This is a shot taken during the European Photoblogger's meetup in London in 2005 using the somewhat clichéd technique of zooming during a long exposure. I can't now identify any of these shadowy figures other than Brandon Stone, with his back to the camera in the foreground.

I've posted it now because I've probably processed it at least a dozen times over the last year or so, and while I've never managed to get it quite right (whatever that might mean) I do think it has something. So, to save myself from having to revisit it yet again, in the hope of doing a better job, I decided I might as well put it up :-)

This is the second shot of the movie poster I mentioned yesterday and, for those of you who didn't see my comment yesterday, the film in question is 30 days of night.

This is the first of two shots, both of which reference a contemporary film. Personally, I wouldn't have had a clue from this shot, but I'm betting that at least a few of you will know the film in question. Let me know if you do.

I took this one when I was in Germany last month, and though it's fairly abstract I'm not going to be offering any prizes for guessing what it is.

I was going to post this as a single image, and then I thought I'd post it in 2x1 format; i.e. mirrored, and then I tried this version. I also made a 4x4 version, but it did seem a bit over the top. I know this won't be to everyone's taste, but I fancied a change ;-)

This week has been one of those that I'd rather forget. Libby and I have both had colds, as have Tabitha and Finley (our two youngest), and while neither of them have been particularly unwell, both have needed a lot of attention. Tabitha won't be put down, even for a minute or two, and Finley, in addition to waking us both up for the last few nights, hasn't been in an especially good mood the rest of the time.

And the hard drive in my laptop died which, given that it's only a few months old, is really annoying. What's worse is that I lost a fair bit of work too. I didn't lose any images, but I did lose the latest bit of the Tonal Range and Curves Tool tutorial and some writing I was doing for a client. I've also lost around the last six weeks of emails, so if you emailed me recently and I haven't got back to you, please send it again.

As for this shot: I know it won't be to everyone's taste, but I still find this sort of material appealing. I think that what draws me to this sort of scene is the way in which the various scrawls, scratches and letters build up over time, such that what was once a clear perspex window becomes a mess of unintentional colour and abstraction.

Update: I had hoped to find some time to shoot some new material today, but it didn't happen ... and nor did the birth of our daughter. She was expected on Monday, so is now four days behind schedule, and still shows no signs of arriving any time soon.

On which note: if there are a few thousand of you out there who believe in the power of positive thinking, now would be a good time to use it to start Libby's labour – preferably some time during the next 24 hours, but any time over the weekend would do :-)

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This is the second smoke shot I mentioned yesterday, and I much prefer this one.

A couple of people asked how these are done so, if you're interested, take a look at my description for this shot where I explained the basic process.

What I didn't mention in my previous description is that I use a rather odd curve to adjust these images. Rather than a standard S curve, these use a slightly cursive V curve as follows:

What this does is remap the blacks to white, the mid-tones to black, and the highlights remain as highlights. And if that doesn't make sense, just try it. It takes a bit of tweaking to get it right, but it's an interesting effect.

Oh, and the title was my choice this time, though I won't be in the least offended if nobody else thinks that this one looks like a psychedelic guitarist ;-)

First of all: there's still no news regarding the baby. She's now two days late, and there are no signs that she intends to arrive any time soon. I guess she'll be here soon enough though.

As for this one: it's been a while since I posted any smoke shots, and this is the first of two that I'm reasonably pleased with. This one is Libby's favourite and I prefer tomorrow's.

Oh, and in case you're wondering about the title: it was Libby's idea. Well, she said that it looked like a poster for one of his films, and I couldn't think of anything else to call it.

Here's the second of the sand pictures I mentioned, and I think I probably prefer this one to yesterday's. As always, let me know what you think.

I went out to the desert on Wednesday evening, near Hatta Road, and now understand why they're considered to be such inhospitable places. It wasn't especially hot - it's winter here - but it was very dusty, the light was extremely gloomy, and though I'm really pleased I had the opportunity to go, I was glad to get back to the car and drive back to Dubai. Despite its beauty, there was something oppressive and alien about that landscape - dead, dry and empty. That said, I would like to go again, but it was definitely an intimidating place.

This is the first of two sand shots - tomorrow's is a bit less literal - but I do have at least two more than I'll put up on Monday and Tuesday. Tomorrow's will be posted by autopilot as I get on a plane at 1am on Monday morning and will be spending the rest of the night travelling home via Paris.

I know, it's remarkably similar to yesterday's shot, but a) I didn't manage to get out today and don't have anything else to put up, and b) I'd be interested to hear how you think the two shots compare. Personally, I much prefer yesterday's, but Libby says she thinks this one's a lot better. Let me know what you think.

Update: apologies for the lack of an update, but I've come down with a fairly unpleasant cold and don't have anything to put up. I'll try and put something up later today (Saturday) or tomorrow.

How to tell if you're a Photoshop geek ...

You're walking down the road and you notice some petrol spilt on a wet concrete pavement. You think:

a) that's pretty.
b) I hate this sort of urban pollution.
c) LAB color mode.

And if you don't get it, you needn't worry, it just means that you're not a geek ;-)

This one's for Libby too.

