This is another portrait taken during our recent Faces and Places Photo Tour to Oman and probably one of my favourites from the whole trip. As you'll see if you take a look at the original the processing for this one was reasonably harsh, i.e. I muted the colours, accentuated the fine scale detail, and made him look quite a bit more sinister than he did in real life. Part of the reason for this is that we'd been playing around with his pose, particularly the cigarette, and joking that he looked like a gangster. The processing extended that theme :)

As usual, let me know what you think.

Other than to state the obvious – this is an old, colourful door – I'm not sure what else I can tell you about this one :)

This is a shot of the same guy I posted on Saturday. He'd been quite happy to pose for us, for a few minutes at least, but after a while he seemed quite keen to get back to sharpening his knives and talking to his friends. I can't say I blame him – being photographed by a group of people who don't speak your language isn't exactly the most relaxing way to spend a morning :)

This is another shot from our Faces and Places Photo Tour to Oman, a portrait of one of the guys in the local market. I'd taken quite a few shots of him, including one of him sharpening the knives he was selling – I'll post that one on Monday – but ended up much preferring this one.

This is another shot of the little boy I posted yesterday, being held by his father. It was taken about four minutes before my previous shot and I think he was still trying to make up his mind whether he minded being photographed.

This is the first of two shots of this little lad I'll be posting, both of which were taken during our Faces and Places trip to Oman. In this shot he was hiding behind a yellow plastic chair, fascinated, but slightly overawed by all the photographers pointing a camera at him :)

I wish I could tell you more about this guy, he was quite a character, but he didn't speak any english and there was nobody there to translate. We met him on the penultimate day of our Faces and Places Photo Tour to Oman, and was happy to pose while a few of us shot his portrait. I took 39 shots and in 37 of them he looked a lot more serious - varying from disinterested, to stern, to distracted. For frame 38 (this shot) he laughed at something that Bobbi said to him and I ended up with a much better shot as a result. Which kind of goes to show, if you don't engage with your subject, then they probably won't engage with you. So, thanks Bobbi :)

Here's another shot from our recent trip to Oman, taken during one of our walkabouts at the market.

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, when I posted the shot of Bobbi and Issa, I spent some time shooting fisheye portraits to follow up on a point that Bobbi made re the appropriate focal length lenses to use for head shots and portraits. Just before I started shooting, having mentioned that they would look quite wacky, Dino's immediate response (and no, that's not her real name) was "Ooooo, I could do my camel face!"

So, here's what you get when you shoot a camel with a fish – Dino the camel face :)

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10.47am on 16/3/11 Canon 5D Mark II EF 15mm f/2.8 fisheye f/8.0 1/80 aperture priority +1/3 evaluative 640 no RAW Camera Raw Photoshop CS5 Topaz Detail no

This was taken during a visit to a small pottery workshop during our Faces and Places Photo Tour to Oman. It's also the image I've added as this week's Mini-PSD, not so much because it's a stunning image from the outset (it isn't), but because the change between the original and final image is dramatic.

During our recent Faces and Places Photo Tour to Oman Bobbi gave a great presentation on focal length and portraiture, the short version of which is that somewhere around 85mm on a full-frame camera is best for head and shoulder portraits and 135mm for tight head shots, as these produce the most flattering and natural results.

She also mentioned that you shouldn't shoot portraits with wide-angle lenses as they distort the perspective, making items nearer to the camera (e.g. noses) seem unnaturally large. A little later that day, while shooting with my 15mm fisheye, I shot a few images to demonstrate this point: this one, and another that I'll post tomorrow.

So, here's Bobbi (left) and Issa, demonstrating that fisheye portraits, while fun, are most certainly not flattering :)

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11.04am on 16/3/11 Canon 5D Mark II EF 15mm f/2.8 fisheye f/8.0 1/15 aperture priority +1/3 evaluative 100 no RAW Camera Raw Photoshop CS5 Topaz Detail 1x1

This is a shot of Mel – who works for GPP, but also attended our Faces and Places Photo Tour to Oman – snapped on the bus between locations.

