This is the second shot of Maurice that I mentioned yesterday, and while it's clearly not as lively as yesterday's, I like this one too. That said, I doubt it will be to everyone's taste, so feel free to tell me what you think.

This is the first of two shots of Maurice, a Blackpool based cabaret singer I photographed yesterday afternoon. My brief was to produce some images that could be used to promote his act, some of which needed to include a recognisable local landmark, so what better landmark to include than Blackpool Tower.

In terms of the post-production: this is a combination of a straight shot and a pseudo-HDR image. I used the HDR version to bring out the detail in his trousers and waistcoat - both of which are a dark brown pinstripe - as despite the use of fill-flash these still appeared too dark in the final shot.

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

I don't shoot many weddings, but when I do I really enjoy them, not least because it's a pleasure to see so many people enjoying themselves. And I think this shot is a good example. Admittedly, the flower girl does seem to be going in a different direction to the bride, but she's clearly having fun as she 'helps' her with her dress :-)

My apologies for not posting recently but things have been hectic over the last few weeks; i.e. far too much work to do, and not enough time to blog - and it's going to be much like that for the rest of this month. And in the scale of things that's a lot better than having no work, but right now I'd settle for somewhere between the two extremes :-)

Anyway, I found some time to wander down to the North pier today and decided to shoot some HDRs. Most of them probably won't work out (for one reason or another) but I like this one, not least because it's a completely over-the-top use of this technique.

As always, your thoughts and comments will be gratefully received.

Oh, and I haven't posted the EXIF data but all the shots were taken at 16mm and I used a seven shot sequence with a 1 EV spacing between them.

My task for today, other than a whole heap of stuff I needed to get finished, was to take a decent shot of Libby, my wife. In the past I've taken shots of her that we've both liked, but this one needed to be a head-shot, in colour, with her looking both professional and natural.

So, we headed down to the North Pier and took a whole range of shots. When we set off the light was quite flat - which I much prefer for natural-light portraits - but by the time we got started the sun had come out and the light was quite harsh. So this one was taken in the shade, behind one of these structures, and I'm pleased with how it turned out. More importantly though, Libby likes it too.

On an unrelated matter: my apologies for not posting much over the last few days but I've been finishing off my latest tutorial – LAB Color mode: part two. If you're interested you can read a bit more about it here:

.../tutorials/online/lcm2_info.php

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.

Here's another shot of this guy. At the time I processed these I much preferred the first one I put up, but now I think that this one may have a slight edge. Let me know how you think they compare.

When I was growing up (in the late 60s and early 70s) smoking was still an accepted part of everyday life: people smoked in films and on TV, they smoked in restaurants and on planes, and there was none of the social and medical stigma attached to the habit that there is today. As such I can look at this photograph without really thinking about the cigarette and still think that this guy looks pretty cool. That said though, I wonder how many of you noticed the cigarette first, then the guy, and made a different judgement?

This is another shot from the Blackpool Pride 2008 festival that I photographed the weekend before last. And I would tell you more about it, but I've had one of those days where everything that could go wrong did go wrong: I spent two hours trying to fix a problem with my server (which spontaneously resolved itself for no apparent reason); I spent another hour trying to find an image for my next tutorial, only to discover that I'd saved a flattened copy of it, not the original; and the rest of the day was a litany of similar frustrations and minor disasters.

So, I'm now off to drink several glasses of wine in reasonably quick succession while hoping that tomorrow will be a more fruitful and relaxing affair than today.

In the meanwhile, here's a deranged vicar :-)

This is a shot of two of the Pierrotters, the last remaining seaside Pierrot Troupe in Britain. I was photographing them today as they took part in the latest Admission All Classes event in Blackpool. If you're free tomorrow, they'll be performing again at 11.30am, 1.15pm and 3.00pm on Blackpool's North Pier. I watched them perform three times today, but am still looking forward to seeing them again tomorrow.

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.

The thing I like most about the annual Blackpool Pride event is that there are hundreds of interesting people who attend, and they all enjoy being photographed. These two were no exception.

On a side-note: I've been thinking about getting hold of an 85mm f/1.2 for portraiture. Well, to be more accurate, I've been trying to convince myself that a) I need one, and b) I can afford it. But if I'm honest I would have to say that my 70-200 is more useful, at least for event photography. The main benefit of using the zoom is that it allows you to be just a bit further away from people, and as a result I think that you're perceived as less intimidating. For the Blackpool Pride event this wasn't much of a problem - generally they're not a shy and retiring bunch - but on those occasions where people are less used to being photographed it does seem to make a difference.

