; how Libby's getting on on her own; and so on.

Anyway, the waiting is about to come to and end as Libby is going into hospital tomorrow (Sunday 8th) for an induction. Our daughter isn't due until the 11th, but there have been a variety of complications, the net result of which is that both Libby and the docs have decided to hurry things on a bit. We had planned on a home birth – which would have been great as we could have kept in touch using Skype – but I guess I'll have to make do with text message updates and the odd phone call here and there.

So, think of me tomorrow, as I'm pacing around Bulgaria, while 2000 miles away Libby will be giving birth to our daughter. Fingers crossed it all goes smoothly.

Oh, and if you're interested in seeing how things are going, I'll be updating my Facebook profile throughout the day.

http://www.facebook.com/chromasia

As for this shot: it's another grabbed street capture, taken in Venice a few weeks ago.

Update: our daughter was born at 16.45pm GMT on the 9th of November. It's only been a few minutes since I heard, and I don't know all the details yet, but both Libby and baby are fine :)

I'm pleased to say that Libby is back from the UK – just one week later than expected – and I now have my new 5D Mark II. I haven't had a chance to use it in earnest yet, but did snap a few shots this morning. I'll post some more images and my first impressions over the next day or so.

In the meanwhile, here's my first effort.

Oh, and this one definitely looks best with the black theme.

If you follow me on Facebook you'll know that I haven't had an especially great day. Finley, our almost four year old, hacked a huge lump of hair from the back of his head with the kitchen scissors, and ended up looking like he'd been run over by a lawnmower; Tabby emptied the cat litter tray all over the floor; a pane of glass fell out of one of the balcony doors; and Libby is still in the UK. All in all, it's been rather stressful.

Anyway, after mopping the floor and cleaning up the broken glass I took Finley round to a friend's house for a haircut. I don't have any "after" shots - he ran off as soon as it was done - but here's one that was taken while he was having it trimmed. Unfortunately, he likes his new short hair - which means that he probably won't have learnt much from today - but at least I ended up with something to blog :-)

As I mentioned, Libby's still away, but will be back late Wednesday evening with my new 5D Mark II, so hopefully I should have something half-decent to post by the end of the week. If I can find some time in the meanwhile I'll blog some shots of the kids, but don't hold your breath – I'm find sole-parenting a bit of an all-consuming struggle at the moment :-)

And finally, on a totally unrelated note: it's just over two years since we launched our Photoshop Tutorials and to celebrate we're giving away ten lifetime membership upgrades between now and the 22nd of August. If you're interested, there's some more info here:

As I mentioned in my last post I've writing a new book, which is now finished, so it shouldn't be too long until I find some time to shoot some new material. In the short-term though I'm slightly hampered as Libby is currently back in the UK and I have all four of the younger kids and one of the older ones. I should be able to find some time - in between referring, cooking, shopping, and so on, but it's likely to be limited.

I'm also slightly hampered by the fact that my 1Ds Mark II is broken (though I still have my 5D). I was shooting some material for the book, on 1st and 2nd curtain sync, and the shutter broke. If you take a look at the following url you will see that one of the shutter blades has become detached:

http://www.chromasia.com/misc/shutter.jpg

In other words, it's going to need a new shutter which I'll sort out next time I'm back in the UK. In the meanwhile though Libby is picking up a Canon 5D Mark II which she'll bring back next weekend. I've thought about getting one for ages, but haven't been able to justify the expense, so thought this would be as good a time as any :)

All of which leaves us with this image. It was constructed with MacOSaiX, from 1600 of the 1644 images that have been posted on chromasia, and used a portrait of me as the base image. The portrait was shot by my good friend Bobbi Lane, and is the one I use for my profile pic on Facebook and Twitter.

At this resolution it's a bit difficult to tell what you're looking at, so I've posted a bigger version here:

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

If you do take a look, it will take some time to load as it's 3000px square and 2.8MB. The base image is included at the bottom-right of the mosaic. I can't imagine that this is a technique I'll be repeating, but it was fun to put this one together.

On an unrelated matter: my good friend Adam Swords has just launched his new website. If you haven't already done so, take a look:

http://www.adamswords.com/

This was taken about half an hour after my previous entry, by which point Tabby had got rid of her brother's hat, the plastic cups, and the huge lump of paper she'd been carrying around :)

As with my previous entry, the original is rather flat in comparison:

.../archives/enough_is_enough.php

In this instance though, the post-processing was much more straightforward; i.e. I converted the image to black and white using the channel mixer (as described in this tutorial) then used a Curve to add the high-key effect.

