My apologies for the lack of both updates and new material, but I've been rather preoccupied over the last few weeks. As many of you know, Libby is back in the UK to give birth to our latest daughter, while I'm still out in Bulgaria with the kids. And while it would be an exaggeration to say that I've been worried to the point of not being able to lift a camera, I have been busy running the house and preoccupied with: wondering when our daughter will arrive; how Libby's getting on on her own; and so on.

Anyway, the waiting is about to come to and end as Libby is going into hospital tomorrow (Sunday 8th) for an induction. Our daughter isn't due until the 11th, but there have been a variety of complications, the net result of which is that both Libby and the docs have decided to hurry things on a bit. We had planned on a home birth – which would have been great as we could have kept in touch using Skype – but I guess I'll have to make do with text message updates and the odd phone call here and there.

So, think of me tomorrow, as I'm pacing around Bulgaria, while 2000 miles away Libby will be giving birth to our daughter. Fingers crossed it all goes smoothly.

Oh, and if you're interested in seeing how things are going, I'll be updating my Facebook profile throughout the day.

http://www.facebook.com/chromasia

As for this shot: it's another grabbed street capture, taken in Venice a few weeks ago.

Update: our daughter was born at 16.45pm GMT on the 9th of November. It's only been a few minutes since I heard, and I don't know all the details yet, but both Libby and baby are fine :)

This is probably the last of the shots I'll be putting up from the wedding I shot in Venice a few weeks ago, and while it's not my favourite of the various ones I've posted, I am pleased with how it turned out as it was shot in less than favourable circumstances, i.e. back-lit, low light, and so on.

On a different matter: my apologies for not posting much recently, but as many of you know, I'm currently home-alone with the kids, while Libby is back in the UK waiting for our latest daughter to make an appearance. She's not due until the 11th of November, and they won't be able to fly back to Bulgaria for two weeks after that, so my updates might be rather infrequent between now and then.

I will be heading out to Dubai again though - November 19-22 - as I'm one of the instructors at the GPP Fotoweek event, alongside Bobbi Lane, Robin Nichols, David Tejada, and Chris Hurtt. It should be a great event, and if you're interested in attending, there's a full list of all the workshops here:

http://www.gulfphotoplus.com/fotoweekend-workshops.php

As those of you who have been visiting chromasia for some time will know it's rare that I post any street photography (other than individual portraits). There are two reasons for this. First: I can’t 'see' street shots in the same way that I see other subjects. For example, I can evaluate a landscape, or a washed up bit of rubbish on the beach, or a portrait, and have a good idea as to whether the shot will work. With street photography though, it all feels much more random, probably because there's often a lot more going on. As such I often find myself taking this type of shot, but rarely end up liking the results.

The second, related reason, is that once I've taken this type of shot I find it very hard to judge which ones work, and which ones don't. For example, there are aspects of this one that I like - particularly the interaction between the parents and the child - but I don't have any real sense of the merit of the image as a whole (or its lack of merit).

Anyway, given that my reaction to this one was reasonably favourable I thought I'd post it and see what you think.

As I mentioned when I posted the first shot from the wedding I photographed recently, I was co-shooting with Tom Wicky. The biggest and most obvious benefit of have two photogs at a wedding is that the pressure is reduced, i.e. your not solely responsible for getting each and every shot. A related benefit is that while one of you shoots the main shot, the other can pursue other angles. In this instance, as Tom was photographing the bride getting into the car after the ceremony - from the obvious, and easiest angle - I was shooting between the gap left between the hinged side of the door and the car body. With the benefit of hindsight I wish I'd moved an inch or two to the left, but I am pleased with how this one turned out.

If you're interested, the original was converted to black and white (as discussed in this tutorial), then toned with a curve (as discussed here).

I may be wrong, but I suspect that this one won't create quite such a polarised response as my last wedding shot ;-)

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.

This is the second of the wedding shots I'll be posting, taken at the hotel before we all left for the ceremony. From left to right we have the two best men, the groom, and the usher. And I would write more, but after the last few days of running round like a headless chicken I'm just about ready to collapse in a heap and sleep for a week.