I don't know why, but happy smiling clowns always seem a bit sinister to me. You'd think it would be the other way round - sad clowns seeming odd and out of place - but it's the happy ones that I find incongruous.

In terms of the post-processing, both this one and yesterday's were processed in LAB Color Mode. As those of you who follow my tutorials will know, my next issue is a follow-up to my Introduction to LAB Color mode tutorial. One of the topics I'm going to be covering is how to alter a specific colour or colour range without using a mask. For this image the technique was applied quite loosely, but if you take a look at the original image (linked below) you will see that I've shifted the yellow tones towards a washed out shade of lilac, and that the reds are now much more magenta than in the original.

A colour-neutral version of the image is here:

.../archives/blackpool_pride_2008_2.php

Each year Blackpool hosts a gay pride festival, and this year was to exception. As a result I have a number of portraits that I'll be putting over the next five or six days. Of the ones I'll be putting up, this is probably one of the weakest (and is definitely Libby's least favourite) but there's still something about it I like.

This is my penultimate shot from Dubai, and probably my favourite portrait in quite some time. If you're interested, the original is here:

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As you can see, I haven't done much in terms of the content (a bit of minor cloning in the background), but did spend quite some time getting the black and white conversion right. In this instance, I used the Channel Mixer, biased towards the blue channel, to accentuate the details in his face and hair.

I'd be interested to hear how you think this one compares to yesterday's.

This is the first of my remaining two portraits from my trip to Dubai, and while I definitely prefer the one I'm going to put up tomorrow, I really like this one too.

I was going to post something other than a shot of the DIFC tonight, but this is one of only two that I have left so I thought I might as well post them now. Both were taken with my 15mm fisheye, but this is a) the more natural looking of the two, and b) my least favourite of the set.

I do have a couple more shots of the DIFC that I'll be putting up over the weekend, but this one is the last of the HDR's (the final two were shot at night, and while I did blend the exposures, they're not true HDR images).

As with the previous ones I've put up, this was constructed with Photomatix Pro from a seven shot sequence (-3 to +3 EV). Unlike the others though, I've gone for a slightly less dramatic look with this one, and may include it in my next tutorial.

As always, let me know what you think.

I do have another eight shots that I'll be putting up from my trip to Dubai, but by the time this one gets posted I'll be nearly home – sitting on a train, somewhere between Manchester airport and Blackpool. I'll probably be complaining about how cold it is, despite having spent the last two weeks moaning about how hot it's been in Dubai, but I'll definitely be looking forward to getting back to Libby and the kids.

As for this one: it's another HDR of the DIFC, and the twin towers in the background are the Emirates Tower hotel - the 3rd most luxurious in the world (according to their website).

Like yesterday's this is a shot of the underside of the DIFC, and also like yesterday's it's an HDR, constructed from a seven shot sequence using Photomatix Pro.

Unlike yesterday's though, it's considerably more angular as it was shot at 16mm with my 16-35mm rather than the 15mm fisheye. When I first processed both these images I preferred yesterday's, but now I'm not so sure. I like both of them – there's something about the curvature of the reflection that I really like – but think that maybe this one has the edge.

As always, I'd be interested to hear what you make at it, and which you prefer.

Tomorrow's image, by way of comparison, is a street scene taken in Al Seef, after which I'll post a somewhat less stark shot of the DIFC.

As many of you who follow chromasia know, I don't often post architectural shots, not least because there aren't any especially striking buildings in Blackpool other than the tower and the piers, neither of which are typical buildings.

While I've been over in Dubai though I've had permission to photograph the DIFC, so have made the most of the opportunity and have quite a few shots to put up. Most are HDRs (as I shot from underneath the structure) and all of them were processed with Photomatix Pro.

I'll put another one up tomorrow, but then will post some different material after that.

Oh, and as this is an HDR I haven't put the EXIF data up, but the sequence was shot with a 15mm rectilinear fisheye at f/8.0. The one I'll be posting tomorrow was shot from a similar position, but was taken with my 16-35mm, so looks quite different.

Finally: Jennifer pointed out that I forgot to mention what had caused the blur on the shot I put up the other day – sorry about that. It was taken through a waterfall.