On a totally different matter: I was interviewed by Michael Zhang from petapixel.com a couple of weeks ago. If you're interested, the interview is now live:

.../interview-with-david-nightingale-of-chromasia/

Having written two tutorials on the topic of working with textures (details about part one are here, part two here) I thought it was about time that I posted something that used the techniques. And while I'm reasonably pleased with how this one turned out it would definitely be fair to say that this is a technique that I understand more from a technical point of view than I do from an artistic one; i.e. I can do it, but am still struggling a bit with working out the aesthetics for this type of image. What I can say though is that they're a lot of fun to produce.

If you're interested, the base image is here:

.../archives/fly_by.php

On a related matter: we're currently running a 4th of July special offer on our tutorials and are offering a 25% discount on the first year's payment of an annual subscription or our lifetime membership package. If you're interested there are some further details here:

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

Update: if you missed our 4th of July promotion, don't worry, we're still offering a 15% discount until the end of July :-)

This is the second portrait of Harmony I mentioned, and I don't have a great deal to say about it from an aesthetic point of view other than that I really like her smile in this one :)

From a post-production point of view though, it is worth discussing in a bit more detail ...

As with a lot of my portraits, this one was converted to black and white using the channel mixer. For portraits of the kids I often bias the conversion towards the red channel (e.g. this one), as this lightens and smooths skin tones. In this case though I biased the conversion towards the blue channel. This is a technique I normally use for 'gritty' male portraits (e.g. this one), as it tends to darken and exaggerate detail, but in this case it just adds contrast, darkens her hair, and lightens her blue/grey eyes.

For older children, or women, this isn't a technique that works especially well, at least not if you want the portrait to be flattering, but for young kids it can be a good choice. If you're interested, this is a topic I cover in a lot more detail in my Black and White: part one tutorial.

Oh, and the original is here:

.../archives/I_know_something_you_dont.php

I suspect that most of you will prefer the previous shot of Harmony I posted, but I'd be interested to hear how you think the two compare.

On a totally different matter: when I was out in Dubai recently I met up with Will Pattison. If you're interested in seeing a few more shots of the city and its people, take a look at one of his recent entries:

http://www.barpfoto.com/blog/?p=897

They're all good shots, but I think my favourite is the one of the man sipping his tea from his saucer.

And finally: I'm heading back to the UK today, and will be there until the 17th, so expect some seascapes and shots of dull, grey skies at some point soon :)

This is the first of two portraits of Harmony, both of which were shot today. This one was taken in our garden this morning, while the second was taken in the park in Veliko Tarnovo at lunchtime. Of the two, I think I prefer this one, but there's something about the next one that I really like too.

In terms of the post-processing: this is a partial black and white, insofar as I used a Channel Mixer adjustment layer (biased towards the red channel) to convert the image to black and white, after which I lowered the opacity of the layer to allow some of the colour to bleed back into the image. In other words, it's very much like the first image I discuss in my Black and White: part one tutorial; i.e. the image is a lot lighter than the original – because of the way in which the black and white conversion was carried out – but because the opacity of that layer was lowered it's a colour rather than black and white image. To give you an idea of what I mean, take a look at the original:

.../archives/dreaming_of.php

As you can see, it's quite a light shot anyway, but nowhere near as high-key as the final image.

As always, let me know what you think.

Oh, and thanks for all the birthday wishes on Facebook, they're very much appreciated :)

Over the next week or so I'm going to start documenting our local surroundings in Bulgaria, much as Craig did during his recent visit, but in the meanwhile here's another portrait of Harmony – taken on a recent trip to Dryanovo monastery.

As with my last portrait of Harmony this was also processed in LAB Color mode rather than RGB, and the techniques I used are covered in the first and second parts of my LAB Color mode tutorials linked below:

http://www.chromasia.com/tutorials/online/lcm1_info.php
http://www.chromasia.com/tutorials/online/lcm2_info.php

If you're interested, I've posted the original here:

.../archives/untitled_0084.php

As always, let me know what you think.

As you're probably all aware, I've spent most of the last couple of months writing a book on HDR photography. Fortunately, the end is now in sight: I've written 41.5K words and have about 5K to go, so it will definitely be done by the end of this week. All of which is good news, because a) it's due on Friday, and b) I'm mightily bored with writing now :) The good news though is that I'm heading out to Dubai again on the 23rd - and will be out their for just over two weeks - so all being well I should have quite a bit of new stuff to post soon.