She created some great images during the trip, including a lot of behind-the-scenes shots, some fantastic portraits, and a range of other images.

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10.50am on 15/3/12 Canon 5D Mark II EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM 85mm f/2.8 1/400 aperture priority +1/3 evaluative 200 no RAW Camera Raw Photoshop CS5 none no

This is the first of a fairly large series of portraits I shot in Oman during our recent Faces and Places Photo Tour. Like the vast majority of people in Oman this guy was more than happy to be photographed, and while I'm not sure why he was saluting, it's definitely a pose that suits him :)

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8.54am on 15/3/12 Canon 5D Mark II EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM 153mm f/4.5 1/320 aperture priority +1/3 evaluative 200 no RAW Camera Raw Photoshop CS5 none no

This is the last shot I'll be posting from the Faces and Places Photo Tour to Oman that I ran with Bobbi Lane last November, and while I'm happy to take credit for the post-production (more of which below), the credit for setting this one up goes to Catalin Marin. We were walking through Wadi Shab and Catalin met this guy and his friend (who appears in this shot of mine). After talking to them for a while he asked if they'd mind being photographed, so I jumped on the bandwagon and took a few shots too. If you're interested, Catalin's version is here:

http://www.momentaryawe.com/blog/?p=2797

In terms of the post-production, while this is quite a simple image, it's also interesting. It was edited using just three adjustment layers: two curves (one global, and one to brighten his eyes) and then further adjusted using a Black and White adjustment layer. In this case though, because I changed the blend mode of this layer to Luminosity, the changes I made affected the density of the colours, not the saturation. If you're a subscriber to our tutorials you'll be able to download a copy of the PSD file as I've used it as this week's Mini-PSD.

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12.08pm on 18/3/11 Canon 5D Mark II EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM 70mm f/5.6 1/125 aperture priority +1/3 evaluative 100 no RAW Camera Raw Photoshop CS5 none no

This is one of those shots were everything suddenly came together. It was taken during the Faces and Places workshop that Bobbi Lane and I ran in Oman last month, and followed on from a series of portraits of this guy holding his phone. We'd bumped into him while walking through Wadi Shab and a few of us asked if we could take his portrait. After I'd taken a few I stood back and watched while other members of the group took their turn and then noticed the shot that you see here, and as you can see from the original, the light was almost perfect :)

As always, let me know what you think.

On a related note: there's a slideshow of some of the students' work from the Oman workshop linked below:

http://www.gulfphotoplus.com/news-detail.php?id=284

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12.14pm on 18/3/11 Canon 5D Mark II EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM 70mm f/6.3 1/40 aperture priority +2/3 evaluative 100 no RAW Camera Raw Photoshop CS5 none 1x1

This shot was taken on the second evening of the Faces and Places photography workshop that I ran with Bobbi Lane in Oman. We'd spent the morning at Wadi Shab, about two hours drive from where we were based in Muscat, then drove over to the coastal town of Sur where we photographed the harbour and fishermen until sunset. We then spent the next hour or so photographing each other and the lights on the skyline.

Most of us shot from the shore, but Catalin decided that he could get a better angle from the sea, much as he did when we shot together in 2007.

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6.27pm on 18/3/11 Canon 5D Mark II EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM 24mm f/5.6 1/5 aperture priority -1/3 evaluative 100 no RAW Camera Raw Photoshop CS5 none minor rotation

This is probably the last shot I'll be posting from 2010, and is definitely the last I'll be posting from my trip to the Muttrah Souq in Muscat back in October. That said, I'll be heading back there again in March as Bobbi Lane and I are are running a three-day 'Faces and Places' workshop from March 16th-19th.