When I was younger I used to enjoy climbing – not in a north face of the Eiger sort of way, but I did enjoy it. The older I've got though, the more I really don't like heights, so struggled a bit with this one. It was taken from the helipad of the building I shot the Burj Dubai from, and what made it especially unnerving was that there were absolutely no safety measures: no guard rails, no netting, just a long drop down.

Anyway, I was perfectly safe, and didn't get within five feet of the edge, but my knees were feeling decidedly rubbery by the time I'd composed the shot and taken the three images I used for the HDR. And if you're interested, the building on the right of this image is the one that was on the left of my shot of the Burj Dubai; i.e. this one was taken about 90° to the left.

The shot I'm going to put up tomorrow, while nowhere near as dramatic, is probably one of my favourite HDRs in recent months. It was also taken from much nearer the ground :-)

A few of you managed to work out that I'm in Dubai from the clues I posted yesterday, so I'll tell you a bit more about my trip. Next week I'm presenting some seminars at the Gulf Photo Plus 2008 training event. This is an annual meeting of members of Gulf Photo Plus, that I also attended last year, and I'll be doing a variety of Photoshop workshops – black and white conversion, toning images, adding impact to an image, and so on.

This week though, I'm working with Elie Domit (featured in this shot), the owner of The Empty Quarter photographic gallery that will be opening in a few months time. It's located in the DIFC (Dubai International Finance Centre) and I'm shooting some material over the next few days with a view to displaying it in the gallery when it's complete. Today, I'm photographing the Gate, a financial building just around the corner from the gallery, and tomorrow I have two shoots planned. The first is in Bastakiya, one of the older areas of Dubai, and the second involves a night shoot of some of the construction work. I'll post shots from both over the next few days.

We took the kids down to our local library today, and while most of the shots I took weren't anything special, I do like this one – a shot of Rhowan taking it easy, browsing through one of the books she picked.

On a totally different matter: one of my grafitti shots has been set to music. You can watch the video here:

.../archives/platos_cave.php

And there's more information about the artist here:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ki8fTs1qZtQ

Personally, I like the song, but Libby's less keen, so I'd be interested to hear what you think.

I was chatting with John Washington yesterday regarding the recent series of shots he's been posting exploring the notion of nostalgia (of which this is a particularly good example). Anyway, having had that conversation, I was browsing through a folder of old images today and came across this one which a) also has quite a nostalgic feel, and b) entirely coincidentally, was taken with John's camera. All of which seemed like a good excuse to post it.

On another matter: I finished the latest tutorial in the Digital Workflow series today, so should have some time to get out and about to shoot some new material tomorrow.

This was taken back in May 2006, at the same festival as these ones, and I did try processing it then. From what I can remember though I had big problems with the wig. If you take a look at the original you will see that the wig is extremely saturated (to the point where the red channel is blown out):

...archives/creating_an_impression.php

At the time I hadn't come across LAB Color mode and every attempt I made to edit the image in RGB ended up looking terrible, so I gave up. This time though, I converted it to LAB and used the ‘a’ Curve to decrease the saturation of the red tones within the image (discussed in more detail in my LAB tutorial). The end result may not be to everyone's taste, but I'm really pleased with this one.

I would guess that for those of you who live on parts of the globe that have a ‘proper’ winter a bit of snow isn't an especially big deal, but here ;– on the north-west coast of England – it's decidedly rare. So, when it snowed today, we took the kids to Beacon Fell (which is about 20 miles east of Blackpool).

I did get one decent photograph, which I'll post tomorrow, but this sequence made me smile, not least because it isn't often that Harmony gets the better of her older sister, Rhowan.

This is a shot of Norbreck Castle Hotel on Blackpool's North Shore. It's an HDR, constructed from three originals – one and two-thirds stops apart – tone-mapped using Photomatix Pro.

I've included the EXIF data for the normally exposed shot below:

This is the second and last of my 'found' photographs and I'm afraid that I can't really tell you much about this one other than that it was taken at some point during the early 80's. I can remember where it was taken, and think it was taken during a friend's 18th birthday party (which would mean it was taken in 1981), but I really have no idea who she is other than that she was a guest at the party.

As for why I've posted it now: I'm not sure, other than that there's something about this photograph that I really like ... but I can't say what.

Anyway, although I have loads more old photographs that I could scan and post, I won't, as I don't imagine they're of all that much interest to you. This one though has caught my attention on numerous occasions during the last few decades, so I thought it might be worth putting up.