Anyway, as I haven't posted anything in ages I took my G9 to the park this afternoon - along with our four youngest and their scooters - and while I didn't get any shots of them I liked, I did manage to snap this duck.

In case you've been wondering why I haven't been posting much recently it's because I'm still ploughing my way through writing the HDR book. Fortunately, it should be finished by 20th March. Well, that's the deadline at least, so fingers crossed that I do manage to get it all done. Anyway, after that I'll be heading out to Dubai on the 23rd. I have a couple of commissions, which I'll tell you about in due course, and will also be attending this year's GPP training event (March 30th to April 4th). If you're in the area at the time, or fancy a trip to somewhere warm and photogenic, I'd definitely recommend you take a look the event, not least because there's a great line up of photographers this year: Joe McNally, David Hobby, Drew Gardner, Vincent LaForet, Zack Arias, Carol Dragon, Chase Jarvis, Cliff Mautner, Asim Rafiqui, Chris Hurtt, Bobbi Lane, and Robin Nichols (and probably a few more I've forgot to mention).

As for this shot: it's another one of Rhowan, wandering off into a world of her own. In this instance the post-processing is quite light; i.e. I just added a LAB curve to change the colour balance a bit (as described in part one and part two of my LAB Color mode tutorials) and used another Curve to soften the border by lowering the contrast in this area of the image.

This is another Lensbaby shot, of Harmony (our six year old) and her 'baby born' up at Fleetwood beach. I had hoped that one of the shots of her teaching her 'baby' to paddle would have worked, but I didn't get the focus right on any of them so you'll have to settle for this one instead.

From a technical point of view I think I would have preferred a slightly larger sweet spot, i.e. more of the image in focus, but I'd switched to using the f/8.0 aperture as it wasn't as bright as when I shot the one I posted a few days ago. In other words, I personally feel that this one is either a bit too 'dreamy', in which case a smaller aperture would have worked better, or maybe not 'dreamy' enough; i.e. I should have used a larger aperture. Either way though, I'm reasonably happy with how it turned out, and she does look cute. More importantly though, she likes this one, but I'd also be interested to hear what you think.

And on the subject of Lensbabies (and if you're a subscriber to our tutorials) I just posted the details of our latest competition in the forum. The first prize is a Lensbaby Composer and Lensbaby Optic Kit, while the second and third place prizes are Lensbaby vouchers, worth $150.00 and $100.00 respectively.

On a totally different matter, and I promise not to mention this more than a couple of times, voting has just opened for the 2009 Photoblog Awards. Any votes for chromasia would be very much appreciated :)

My apologies for not posting anything recently but it's been one of those weeks; i.e. too much to do, and not enough time to do it in, and despite my best efforts I don't really seem to have achieved all that much since getting back from our recent trip to Centre Parcs. Anyway, rather than spend another afternoon trying to write, and not getting anywhere, I decided to take Libby and the kids up to Fleetwood to stretch their legs. I also decided to take my new Lensbaby Composer for a spin. I've used various Lensbabies in the past, but never quite got the hang of them - the Lensbaby 2.0 was just too difficult to use, and the 3G was too fiddly - but I found the Composer much easier. You can move the sweet spot by moving the front element, as you can with all Lensbabies, but once you've moved it it stays put. The focussing is also a lot easier with this one; i.e. you focus by adjusting a ring at the front of the lens. In short, it's a lot easier to get exactly the effect you want without having to fight with the lens to achieve it.

I'll write more about it when I post my next shot, but in the meanwhile, do let me know what you think of this one.

Oh, and if you're interested, we're going to be giving away a Composer and Optic Kit in our forthcoming competition, details of which are available on our main tutorials page.

On a totally different matter: a while ago I mentioned that I'd be instructing at the Gulf Photo Plus 2009 training event in Dubai (March 30th to April 4th). If you're interested in attending they've just published the schedule as a downloadable PDF. It looks like it's going to be a great event :)

First of all, thanks for all the kind words on my last image – it's a style I think I'll try again, so it was good to see that it was well received.

Today's though, as I'm sure you'll agree, is more my usual style: shot this afternoon on Fleetwood beach.

Update: on a totally unrelated matter ...

