Over the next week or so I'll be posting at least five more shots of the DIFC, but most of those concentrate on the building itself. While I was there though I thought I'd shoot a few HDR self-portraits, of which this is the only one that worked out.

Interestingly, it was constructed using FDR Tools rather than Photomatix Pro. I've only had a quick chance to play with it, but it seems to produce more naturalistic results than Photomatix while being more flexible than Phtoshop's Merge to HDR facility. When I've had a chance to use it a bit more I'll let you know what I think.

I haven't posted the EXIF data, but the seven shot sequence was shot at 70mm, f/8.0, with a 1 EV spacing.

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).

I had hoped to put up a picture of Finley today as he fell asleep on the settee, snuggled up to all four of our cats. If the cats had all been asleep too, I might have got the shot, but they were far too interested in the camera to stay still long enough for me to get a decent shot ... which is a bit annoying. Next time Fin' has a nap I might drug the cats and drape them around him ;-)

Anyway, failing a 'young boy and his cats' shot, I raided the archives and found this one; a reflection of Blackpool Tower in a rather distorted shop window. A year ago, I would have loved this image – I had a big thing for reflections – but, for some reason or another, I'm not quite as keen on them anymore. What do you think?

First of all, thanks for all the great comments on yesterday's shot, they were much appreciated.

As for this one: I've been undecided about it, mostly for technical reasons. It's comprised of four shots and all were underexposed by at least a stop, and all of them are noisy, but the more I've looked at it, the more I like it.

It's still technically quite weak, but, for me at least, her expressions are worth recording. The four shots were taken from left to right. In the first shot she's paying attention and smiling, but by the time I took the second one her attention was wandering. By the third shot she was being silly, and by the fourth she was downright bored ;-)

Anyway, this is probably one that I'll try and reshoot at some point (maybe one each for all the kids), but for the time being at least I thought this one was worth sharing.

Oh, and all the shots were taken with same aperture and shutter speed, and all used flash (bounced off the ceiling).

I did think I might have to raid the ever-dwindling archive again today but Libby and I went for a short stroll this afternoon and I spotted this on the way home. It's been a while since I've done any reflection shots and I'm pleased with how this one turned out.

I'm not especially fond of football, or flags, but I thought I ought to put up at least one shot loosely related to the world cup ;-)

Like a good proportion of my fellow countrymen I spent a good portion of today engaged in that traditional UK bank holiday activity of Do It Yourself: in this instance, tiling the kitchen. And while there's always a sense of achievement when these jobs are finished, I'd much rather have Paid Someone To Do It For Me :-) All of which is a roundabout way of avoiding saying anything much about this shot. It appeals to me, in a subdued, imagine-a-story type of way, but beyond that there isn't much I can say.

Ok, so it's Batman today, Elvis tomorrow (and Selma Hayek at some point in the future). And to explain this one:

Batman is a fabric drape in a fabric shop (the fragmentation being the result of the folds in the fabric), the windows along the top of the image are reflected from across the street, as are the building and lone character in the bottom-right of the image; i.e. it's a straight shot of a partial reflection.

Oh, and despite it not looking much like a photograph, I'm really pleased with this one but suspect that it might well recieve a fairly polarised reaction: so, if you don't like it, please let me know why.

I don't have a great deal to say about this one other than to tell you it's a card in a window, reflected against the glass.

Update: until I read M's comment (the third one from the top) I wasn't sure what it was that was bothering me about this image, but his point about there being too much headroom prompted me to have a quick rethink: hence the version that's up now. I did think about a 2x1 crop, one of the standard aspect ratios I use, but it just didn't work, so I've gone for the relatively unusual option of cropping to a 16:9 aspect ratio. If you're interested, the shot I originally put up is here:

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Oh, and I also added in a very small amount of the original colour. The b&w version was ok, but I think I prefer this one.

Update #2: one of the great things about posting an image a day is that it forces you to improve your postprocessing, especially on days when you have less than ideal material to put up. But it can also be a bit of a curse when you're not quite sure how best to present an image. Anyway, all this is a roundabout way of saying that the version that's now up is one that I'm much happier with.

And if you want to trail back through the previous versions, the second one is here:

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On which note, I'm off to bed as it's now 2.00am here :-/

Update #3: right, I've just put up version four, which is a slight improvement, but I've decided that this is the last version. The trouble with images that I'm not entirely happy with is that I could edit them forever, and never get nearer to the ‘right’ version. Anyway, the third and previous version is here:

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On which note, I'm off to bed as it's now 2.00am here :-/

Well, here's number three in this week's portrait series: this time it's Camilla.