Like yesterday's, this is a shot of a rose, and there's nothing especially clever about how it was done. The roses were in a vase on our coffee table, lit by an overhead light (hence the long exposures), and the camera was on a tripod, two legs on the floor, one on the table. As for post-processing: this one has had it's hue shifted a little (the original was somewhat more orange) and both this one and yesterday's have been selectively blurred. Other than that I didn't do too much else other than adjust the contrast with a Curve or two.

Oh, and I don't know about you, but I think I prefer this one to yesterday's. Let me know what you think.

This one's for Libby.

This is fairly similar to yesterday's, and if I'd managed to shoot any new material today I would have probably posted that instead, but I do like this one, not least because it has a more organic feel, if that makes sense. Both, as it seems that it wasn't obvious, are shots of broken fire-glass in front of another sheet of glass; and both were shot in the same location as last Wednesday's entry.

This is the first of two quite similar images, both of which I like. If I can shoot some new material tomorrow I'll put the second one up as an additional entry, but if I don't manage to take anything decent, I'm afraid that it will have to go up on its own.

At the risk of boring you all, here's one more of my recent smoke shots, and while I still think that yesterday's is my favourite of the three, this one comes a close second.

Tomorrow, assuming I manage to shoot anything worth sharing, I'll put something different up.

Yesterday, I mentioned that I had two shots of this type that I liked and that neither of them were perfect. Well, I've ditched the one I intended to put up in favour of this one, which is as near perfect as I think this type of shot gets. You're quite free to disagree with me, but this one is exactly the type of image I was after: lots of detail, razor sharp (unlike yesterday's, which was a bit soft), and interesting colours and tones.

A few of you asked how these are done:

1. set up a source of smoke in between the camera and a dark background. I used a joss stick.
2. light the scene from the side. I used my 580EX as the main source of illumination for this one, triggered using an ST-E2 transmitter.
3. set the exposure accordingly. I used a manual setting of f/16.0 for this shot coupled with a shutter speed of 1/30. From what I've read, if you're using a source of illumination other than flash, you probably need a shutter speed of 1/125 or above. You also need to be careful to pre-focus. I had the camera about 3 feet from the smoke for this one and even with an aperture of f/16.0 the DoF is only 1" deep.
4. take a lot of shots. I took over three hundred to get these two. There were a couple more that were ok, but only two I was really happy with.

As for the processing:

1. invert the image. This makes the background white rather than black.
2. adjust the overall contrast using a Curve.
3. tone the smoke using a Curve, Hue/Saturation, or similar.
4. use Noise Ninja or other noise reduction software as appropriate.

And that's about it. Let me know what you think.

This is the first of two abstract pieces, neither of which are perfect, but both of which I like. And before anyone mentions CGI or vector graphics, they are relatively straight photographs. As for what and how: I'll post more details tomorrow.

This one was shot in the same location as yesterday's – one of the stairwells where I work – and used much the same technique; i.e. rotating the camera during the exposure. And while a few of you came pretty close in stating that yesterday's shot was a stairwell, none of you got it quite right, mostly because what appeared to be shafts of light was actually the metal treads at the edges of the stairs.

Today's, on the other hand, is a shot of the railings at the top of the stairs. On the whole, I think I prefer this one, but I'd be interested to hear which you prefer.

Largely inspired by some of John's recent stuff, I decided to try something different today, though I'm not convinced this is entirely successful. And if anyone, other than John, can identify what they're looking at (the title isn't a clue), I'll do them a print.

For those of you in the "but this isn't a photograph!" camp, my apologies, but I felt like posting something a bit different today.

This one started life as a fireworks shot. Subsequent amendments include motion blurring the original and producing four different colour schemes on a seasonal theme: spring, summer, autumn and winter.

As always, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts, not least because it's rare for me to post something quite this abstract.

Anyway, let me know what you think.

As you may have already noticed, the behind-the-scenes recoding I mentioned a week or two ago is now finished. There have been some minor changes to chromasia, the blog (of which more in a moment), but the major changes have been implemented at the front-end of the site; i.e. www.chromasia.com. I've added a front page, a page about the company, a galleries page, some information on licensing images and commissions, and some brief information on the subscription based tutorials that we'll be launching around the end of this month.

As for the changes to the blog: the most significant are i) the new pages have been integrated into the blog pages (hover over the 'chromasia.com' on the top-right of the screen to see what I mean) and I've changed the navigation a bit; i.e. you can now navigate backwards and forwards depending on which bit of the main image you hover over. I've also got rid of the javascript I was using to to display the image title in a translucent box over the image as it was causing far too many cross-browser problems. The image title now pops up in the nav bar when you mouseover the image.

As for this shot: it was taken yesterday evening. John and I took a walk along Blackpool beach (there's a shot of me on John's site tonight) and this is one of several reflections I photographed as we strolled along.

Update: well, so far (after 14 comments), the new design is either a "colossal JavaScript navigation disaster" or "clean, slick, polished and professional", or maybe something in between. Let me know what you think. Also, I'm aware that some of you are having problems with Firefox (1.5.0.4); specifically that the stylesheet doesn't seem to be working. I'm using that version of Firefox, and don't have any problems, so I'm not too sure what might be causing the error for some of you. Any suggestions gratefully received.

