Having written two tutorials on the topic of working with textures (details about part one are here, part two here) I thought it was about time that I posted something that used the techniques. And while I'm reasonably pleased with how this one turned out it would definitely be fair to say that this is a technique that I understand more from a technical point of view than I do from an artistic one; i.e. I can do it, but am still struggling a bit with working out the aesthetics for this type of image. What I can say though is that they're a lot of fun to produce.

If you're interested, the base image is here:

.../archives/fly_by.php

On a related matter: we're currently running a 4th of July special offer on our tutorials and are offering a 25% discount on the first year’s payment of an annual subscription or our lifetime membership package. If you're interested there are some further details here:

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

This is the second portrait of Harmony I mentioned, and I don't have a great deal to say about it from an aesthetic point of view other than that I really like her smile in this one :)

From a post-production point of view though, it is worth discussing in a bit more detail ...

As with a lot of my portraits, this one was converted to black and white using the channel mixer. For portraits of the kids I often bias the conversion towards the red channel (e.g. this one), as this lightens and smooths skin tones. In this case though I biased the conversion towards the blue channel. This is a technique I normally use for 'gritty' male portraits (e.g. this one), as it tends to darken and exaggerate detail, but in this case it just adds contrast, darkens her hair, and lightens her blue/grey eyes.

For older children, or women, this isn't a technique that works especially well, at least not if you want the portrait to be flattering, but for young kids it can be a good choice. If you're interested, this is a topic I cover in a lot more detail in my Black and White: part one tutorial.

Oh, and the original is here:

.../archives/I_know_something_you_dont.php

I suspect that most of you will prefer the previous shot of Harmony I posted, but I'd be interested to hear how you think the two compare.

On a totally different matter: when I was out in Dubai recently I met up with Will Pattison. If you're interested in seeing a few more shots of the city and its people, take a look at one of his recent entries:

http://www.barpfoto.com/blog/?p=897

They're all good shots, but I think my favourite is the one of the man sipping his tea from his saucer.

And finally: I'm heading back to the UK today, and will be there until the 17th, so expect some seascapes and shots of dull, grey skies at some point soon :)

This is the first of two portraits of Harmony, both of which were shot today. This one was taken in our garden this morning, while the second was taken in the park in Veliko Tarnovo at lunchtime. Of the two, I think I prefer this one, but there's something about the next one that I really like too.

In terms of the post-processing: this is a partial black and white, insofar as I used a Channel Mixer adjustment layer (biased towards the red channel) to convert the image to black and white, after which I lowered the opacity of the layer to allow some of the colour to bleed back into the image. In other words, it's very much like the first image I discuss in my Black and White: part one tutorial; i.e. the image is a lot lighter than the original – because of the way in which the black and white conversion was carried out – but because the opacity of that layer was lowered it's a colour rather than black and white image. To give you an idea of what I mean, take a look at the original:

.../archives/dreaming_of.php

As you can see, it's quite a light shot anyway, but nowhere near as high-key as the final image.

As always, let me know what you think.

Oh, and thanks for all the birthday wishes on Facebook, they're very much appreciated :)

This is the last in my 'after the rain' series, and while I suspect that some of you will probably prefer the first one I posted, I think that this is definitely my favourite – not least because the post-production was minimal, there's no crop, and it perfectly captures Rhowan in one of her more contemplative moments.

If you are interested, the original is here:

.../archives/after_the_rain_3.php

In this instance, the black and white conversion was done using the channel mixer (as described in this tutorial), and a masked curve was added to bring out her eyes (as described here). Other than that I added an overall Curve to up the contrast a little, a masked Curve to slightly lighten the left side of the image, and a final Curve to add the slightly warmer tone.

As always, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts, particularly in terms of which of the last three you liked best.

While Rhowan may be the current queen of drama and posing in our household – see my last post if you're not sure what I'm talking about – it would be fair to say that Harmony has a slight edge when it comes to looking cute :)

And if you're interested, the original is here:

.../archives/after_the_rain_2.php

Most of the time, when I'm processing an image I have a clear idea about how I want it to turn out. In this instance though I struggled a bit as I couldn't decide whether to go for black and white or colour. In the end, mostly because I liked the contrast between the towel and her skin tones, the colour version won out.