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 :-)

As I mentioned in my last post I've writing a new book, which is now finished, so it shouldn't be too long until I find some time to shoot some new material. In the short-term though I'm slightly hampered as Libby is currently back in the UK and I have all four of the younger kids and one of the older ones. I should be able to find some time - in between referring, cooking, shopping, and so on, but it's likely to be limited.

I'm also slightly hampered by the fact that my 1Ds Mark II is broken (though I still have my 5D). I was shooting some material for the book, on 1st and 2nd curtain sync, and the shutter broke. If you take a look at the following url you will see that one of the shutter blades has become detached:

http://www.chromasia.com/misc/shutter.jpg

In other words, it's going to need a new shutter which I'll sort out next time I'm back in the UK. In the meanwhile though Libby is picking up a Canon 5D Mark II which she'll bring back next weekend. I've thought about getting one for ages, but haven't been able to justify the expense, so thought this would be as good a time as any :)

All of which leaves us with this image. It was constructed with MacOSaiX, from 1600 of the 1644 images that have been posted on chromasia, and used a portrait of me as the base image. The portrait was shot by my good friend Bobbi Lane, and is the one I use for my profile pic on Facebook and Twitter.

At this resolution it's a bit difficult to tell what you're looking at, so I've posted a bigger version here:

http://www.chromasia.com/iblog/archives/mosaic_portrait.php

If you do take a look, it will take some time to load as it's 3000px square and 2.8MB. The base image is included at the bottom-right of the mosaic. I can't imagine that this is a technique I'll be repeating, but it was fun to put this one together.

On an unrelated matter: my good friend Adam Swords has just launched his new website. If you haven't already done so, take a look:

http://www.adamswords.com/

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 my last shot from my recent trip to the 2009 Gulf Photo Plus training event, and like the previous seven shots in this small series it was shot down in the Souk. Unlike the others in this series though, this one is a pseudo-HDR image, not because I especially wanted to produce an HDR-like image, but because the original a) lacked detail, and b) was slightly over-exposed. If you're interested you can take a look at the original here:

.../archives/souk_portrait_8.php

And you can find out more about creating pseudo-HDR images from a single RAW file here:

.../tutorials/online/hdr3_info.php

In this instance, running the image through Photomatix Pro enabled me to really bring out the detail in the original and, because I used reasonably conservative settings, the end result still looks fairly natural.

As always, let me know what you think.

This is a shot of one of the students who took part in my landscape course at the recent GPP Training event.

We had a great storm last night, here in Bulgaria - the lightning flashed and the thunder rolled - but I was so engrossed in watching it that I didn't manage to take any photographs. Unfortunately the storm was followed by a 16 hour power cut - apparently the transformer in our village was damaged - after which I discovered that our router was fried. So tomorrow I'll be buying a new router and either a surge protector or UPS as I believe that storms are quite common at this time of year.

As for this shot: it was taken at the new mosque in Abu Dhabi during my recent trip to Dubai.

I've been in Bulgaria since Thursday, but haven't had an opportunity to go out shooting yet so am posting another shot from my recent trip to Dubai. This one is another shot of my good friend Bobbi Lane, taking in the Dubai Mall.

Tomorrow though, Craig and I are going to drive over the Shipka Pass, which should be fun. It's an hour both ways and I'm absolutely determined that I'm going to get a good shot :)

If you're reading this round about the time at which it was posted Craig and I will now be somewhere between Calais (France) and Bucharest (Romania). If we've made good time we'll be an hour or so into Romania, if not then we'll be heading towards Szeged – a town on the Hungarian side on the Hungary/Romania border, and will head down through Romania tomorrow. Apparently, Romania is not a country that's good to drive through in the dark as the roads can be quite bad at times; i.e. they have the sort of potholes that you really don't want to hit at speed ;)

As I mentioned on Monday, Libby will probably be tweeting our progress, so feel free to follow her on twitter. Her twitter name is @libby_chromasia.

As for this shot: it's another portrait shot down in the souk in Dubai, taken on the same trip as this one and this one.

Let me know what you think, and I'll get back to you later this week when I sort out my internet access in Bulgaria.

This is another portrait shot down at the souk in Dubai, shot on the same trip as this one. In some ways, I think I prefer this one – it's certainly more striking – but I do have a soft spot for the old gentleman in my previous shot, not least because I've now photographed him two years in a row.