Update #2: I think the display problems that some of you have experienced are probably something to do with the fact that I've disabled two of the old themes, the 'dark' and 'grey' themes. For the time being I think I've got round this by forcing the main index pages to load the white theme overriding any preference you may have previously set. You can still select the black theme, but your choice wont persist between visits. This is inconvenient for anyone who normally uses the black theme, but should fix the problem for people who used to use either of the now defunct schemes.

Update #3: I've added some code to the index pages which should sort this problem out.

I did intend to be out and about today but woke up with either a stinking cold or hayfever or both and ended up falling asleep again just after lunch. By the time I woke up again the kids were getting home from school, Harmony needed fetching home from nursery, it was almost tea-time, the dog ate my homework, and so on.

Anyway, I didn't get out so it was back to the archives for this one.

To make things a bit more interesting though I thought I'd offer a free 9x6" print (of any of the shots on chromasia) to the first person who can:

a) identify what this is, AND;

b) either tell me exactly where it is and/or identify one of the two other shots on chromasia that (to a greater or lesser extent) contain the same object.

As usual John Washington is barred from entering as he was with me when this was taken ;-)

Update: Ains worked this one out about 15 minutes after I put it up. Clearly, next time, it will have to be much more difficult ;-)

Assuming it doesn't rain tomorrow (the weather report is looking good so far) Camilla and I are off to the beach as I have an idea for some shots that I want to try out.

In the meanwhile, this is all I have left to put up. It's not especially striking, and I must have shot hundreds of this type of image, but there was something about the colours and textures that I liked with this one.

I met up with John today, which wasn't unusual, but we were also joined by Eric Kelley who runs conomocity.com. Eric, normally based in Charlottesville, Virginia, had been over in Ireland for a week but stopped off in Blackpool on his way home. We toured a number of my usual haunts, and while I don't think I managed any great photographs, we did have a good day. Cheers Eric :-)

The last time I posted a similar shot to this one it got a mixed reaction, and I suspect this one will elicit much the same response: it's quite flat, there's no specific subject, and no apparent meaning. Two things drew me to it though. First: I like the history implied in such scenes: the various layers of what was once meaningful material, pealed away to reveal a disjointed collage of unrelated moments in time. Second, and this is a more personal thing: for as long as I can remember I've felt ambivalent about the union flag and the various echoes of colonialism and nationalism with which it's often associated with; neither of which I have much time for.

On a totally unrelated matter, londonrubbish.com is one year old today, so go wish Mark a happy birthday :-)

I'll give anyone who can correctly identify this image (in terms of content and location) a free 9x6" print. Three clues: the high res' version is a 32.74 megapixel file (so would make a great H U G E print), it was shot with my 20D, and the green isn't really green ;-)

Oh, and John Washington and Mark Power are both banned from taking part as they were with me when this was taken :-)

Update: Ok, we have a winner, and it's not JD with his monkey hypothesis (though he was right that it's the decking on the north pier, as were a few more of you); but the outright winner is Dave who said:

"Is it decking on Blackpool's north pier with a section of tram track?"

Strictly speaking I suppose I could argue that it's a train track rather than a tram track, but I suspect that that might be a little pedantic of me ;-)

Oh, and in case you're interested, there's a correctly coloured version of the original here:

.../archives/the_portal.php

And finally, my apologies if you thought the title was a clue. It wasn't ;-)

Update #2: I've just had a quick conversation with Dave and he feels as though he had an unfair advantage over the rest of you in that he also lives in Blackpool (only about half a mile from me, though we've not met up), so the closest comments prior to his (there were two of them a few seconds apart) are from Terry and Chris. I'll send both of them a print.

I'm never quite sure how abstracts will be received on chromasia, but I'm pleased with this one. Actually, I don't suppose it is an abstract – it's the grass on our local sand-dunes – but I've shifted the colour balance and I guess the 'real' subject matter isn't immediately apparent. Out of interest, can anyone tell me what this sort of grass is called? I have another shot of it here.

You wont be surprised to hear that this shot started out looking a little different to this version. Here's the original:

.../archives/things_evolve.php

As you can see, it's a reasonable shot, and I did intend to post it: admittedly, more for its architectural interest than its worth as a piece of art, but I did think it was ok.

But I was looking at John's shot from yesterday, where he'd used Photoshop's Wave filter to create an abstract shot from a series of CD covers, and really liked the result. It has a beautifully organic feel to it, it's vibrant, and so on.

So, I wondered how it would turn out on a shot that was inherently more geometric; i.e. one with strong clear lines in the first place (I'm assuming that John's original was a less clearly defined shot than mine). Anyway, the net result is this one.

And yep, I am jumping on the bandwagon; yep, it's not a photograph despite me calling this a photoblog; and yep, you're quite free not to like it ;-) Personally, I think it works (as an abstract image) and especially like the way the venetian blinds swirl around the bottom of the image. Oh, and I probably should mention that I inverted the original after applying the wave filter.

Anyway, as always, let me know what you think.