On a related note: take a look at the difference between the towel (over her right shoulder) in the straight version and the final image. As you will probably notice, a lot of the detail is missing in the straight shot as a consequence of the fact that the highlights in the red channel were clipped in the original exposure. Fortunately though, clipping in one channel can be compensated for by either dropping the exposure (as you convert the RAW file) or by lowering the saturation. In this instance I used the second method, and partially desaturated the image using the Channel Mixer.

Other than that, the post-processing was relatively straightforward and followed most of the techniques in my Portraits: part one tutorial; i.e. I used a couple of masked curves to adjust the tonal balance of the image and another masked curve to add some light to her eyes.

I was going to post my second shot of the Ganchovets station buildings tonight, but we had a brief storm this afternoon and I got some shots of Rhowan and Harmony that I think I'll post first. Before you read on though, you might want to take a look at Libby's blog post on the same topic, as it sets the scene for this series. Regrettably, I didn't get any shots of them dancing under the water pouring from the drainpipe and gutter (see the video at the end of Libby's post), but am fairly pleased with the ones I'm going to post.

Oh, and if you're interested, the original is here:

.../archives/after_the_rain_1.php

While this one is a little bit soft – shooting at 1/30s at 110mm is a bit of a gamble, even with IS – it does make me smile. And in case you're not familiar with our kids: Rhowan is the poser on the right, Harmony is silently protesting about being upstaged on the left, and Camilla is in the background.

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

Over the next week or so I'm going to start documenting our local surroundings in Bulgaria, much as Craig did during his recent visit, but in the meanwhile here's another portrait of Harmony – taken on a recent trip to Dryanovo monastery.

As with my last portrait of Harmony this was also processed in LAB Color mode rather than RGB, and the techniques I used are covered in the first and second parts of my LAB Color mode tutorials linked below:

http://www.chromasia.com/tutorials/online/lcm1_info.php
http://www.chromasia.com/tutorials/online/lcm2_info.php

If you're interested, I've posted the original here:

.../archives/untitled_0084.php

As always, let me know what you think.

As most of you will now be aware, Libby, myself and the kids are now in Bulgaria. We have a house about 20km south-south-west of Veliko Tarnovo (the old cultural capital of the country) and will be spending at least the next six weeks here ... if not longer. I'll be writing more about life in Bulgaria in forthcoming posts, but for the time being you might want to read through Libby's latest blog post for a bit more information on what we've been up to.

As for this shot, it was taken yesterday evening about a mile up the road from us, close to the village spring, and is a shot of Tabby (our youngest) exploring her surroundings. As always, let me know what you think.

Our next training weekend
On a totally different matter: I'll definitely be back in the UK in June as we're running a training course in Blackpool on the weekend of 13/14th June. The cost for the course is £225.00 and we still have a few places left. If you'd like to receive some more information please email Libby for the details (libby AT chromasia DOT com).

25% off print offer
Also, most of you will probably have noticed that we are now selling prints of our images through FOTOMOTO. As a special introductory offer we are offering a 25% discount on the next 50 prints that are ordered. If you're interested, all you need to do is enter the following coupon code on the order form (after clicking the ‘purchase a print’ link beneath most images):

    8F5CD0

Critique required
And finally, If any of you have a moment to spare, please could you visit the link below and take a look at the images posted by the daughter of a friend of mine. The images are part of her final major project for her BTEC photography course and it was suggested to them that they seek opinions from other sources than college or home. Any comments would be gratefully received:

http://veritymay.wordpress.com/

This one was taken a few minutes before my last post and is a shot of Harmony (one of Rhowan's younger sisters) sporting her new hat. Unlike the shot of Rhowan though I decided to leave this one in colour, and almost posted the straight shot (linked below):

.../archives/harmonys_new_hat.php

As you can see, it's a fairly pleasant shot. In this instance though, more for practice than any pressing aesthetic reason, I decided to switch to processing in LAB Color mode rather than RGB. If you're not familiar with LAB Color mode I'd definitely suggest you give it a try, not least because it gives you an amazing amount of control, especially in terms of modifying colour. If you're interested, the techniques I used for this image are covered in the first and second parts of my LAB Color mode tutorials linked below:

http://www.chromasia.com/tutorials/online/lcm1_info.php
http://www.chromasia.com/tutorials/online/lcm2_info.php

As always, let me know what you think.

As I mentioned in my last post, I haven't been especially well since arriving in Bulgaria, and have taken very few photographs, but am pleased to say that I'm now definitely on the mend. I haven't ventured out with my camera yet, but did shoot some portraits of Rhowan and Harmony this afternoon.