Anyway, I don't think there's too much else I can tell you about this one other than that it was converted to black and white using the channel mixer (as described in this tutorial) then contrast adjusted and toned with a Curve. I also added a bit more light to his eyes (as described here) using a masked Curve, but that was about all that was done to this one.

As always, let me know what you think.

I wasn't intending to post this one, but Kevin asked an interesting question when I posted my last shot that got me thinking. He said:

"I'd love to hear how you (and others) approach these strangers (particularly in foreign countries) to take their pictures. I'd be afraid to do it as I would think it an imposition. How do you phrase the question?"

What this question made me realise was that the various portraits that I've posted that were shot in the Souk naturally lead to that question; i.e. I've portrayed these guys in a way that makes them look a bit unapproachable. This shot, on the other hand, shows this guy in a different light, and was taken just after my good friend Bobbi Lane had been shooting him. If you take a look at the front page of Bobbi's website you will notice that all of the people are smiling, as was this guy while she was photographing him.

In terms of answering Kevin's question, this is important for two reasons. Firstly, this guy wasn't as nearly unapproachable as my last shot implies, and second, people will react to you in the way that you react to them. In my case, I guess I often look reasonably serious when I approach people, and I get a reasonably serious response, while Bobbi's approach is quite different. I guess the bottom line here is that a portrait is as much about the relationship you establish with your subject as it is about them, and it's made me realise that I probably need to lighten up a bit ;)

While Dubai is famous for it's rather large buildings, malls, and indoor ski resort, some of my favourite places to visit are the souks (or markets). These are located on either side of the creek and you can cross between the two on an abrah (a small wooden dhow).

When I was there in 2008 I took this shot, a portrait of one of the many old guys who spend their days sitting and chatting in the markets. When we went back there this year he was there again, just round the corner from where I photographed him last year.

I have another three portraits from the same trip that I'll post at some point soon.

One of the sessions I taught at this year's GPP event was a landscape photography course, and one of the shots I suggested to my students was that they shoot from ground-level; i.e. get down as low as possible and shoot whatever they see.

While they were doing this, I photographed them, and although this isn't of one of the students (it's my assistant, Ayham) the pose was fairly typical :)

There was a great line up of photographers at this year's GPP training event – Joe McNally, David Hobby, Drew Gardner, Vincent LaForet, Zack Arias, Carol Dragon, Chase Jarvis, Cliff Mautner, Asim Rafiqui, Chris Hurtt, Bobbi Lane, and Robin Nichols – and while I'd met many of them at last year's event, there were a few new faces this time round.

One of the newbies was Zack Arias, the (multiple) subject of this shot. If you're not familiar with his work, take a look at his website, and be sure to check out a video I linked in a previous post – Transformed – it's a great piece of work. You might also want to check out his OneLight DVD. I'm just working my way through it at the moment and would definitely recommend it if you need any help/inspiration on how to use a single strobe to light your subjects.

As for this image: I didn't set out to produce a composite portrait, but was shooting Zack in the Souk as he was filming with his Flip Mino. I didn't think that any of them would be especially great (I was snapping rather than thinking about what I was doing), but when I looked through them I realised that while none of the individual shots were particularly good, they might work well as a set. Part of the reason I was prompted to think of a composite image was because Zack shot the group portrait at GPP this year using a single strobe to light 29 people dotted around a dark auditorium - one by one. If you're interested, the final image and Zack's description of the process are here:

http://www.zarias.com/?p=340

As always, let me know what you think.

My apologies for the total absence of updates over the last few days but we've been busy moving into a new office. Up until now Libby and I have run chromasia from a home office, but we got the opportunity to move into a new set of offices set up to support the creative industries so decided to give it a try.

All being well I should be back to posting more frequently in the near future. I'm currently writing a review of the Tamron AF 11-18mm F/4.5-5.6 Di II LD Aspherical [IF] for Digital SLR User magazine so will be out and about over the next few days putting it through its paces. On that basis, I'd be interested to hear if any of you have used it as it's not a lens I've tried before.

As for this shot: it was taken last summer, when we took the kids to Centre Parcs, and is a shot of Libby, Finley and Tabitha. It's a single image HDR, processed with FDRTools then converted to black and white and toned (using a Curve) in Photoshop.

