When you first looked at this image I would guess that quite a few of you attributed the 1970s like retro look to the processing. If you've taken a look at the original though, most of the effect is down to the lens: the Flare Factory 58, produced by the oddly named company, Dog Schidt Optiks.

I'll write more about this lens in a separate blog post at some point soon but, in the meanwhile, the Flare Factory 58 is a modified and re-engineered Helios 44-M 58mm f/2.0. The lenses are reconditioned, the coatings from the lens elements are removed, and a unique tint is added to one of the elements. For my lens this is a red/amber tint.

It's an odd and difficult lens to shoot with, but I have a feeling that I'm going to be able to produce some truly unique images once I get the hang of using it.

As always, let me know what you think.

I still have a load of shot to post from both Venice and Dubai but, in the meanwhile, here's a portrait of Rhowan I shot yesterday afternoon.

My penultimate post for the year, another shot of Maria and Todor's daughter Nedezhda.

It's rare that I post more than one shot in a single entry but these go so well together that it didn't make any sense to post them one at a time: Nadezhda on the left, and Tiggy (our youngest) on the right.

All three shots were lit in the same way - a flash bounced off the ceiling then reflected up from the white table cloth and place mats - and all were converted to black and white using either the Channel Mixer or Black and White tool (biased towards the red channel). They were then adjusted using a number of masked curves to up the contrast and brighten them.

As always, let me know what you think.

Maria and Todor, our good friends from Bulgaria, were staying with us last week along with their daughter Nedezhda, and while I'm a bit out of practice at photographing babies I am pleased with how this one turned out. The lighting isn't perfect - I think I needed a bit more reflected light on the left side of her face - and the focus is slightly off, but she does look very cute :)

A shot of Harmony, taken earlier today at our local park. She looks more like Libby every day.

A shot of Harmony playing around with Finley's binoculars at Beacon Fell this afternoon.

Let me know which animal she reminds you of ;)

I know I said that my previous image was the last one that I'd post before leaving for Dubai, but I thought I'd put this one up too: a slightly more light-hearted shot of Rhowan on Fleetwood beach :)

This is the last shot I'll be blogging from the UK for a while as I leave for Dubai on Monday morning and won't be back until the 11th of next month. It's going to be a fairly hectic trip: I'm spending two days shooting for Sony prior to launching the SLT-A99 at a press conference on the 6th, I have a one-to-one student for a couple of days, and I'll running three of my favourite workshops at GPP's Fotoweekend event (two of which have now sold out). So, lots to do, but I'm really looking forward to the trip.

As for this one, it's a shot of Rhowan, taken with the Sony SLT-A99 up at Fleetwood beach last weekend.

This is the first of what I'm sure will be loads of images shot with the new Sony SLT-A99, Sony's new full-frame SLT camera. I'm helping to launch the A99 in Dubai next month, in conjunction with Sony Middle East.

I've only had the camera since I got back from Bulgaria, so it's early days in terms of making any concrete statements about its usability, IQ and so on, but I can say that I'm extremely impressed so far. I'll be posting a much more comprehensive review on our new blog at some point soon but, if you have any questions about it in the meanwhile, feel free to ask. I can't promise to be able to answer them - I'm still working my way through the manual - but I'd be happy to try.

As for this image: it's a shot of Tabby, taken on Fleetwood beach yesterday afternoon.

I took this back in August when I was in the UK running my Creating Dramatic Images workshops, and despite appearances to the contrary it was actually a very warm day: loads of people were swimming, kids were splashing along the water's edge, but this poor lad looked like he was about to freeze to death. As such I decided to process it to make the weather and sea look a lot colder: changing the scene to match his mood.

I was going to call this one 'what do you get if you cross a Rhowan with a lion tiger and a librarian?', but decided that that was probably too long a title :)

I posted a version of this shot earlier today on Instagram (and Facebook and Twitter) but decided it was worth blogging too. It's a shot of Harmony, just before she headed off to her end of year graduation party at school. It was taken using Hipstamaticthen tweaked in CS6.