This is something of a simple image in comparison to the last four HDR images that I've put up, but a) I don't have any more to share with you at the moment (though may have by the end of tomorrow), and b) don't have anything else to put up anyway. That said, I do like the simplicity of signage such as this.

Oh, and just a quick reminder to let you know that John Washington's site is currently running at washingtonmedia.co.uk rather than johnwashington.co.uk. Apparently John has sorted out the mixup with his domain registration but it will take a day or so for the DNS changes to propagate.

Wife: "Is that Adolf Hitler through a prism?"

Me: "No, it's a reflection in a train window that I've been playing around with."

Wife: "I like it."

Over to you ;-)

To which I could add: telephoto zooms are not especially useful for train window reflection shots as you end up with a totally unrecognisable background. In future I'll probably stick to my 17-40 for this type of image.

I think that the thing I like most about this shot is the expression, or more accurately, the lack of expression, on the face of the guy in the center of this image. What's interesting about taking these sort of shots is that people don't realise they're being photographed, yet appear to be staring straight at the camera – at least for some of the time. And I guess that what I find especially interesting is that this is an expression, that under normal circumstances, you would never see; i.e. when we have eye contact with another person our faces are often animated – we put on a front, of one sort or another. Here, there's an absence of such an expression which, to me at least, makes this type of portrait quite unnerving. I probably could have put that better, but I guess you know what I mean.

Oh, and I'd be interested to hear which you prefer between this and yesterday's entry. For what it's worth, I can't decide between them but like them for quite different reasons.

And finally, I have nothing to put up tomorrow and am not sure that I'll be able to come up with much between now and then as our youngest two both have coughs and colds and, yet again, we seem to be coming down with it too. Not to mention the fact that they'll probably keep us both up for most of the night. So, if nothing goes up tomorrow, at least you'll know why.

This is the first of two portraits of these two people and I can't decide which I prefer. I like the detail in this one, but the two characters are much stronger in tomorrow's shot (particularly the guy in the centre who you can barely see in this one). As always, let me know what you think.

As for the title: I'm afraid that I couldn't think of anything original for this one (or tomorrow's) so have continued the sequence from a shot I posted in 2004.

Oh, and in case you haven't seen any of my other shots like this one, this is a reflection in a train window.

Here's another shot from my favourite reflective surface.

On another matter: though chromasia's server seems to be behaving reasonably well at the moment I will be changing hosting companies by early January at the very latest. I'm currently testing the new installation of chromasia and will switch things over as soon as I'm happy that the new site is working properly.

Oh, and yesterday's shot wasn't a reflection, it was two masks, side by side, the leftmost one of which was darkened during post-processing.

This was shot in the same window as this shot, and I know that this effect could be created in photoshop (minus the reflection), but there's something quite satisfying about producing it this way instead.

Oh, almost forgot: I ate my camera earlier today – as promised on yesterday's entry – but forgot to photograph myself doing it. Damn ;-)

As with yesterday's shot, though it's a bit more obvious today, this was a reflection in a train window, and I think I definitely prefer this one of the two. I don't know why, but I'm especially drawn to this type of shot: maybe because it seems as though the subject is engaged with the camera when, in fact, they're staring into space at the world beyond. Anyway, expect more of the same at some point soon.

Oh, and as I mentioned yesterday, it's the same guy in both shots.

I do have another couple of shots that I took while I was out with John the other day, but I have two shots of this guy that I want to put up first.

I went for a walk with John this afternoon, and as usual we wandered down the beach. However, it was bloody freezing so we weren't out for all that long and decided to head back along the sea-front, out of the wind. Anyway, we took a few shots, including some of this rather "tasteful" hat. Only in Blackpool ;-)

Oh, and despite the title's slight ambiguity, it's intended as a Kenny Everett reference ;-)

I thought it was about time for something a bit different ;-)

This is the first shot I've taken in ages that I'm truly pleased with, mostly I think because it fits my idea of what this sort of shot should be about ... if that makes sense. Put another way: I travel to work by train two or three times a week – sometimes more, sometimes less – and if I'm not reading or dozing I like to watch the other passengers as they idly watch the world go by. I guess, is some ways, that this sort of shot is a double reflection: their thoughts reflected in their expression, their expressions reflected in the window of the train. Anyway, philosphical rambling aside, I'm pleased with this one.