This is a photograph of Nuria, taken at the Friday night meetup of the recent Europe Photobloggers meetup in Barcelona.

While yesterday's 'reluctant performer' was shot in an open square, today's was taken in a partially underground area of Park Güell in Barcelona. What drew me to this shot, other than the guy himself, was the instrument he was playing ;– as it wasn't one I was familiar with. It turns out that it's a stick, a two-handed tapping instrument originally designed by Emmett Chapman.

In terms of the shot itself: while I liked yesterday's, I much prefer the harsher contrast of this one. If you're interested, the original is here:

.../archives/the_reluctant_performer_2.php

If you've taken a look at my Black and White: part one tutorial you'll probably have already worked out that this was converted to black and white using the Channel Mixer, biased towards the blue channel. My reason for this was that I really wanted to bring out all the detail in his face, but an added bonus was that his shirt became much darker too – emphasising the detail in his face, the 'stick' and his hands.

And finally, a few days ago I mentioned that the 70-200mm f/2.8L IS wasn't ideal for street/candid photography (it's not exactly an unobtrusive item), but in this instance I wouldn't have got the shot without it as a) I wouldn't have been able to get close enough with a shorter lens, and b) without the IS there's now way on earth I'd have been able to handhold at 1/30 using a 200mm lens.

As always, let me know what you think.

While I don't often feel intimidated when shooting people in public, there is one situation that I do find difficult; i.e. when people make eye contact with you and you can't judge how they feel about being photographed. In these circumstances my instinctive reaction is to look away – much as I would if there wasn't a camera between us. However, a street portrait can be a lot stronger when a subject actively engages with the process of being photographed, so it's often worth staying focussed for a few more seconds than you would normally find comfortable to ensure that you get the shot.

In this instance, I'd been photographing this guy for a couple of minutes before he glanced up, and my immediate impression was that either he didn't want to be photographed or he found my presence distracting. Either way, I shot a few more frames before thanking him for his time and moving on.

The 70-200 f/2.8 IS is a great lens for street photography – shallow depth-of-field to isolate your subjects, IS for use in low light, and sufficient magnification to allow you to be a reasonable distance away. But, and it's a big but, it's such a large (white) lens that your chances of grabbing a shot without being spotted are quite small – as this shot clearly demonstrates :-)

This one was taken outside Maremagnum – a shopping centre in Barcelona – and beyond that I don't think there's a great deal I can say about this, other than to tell you it was one of about 15 shots. In the other shots the couple are either looking towards one another, or out over the water, but (for reasons that I can't really articulate) this was my favourite of the set.

I'm not entirely happy with the composition of this one, but there's something about her expression that made me think it was worth posting.

Once again, my apologies for not posting over the last few days but this cold has left me feeling totally bereft of both energy and enthusiasm (and if I had a photograph of a bloke pushing a rock up a hill I'd post it). As it is, I came across this one in a folder of images I'd put aside from this year's Blackpool Pride event and decided it was worth posting. And yes, in case this one causes as much confusion as the last one, he is wearing make-up :-)

Anyway, I'm hoping I'll be over this cold in the next day or so, after which I'll get out and shoot some new material.

My apologies for not posting anything yesterday, but I've come down with one of the many summer colds that are doing the rounds and didn't manage to take anything worth posting.

And today, things just got worse.

Our new puppy had a fight with one of our cats, and left the kitchen looking like an out-take from the Texas Chainsaw massacre, and Libby blew the engine on the car. The dog's fine (it was worse than it looked), but it looks as though our trusty old Volvo 940 has come to the end of the line. It was due it's MOT later this week, and we already thought it might prove too expensive to fix (it's only worth a few hundred quid and has done almost 200,000 miles), but it looks like it's either blown the cylinder head gasket or the turbo. Either way it's going to be too expensive to fix.

Anyway, virii, pets, and vehicles aside, I was browsing through some of the shots I took last summer in Germany, and came across this one: a shot of Roman Niewodniczanski, the owner of the winery I was photographing during my trip.

I did say that I thought that yesterday's would be the last one from my recent trip to Barcelona, and this one isn't especially striking, but there's something about the shoes under the bench that I like. And in case you're wondering about the location: the building in the background is the leftmost edge of the main building in this shot.