This is another shot of the same young boy, taken about 15 minutes before the previous one and, as you can see, he's not quite as confident in this one. By the end of the evening he was running up to me and grinning from ear to ear, but at this point his approaches were a bit more cautious :)

If you're interested, the somewhat less than inspiring original is here:

.../archives/an_infectious_smile_2.php

We went to a party at our village hall last night, to celebrate Trifon Zarezan, or the "Day of the Vine-Grower". Most of the village seemed to be there, and although our Bulgarian is still quite rudimentary, we did manage to have a few conversations with our fellow villagers.

Among the guests was this young lad and, while it's not one of the best portraits I've ever posted, I defy you to tell me that it didn't make you smile :)

This is out of sequence, insofar as it was shot before back seat driving and the aftermath, but I thought it was worth posting too. As always, let me know what you think.

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).

This is the third of my 'let it snow' images – another portrait of Harmony – and it's probably my favourite of the set. It's also the last wintery portrait I'll be posting for a while as the weather seems to have got quite a bit warmer over the last few days; which is good news for our ever-dwindling wood pile, but less good for photography. In fact, for the moment at least, the Bulgarian winter is looking quite a lot like a UK one, i.e. wet, grey and dull. From what we've been told though, there should be some reasonably heavy snowfalls at some point in the New Year. I hope so, not least because we bought the kids a couple of sledges for Christmas.

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

.../archives/let_it_snow_3.php

On a different matter: if you have any money left over from Christmas, don't forget that we're currently offering a 15% discount on our Photoshop tutorials. Further details here:

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

As I write this Libby is finishing wrapping the last of the presents, most of the younger kids are asleep (or doing a very good job of pretending), and the older two are upstairs doing something or other, so our Christmas Day is getting off to a reasonably smooth and peaceful start. Fingers crossed they all sleep till morning, but I won't be surprised to find one or more of them running around at 3am because Santa has managed to squeeze his way down our stove pipe ;)

On which note, Merry Christmas :)

This is the first of three portraits I shot of Rhowan and Harmony while they played in the snow on Sunday. All three ended up as high-key portraits, and all were relatively straightforward to post-process (if you're interested in the details you might want to take a look at my Portraits: part two tutorial as it covers quite a few of the techniques I used for this image).

This one, and the third I'll post, are portraits of Harmony, while the next one is a shot of Rho, and while I'm undecided about which is the weakest of the three, the second portrait of Harmony is definitely my favourite.

If you're interested, the original is here:

.../archives/let_it_snow.php

Libby and Tegan got back to Bulgaria last Thursday and we're starting to settle into a new routine. Unfortunately it's a routine that hasn't included a great deal of photography quite just yet, but I did take some shots over the weekend. Of all the ones I took I think that this is probably one of my favourites, though I'd be hard-pressed to tell you why. Anyway, watch this space, and I'll post more images of our latest family member at some point soon.

This was taken at the end of last month and is a shot of Tabby of me in a hammock in a friend's garden. There are two things I like about this one: one, it's a fun shot, and two, her slightly false smile. She was enjoying swinging back and forth, but was also a little bit nervous about it too. And while the plaster on her forehead looks a bit incongruous, photographically speaking at least, I decided not to clone it out. She'd tripped over earlier that day, and slid along the pavement on her head, and insisted that we leave the plaster on her head.

In other news: it's just over two weeks since Libby headed back to the UK to have the baby (due 11th November), and about four and a half weeks until she gets back. She's doing fine, and the kids and I are surviving pretty well, but time is r e a l l y  b e g i n n i n g  t o  d r a g and I miss her :(

One of the things I enjoy most about wedding photography, which is probably the thing that would slowly drive me insane if I shot more than three or four a year, is that you rarely have time to think – it's just a question of doing your best to get the shot. The net result of operating at this speed though is that it's often difficult to get the perfect image. Take this one for example: while I'm pleased with the end result it would have been better if a) the focus had been about two inches further forward (the bride's face is a bit soft), and b) I'd used a slightly higher shutter speed (the motion blur of the bridesmaid's hair is a bit of a distraction). Other than that though, I am pleased with this one.