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 :)

As Libby's and our three youngest are back in the UK for the next eight days I thought I'd make the most of the peace and quiet by shooting some portraits or Rhowan (10) and Harmony (8) – it's been a while since they made an appearance on the blog, and even longer since I shot anything intentional (rather than grabbed).

I also decided to light the shot(s) using a 40" umbrella and 580EX II.

Anyway, just before we started Rhowan said "Oh wait, I need makeup!", disappeared for ten minutes, and then came back looking like a character out of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. At this point, despite the makeup, I did still think it might be possible to get a reasonably 'nice' shot of her, but, if you take a look at my gallery of out-takes on Facebook though, you'll see that I was wrong :)

So, no 'nice' shots, but I did get some that were interesting. When I started processing this one I was working with just the image on the right, but later decided to incorporate the blurrier shot on the left. I did look through them all in the hope of finding two contrasting images I could post as a diptych, but couldn't find one that went well with the 'goblin' shot so ended up using the blurry version of the same expression.

So, not a pretty portrait, but I like how it turned out. Let me know what you think.

I have a folder on my hard drive called 'possibles'. Shot's that I like but can't decide whether to blog. Normally, an image will sit in this folder for no more than a month or two – I'll either blog it, or delete it. This one though has sat there for almost two years, and I keep opening the file, then closing it again, remaining undecided as to whether to post it here.

So, rather than go through the whole process for another few years I thought I'd post it today. It's a shot of Libby and Tabby (our next to youngest) being photographed by Milly who was 13 at the time.

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10.57am on 21/4/10 Panasonic Lumix GF-1 20mm f/1.7 ASPH f/2.5 1/80 aperture priority +1/3 intelligent multiple 100 no RAW ACR Photoshop CS5 none no

This shot of Harmony was taken in August during a trip to Dryanovo monastery, a few miles from our village. Like a lot of photographs I take of the kids, it's a grab shot – a fleeting moment rather than a carefully planned image – hence the rather distracting background in the original. I did try to tone it down a bit, but couldn't come up with anything that looked convincing so decided to get rid of it altogether. I'm fairly sure it's a plausible edit, but let me know if you disagree.

This was taken in the Old Bazaar in Istanbul and even though I spent quite a few minutes shooting this scene it was only when I post-produced it that I spotted all the reflections. It' easy to miss one of them :)

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11.56am on 12/11/11 Canon 5D Mark II EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM 70mm f/2.8 1/80 aperture priority +2/3 evaluative 400 no RAW Camera Raw Photoshop CS5 none minor

This shot was taken during a photo walk around Istanbul, as part of our recent Faces and Places Photo Tour to this fabulous city. I can't remember the exact area of the city we were in, but it was largely residential with a few small shops, winding streets, and a host of interesting things to photograph, including these two children – noses pressed up to the glass, watching the world go by their window.

As an aside, this image captures the flavour of Istanbul in a way that isn't apparent from the image itself. To explain ...

We'd been walking through the streets of this area, photographing the people we met, the buildings, the skyline, and pretty much everything that caught our attention. When I spotted these two children I automatically started shooting, as did several other people in our group.

After a couple of minutes an adult appeared behind the small girl, and from what followed I assume it was her mother. As soon as she appeared I realised what we were doing – taking photographs of small children in the privacy of their home. Had I been in the UK there would probably have been one of two outcomes: either an angry exchange with the parent regarding my invasion of their privacy or, worse, a discussion with the local police regarding the inappropriateness and illegality of my behaviour.

In this case though, rather than snatching the small girl away, she lifted her higher, waved, and smiled at us all as we photographed her children. In the scale of things it was a small event, but it neatly summarises my experience of Istanbul: one of the largest cities in the world, but also one of the most open and friendly that I've visited. I wish more of the world was the same.

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1.28pm on 11/11/11 Canon 5D Mark II EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM 68mm f/3.5 1/60 aperture priority +2/3 evaluative 400 no RAW Camera Raw Photoshop CS5 none minor transformation