We're going to be staying in Muscat for the duration of the workshop, and will be photographing a range of urban and natural environments, both local and further afield (including the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque, Wadi Shab, and the beautiful fishing village of Sur). We'll also be working with models at the Presidential Palace and on the beach, and will be shooting portraits down at the Muttrah Souq. To borrow the text from the GPP page, we'll be showing you "how to photograph the natural and urban landscape, how to produce stunning travel portraits, and how to combine the two to capture and illustrate the heart and soul of the places you visit".

If you'd like to find out more about the workshop take a look at the following page:

http://www.gulfphotoplus.com/news-detail.php?id=242

And if you have any questions, just drop me a line: djn1 AT chromasia DOT com. The short version of all of the above though is that it's going to be a great trip :)

Anyway, to get back to this shot ...

It was taken towards the end of our trip to the Souq, and as you can see from the EXIF data the light was quite low - ISO 640, f/4.0, 1/100s. If you've taken a look at the original you'll see that the light was also very flat. If I'd been at a location I could easily revisit I might have already stopped shooting by this point, but there were so many interesting people milling around that I carried on for at least another 30 minutes after taking this one.

Anyway, despite the fact that the original isn't exactly stunning, after converting it to black and white, adding a large boost in contrast, and removing some of the minor distractions from the background, I am pleased with how it turned out. It's not my best shot from the trip - I think that this one is my favourite - but I am glad that I took it.

On a side note ...

As I mentioned when I posted my previous entry, I've been working on a new Black and White course for PPSOP (further details here) and, as with my own black and white tutorials (info here and here), I spend quite a bit of time explaining why simply desaturating an image is nearly always a bad idea: i.e. other conversion methods such as the Channel Mixer, Black and White tool, Calculations method, and so on, all allow you to vary the tonal balance of the converted image to produce a more aesthetically striking result. In this instance though - just to prove that there's an exception to every rule - I used the Hue/Saturation tool :)

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5.23pm on 12/11/10 Canon 5D Mark II EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM 70mm f/4.0 1/100 aperture priority +1/3 evaluative 640 no RAW Camera Raw Photoshop CS5 none 1x1

Here's another portrait from my trip to the Muttrah Souq in Muscat (Oman) last November (the first four are here, here, here, and here). It's not my favourite of the set, but I was pleased with how it turned out.

If you're interested, I've also used this image as our latest Mini-PSD: our first for this year, but the 51st to be added to the collection. If you already have a subscription to our tutorials you can download it from this page. If not, then we're still running our 25% discount offer so now is a great time to sign up. Further info here:

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

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5.16pm on 12/11/10 Canon 5D Mark II EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM 70mm f/4.0 1/25 aperture priority +1/3 evaluative 640 no RAW Camera Raw Photoshop CS5 none no

This image was taken during my recent trip to the Jabal Shams canyon in Oman and kind of summarises my hopes for 2011: I want a simple year – where I can earn enough money, find time to take plenty of photographs and create good images, and spend lots of quality time with my wife and family. Simple aims, but not always easy to achieve, so fingers crossed for 2011.

Happy New Year everyone.

Oh, and if you missed my last entry, take a look: I posted my favourite 12 shots from 2010.

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2.08pm on 15/11/10 Canon 5D Mark II EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM 148mm f/8.0 1/640 aperture priority +1 evaluative 100 no RAW Camera Raw Photoshop CS5 none minor

I came across some fantastically photogenic people in Oman: this guy was no exception.

On a technical note: this was an interesting shot to process because there were numerous ways to convert the image to black and white, all of which produced interesting results. In this instance I used two channel mixer layers, one to convert the bucket to black and white (biased towards the red channel to make the bucket darker) and the other to convert the guy and his blue uniform. This second layer was biased towards the blue channel, which a) really brought out the detail in his face and skin, and b) made his uniform very bright. Anyway, I'm waffling, but if you're interested in this technique take a look at either of my black and white tutorials (info about part one here, part two here).

And as always, let me know what you think.

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2.54pm on 12/11/10 Canon 5D Mark II EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM 70mm f/5.6 1/60 aperture priority +1 evaluative 100 no RAW Camera Raw Photoshop CS5 none minor