And if you're interested, the post-production techniques I used for this image are covered in my Portraits: part one tutorial.

I flew back to the UK on Saturday to shoot a wedding in Wimbledon with Tom Wicky. Fortunately the wedding didn't start until lunchtime on Sunday, so I had a bit of a chance to catch my breath in the morning, but from lunchtime onwards we shot through till about 9.30pm. Between us we have 3580 shots, and I'll probably share a few of them over the next few days. This one is definitely one of my favourites: a candid portrait of one of the best men and his son, taken during the reception.

On a more technical note: if you've followed my recent entries you'll know that my trusty 1Ds Mark II died recently, so I replaced it with a 5D Mark II. And I'm extremely glad that I did as I would have really struggled with some of the shots at the wedding. The ceremony took place in a rather nice church in Wimbledon, but the light was terrible. For example, even at f/2.8 and 1/60s (the slowest I dare go with my 70-200mm) I needed to use ISO 1600. If I'd been using the 1Ds Mark II the images would have looked awful – anything above ISO 800 is problematic with that sensor – but the 5D Mark II files look great. There is some noise, but it's negligible and easily fixed.

Having finished the wedding I drove up to Preston on Monday morning to do some one-to-one training with Danny Allison, which we finished off this morning, and now I'm busily copying files to my server in Blackpool before flying back to Bulgaria tomorrow afternoon. All in all it's been a busy, but very enjoyable few days :-)

Back in 2003, I posted a shot of Rhowan taken just before her second birthday. Today, I'm posting one that was taken during her 8th birthday celebrations, just after she got out of the pool at a friend's house. And while she's clearly changed during the last six years, she's still as photogenic as ever :-)

If you're interested, the original is here:

.../archives/on_being_8.php

I was going to post my initial thoughts about my new 5D Mark II with this entry, but I still haven't had much of an opportunity to try it out so will leave my review for a later date. What I can say though is that I'm very impressed so far, especially with the major improvements to high ISO shooting. I've also been playing around with Live View shooting, and while this isn't something I imagine I'll use all that often, I can see that it's going to be useful. Anyway, I will post a much more in-depth review at some point soon.

As for this shot: it was taken while Rhowan was playing her DS, and was titled in response to one of her comments. She'd been playing for a while, and I didn't think she was paying any attention to the fact that I was photographing her. Suddenly though, without pausing her game, she said "do you want me to look up?". I said yes, she glanced up, and I got the shot. She then went back to her game. I don't know what she'll end up doing when she's older, but she's certainly well on the way to developing a lot of the skills she'd need if she wanted to go into modelling :-)

In terms of the post-production this one was relatively straightforward, i.e. I used the Channel Mixer to convert the image to black and white (as described in this tutorial). In this instance though I used two masked Channel Mixer adjustment layers. The first of these was biased towards the red channel, which I used to lighten her face, while the second was biased towards the blue channel. This one was used to lighten her eyes and darken the background. The image was then adjusted using a few masked curves.

If you're interested, the original is here:

.../archives/do_you_want_me_to_look_up.php

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:

My apologies for not posting much recently but I'm currently writing another book and, as usual, my time-management skills have let me down somewhat. In other words, the deadline is fast approaching and I'm spending virtually every minute either writing or sourcing images. The good news is that it will be finished on time (fingers crossed), but the bad news is that I'm unlikely to have any time to shoot any new material until around the 8th of next month.

In light of that I've posted this one, another shot of Rhowan taken at the same time as this one. I didn't post it at the time, as I wasn't happy with the composition, but after cropping it to 4x3 I think it looks quite a bit better.