I've just got up and listened to Barack Obama's victory speech on the BBC News site. Very impressive :-)

While a lot of my images are quite heavily processed it's rare that I combine images, not because I think there's anything wrong with doing so, but because I find it difficult to achieve an end result that I like. For example, I would love to be able to produce the sort of images that Mike Regnier creates, and while I do understand the process, I find that my attempts often fall short of what I would like to achieve.

In this case though I'm relatively pleased with the end result which was constructed from two originals – a shot of a mannequin, and another of a wall – both of which can be seen here:

.../archives/fragments_of_you.php

I'll probably produce a tutorial on this topic at some point, but think I need some more practice first :-)

Well, I don't know what sort of week you've all been having, but it's been a bit of a downhill journey at chez chromasia. Tabby and Finley have both got stinking colds and have both been waking up several times a night, so Libby and I are now half-dead, and my laptop decided to die on me a few hours before I was supposed to be giving a presentation on Monday evening. All in all, it's been a bit of a trial. Fortunately Tabby has been a bit better today, but Finley has been feeling decidedly sorry for himself.

All that said, we did manage to take the kids to the park for a while this afternoon and I managed to find a bit of time to try out my new lens, a Lensbaby 3G. If you've been visiting chromasia for a while you may remember that I posted some shots in 2005 taken with a Lensbaby 2.0, some of which I was quite pleased with (e.g. this one and this one). What I never really got the hang of though was the lack of control; i.e. the focus with the Lensbaby 2.0 can be continuously varied, but not locked. The Lensbaby 3G, on the other hand, allows you to lock the focus and, as a result, is considerably easier to use.

Anyway, this is a shot of Rhowan, taken at f/2.8, and the blur is a consequence of the lens; i.e. it wasn't added during post-production. And I know I've posted several portraits of Rhowan that aren't entirely dissimilar to this one, but it's a style that seems to suit her.

If you ever wondered what the footprint of a world champion skier looked like, now you know. This was taken outside the Olympic Stadium in Barcelona, alongside a range of other footprints, and if you're interested the original is here:

.../archives/barcelona_6.php

As you can see, I exposed to the right, to maximise the amount of data in the original capture (as described in my digital workflow tutorial), then used a couple of masked curves to bring out the details in the plaque and the surrounding concrete.

And finally: this one looks much more dramatic with the black theme.

I recently got hold of a new lens ;– taken from a Holga 120S and glued to a body cap – but haven't really had time to try it out, at least not seriously. I did spend some time snapping shots of Rhowan this morning though, and this is a heavily modified version of one of them (i.e. there's a lot of added blur in addition to the blur/soft-focus caused by the lens itself).

When I've got a bit more time I'll try and shoot some more material with it as I think it has a lot of potential, especially for portraiture.

As always, let me know what you think.

This is the third and final shot in this sequence: the second shot of Harmony and my favourite of the three.

I don't know what it is about Rhowan, but even when eating an ice cream she can look as though she's a million miles away.

On another matter: if I don't post much over the next day or so, don't be surprised. My server (a ReadyNAS NV+) has fried its power supply and I'm currently waiting for a replacement - and keeping my fingers crossed that the disks aren't fried to. Once I get back things back to some sort of technical stability I'll post more regularly again.

This is the portrait of Harmony I mentioned yesterday: wearing her princess dress and Stephanie wig. And you probably won't be too surprised to hear that I'm pleased with this one :-)

Once again, my apologies for not posting much, but things have been hectic - some of which has been great, some not. On the 'not' side, I currently have Rhowan sat next to me, who isn't at all well, so I won't write more now. I'll catch up with you all tomorrow.

As for this one: it's a single shot HDR of some torn posters I spotted in a shop window on my way to town this afternoon.

I'm not too sure that the humour of this shot will translate but, for those of you aren't familiar with the WKD adverts, the basic premiss of each one is that everyone, despite appearances to the contrary, has a wicked side.

Oh, and my apologies for not posting last night but I ended up wandering around Blackpool with a rather fractious Tabby who's currently teething, and by the time I got home I was too tired to put this one up.

As I mentioned at the weekend, my next tutorial is a follow-up to my first LAB Color mode tutorial. As such I've been using LAB Color mode to process a number of my recent shots. What I didn't realise though, until after I'd finished this image, was that I'd used a very similar approach to the processing I applied to the original snow queen image.

If you're interested, I've posted a colour-neutral version of this one here:

.../archives/blackpool_pride_2008_5.php

I have another shot of this guy with his partner, that I may post later this week, but I think this is probably the stronger of the two.

As always, let me know what you think.