On another matter – and feel free to skip this if a) you are already subscribed to our Photoshop tutorials, or b) have heard enough about them this summer – we've been running a summer promotion for the last couple of months: offering 15% off the first year's payment of an annual subscription or our lifetime membership package. In other words, if you have though about subscribing, now would be a great time to do so as this offer ends at midnight tomorrow; i.e. the 31st July. For more information about this offer, and our tutorials, please take a look at the following page:

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

Those of you who have followed chromasia for some time may have got the impression that Rhowan is a fairly serious young girl. And while she can often look very serious, she's often a lot more playful than most of my shots would imply ;)

It's been ages since I posted a shot of either Camilla or Amirah (our eldest two at home), and even longer since I posted one of them together, but I managed to get some decent shots of them yesterday during a trip to see friends in Yalovo (a village not far from our house in Bulgaria).

What can I say, other than here's another portrait of Rhowan :)

I've had a couple of emails today asking about the original version of this image, so here it is:

.../archives/the_rules_of_engagement.php

Here's how the conversation went with this one:

Harmony: "it makes me look like a geeky glasses girl!"

Me: "do you want me to post it on the blog then?"

Harmony: "yes, I do!"

Me: "do you think people will like it?"

Harmony: "yes."

So there you have it :-)

The original is here:

.../archives/dive_in.php

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/

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:

.../archives/our_youngest.php

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.

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 :-)

I've been back in the UK since late Wednesday evening, but haven't had the chance to go out shooting yet, so here's another one from Bulgaria. It's a shot of Libby, Tabitha and Finley playing on the slide in the park in Veliko Tarnovo. And while it's not as immediately 'attention grabbing' as some of the stuff I've been posting, I do like the story it tells. Let me know what you think.

Update: Following a couple of emails, and a comment requesting it, here's the original:

.../archives/small_steps.php

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 :)

This is the last in my 'after the rain' series, and while I suspect that some of you will probably prefer the first one I posted, I think that this is definitely my favourite – not least because the post-production was minimal, there's no crop, and it perfectly captures Rhowan in one of her more contemplative moments.

If you are interested, the original is here:

.../archives/after_the_rain_3.php

In this instance, the black and white conversion was done using the channel mixer (as described in this tutorial), and a masked curve was added to bring out her eyes (as described here). Other than that I added an overall Curve to up the contrast a little, a masked Curve to slightly lighten the left side of the image, and a final Curve to add the slightly warmer tone.

As always, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts, particularly in terms of which of the last three you liked best.

While Rhowan may be the current queen of drama and posing in our household – see my last post if you're not sure what I'm talking about – it would be fair to say that Harmony has a slight edge when it comes to looking cute :)

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

.../archives/after_the_rain_2.php

Most of the time, when I'm processing an image I have a clear idea about how I want it to turn out. In this instance though I struggled a bit as I couldn't decide whether to go for black and white or colour. In the end, mostly because I liked the contrast between the towel and her skin tones, the colour version won out.

On a related note: take a look at the difference between the towel (over her right shoulder) in the straight version and the final image. As you will probably notice, a lot of the detail is missing in the straight shot as a consequence of the fact that the highlights in the red channel were clipped in the original exposure. Fortunately though, clipping in one channel can be compensated for by either dropping the exposure (as you convert the RAW file) or by lowering the saturation. In this instance I used the second method, and partially desaturated the image using the Channel Mixer.

Other than that, the post-processing was relatively straightforward and followed most of the techniques in my Portraits: part one tutorial; i.e. I used a couple of masked curves to adjust the tonal balance of the image and another masked curve to add some light to her eyes.

I was going to post my second shot of the Ganchovets station buildings tonight, but we had a brief storm this afternoon and I got some shots of Rhowan and Harmony that I think I'll post first. Before you read on though, you might want to take a look at Libby's blog post on the same topic, as it sets the scene for this series. Regrettably, I didn't get any shots of them dancing under the water pouring from the drainpipe and gutter (see the video at the end of Libby's post), but am fairly pleased with the ones I'm going to post.

Oh, and if you're interested, the original is here:

.../archives/after_the_rain_1.php

While this one is a little bit soft – shooting at 1/30s at 110mm is a bit of a gamble, even with IS – it does make me smile. And in case you're not familiar with our kids: Rhowan is the poser on the right, Harmony is silently protesting about being upstaged on the left, and Camilla is in the background.

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