This one, as I'm sure most of you will know, is of Rhowan: sporting her new glasses. When I was a kid, being short-sighted was a social stigma, not least because the National Health glasses that were available at the time were hideous, but times have changed: to the extent that Rhowan was delighted to find out she was short sighted enough to need some designer frames like her mum's :)

I've had a really great time in Dubai this year - working with a good client, teaching at Gulf Photo Plus with an amazing group of photographers, and meeting many new friends - but it's time to go home now as I miss my wife and kids. The good news is that I only have one more meeting to go to tomorrow then fly home on Thursday :)

I've got quite a few more shots to post over the next week or so - a couple of HDRs, quite a few portraits, and a couple of experimental shots - but as my thoughts are currently pointing towards home I thought this was the most relevant to post tonight - a shot of a young girl taken down at the mosque in Abu Dhabi. My shots of the mosque are a spectacular failure, despite it being a really cool place, but I'm pleased with how this one turned out.

As for the post production: it was converted to black and white using the Channel Mixer (as described in my Black and White: part one tutorial), then contrast-adjusted and toned with a Curve.

I may post another shot before I leave Dubai, but it's more likely that I'll put something up when I get back to the UK. In the meanwhile, let me know what you think of this one.

We gave the kids the option of the park or the beach this afternoon, and I was pleased that they chose the beach, not least because I didn't fancy photographing the ducks again :)

And beyond that, I don't have a great deal to say about this one other than to tell you that a) it's a shot of Rhowan, wandering about in a very calm sea in her wellies, and b) that it looks much better set against the black theme.

If you're interested (at Gary's request), I've posted the original here:

.../archives/the_butterfly_effect.php

On an unrelated matter: if you're a subscriber to our tutorials you have just over 24 hours left to enter our Creative Point of View contest to win a Lensbaby Composer and Optic Kit. Even if you don't plan on entering, you should definitely take a look at the entries in the forum: the quality of many of them is stunning.

We took the kids down to the beach this afternoon, and while it was cold and windy they all had a good time chasing each other around, playing in the sand, and generally just being kids. I took loads of shots (with my G9) but suspect that this may be the only one I post, a shot of Rhowan playing in the sand.

After the rather lengthy (and mildly heated) discussion of HDR photography on my previous entry I thought it was about time for something slightly less controversial and slightly more mellow: a shot of Harmony, partially obscured by the long grass in the sand dunes at Blackpool's south shore. And beyond that I don't have much more to say about this one but would be interested to hear what you think.

This is another Lensbaby shot, of Harmony (our six year old) and her 'baby born' up at Fleetwood beach. I had hoped that one of the shots of her teaching her 'baby' to paddle would have worked, but I didn't get the focus right on any of them so you'll have to settle for this one instead.

From a technical point of view I think I would have preferred a slightly larger sweet spot, i.e. more of the image in focus, but I'd switched to using the f/8.0 aperture as it wasn't as bright as when I shot the one I posted a few days ago. In other words, I personally feel that this one is either a bit too 'dreamy', in which case a smaller aperture would have worked better, or maybe not 'dreamy' enough; i.e. I should have used a larger aperture. Either way though, I'm reasonably happy with how it turned out, and she does look cute. More importantly though, she likes this one, but I'd also be interested to hear what you think.

And on the subject of Lensbabies (and if you're a subscriber to our tutorials) I just posted the details of our latest competition in the forum. The first prize is a Lensbaby Composer and Lensbaby Optic Kit, while the second and third place prizes are Lensbaby vouchers, worth $150.00 and $100.00 respectively.

On a totally different matter, and I promise not to mention this more than a couple of times, voting has just opened for the 2009 Photoblog Awards. Any votes for chromasia would be very much appreciated :)

We spent this week at Center Parcs, which was a great break after the last few weeks of writing from dawn till dusk, and while I'm now physically tired, I'm feeling mentally rested. We did all the usual stuff while we were there: swimming, bike riding, a meal at the pub, and so on, but we also celebrated Harmony's sixth birthday. She's the fabulous sister on the left in this shot :)

Other than photographing her birthday though I didn't have any other time for photography so will need to get out over the weekend to shoot some new material. I'm not quite sure what yet, but may try and grab some shots with my new Lensbaby.

And I would write more, but a) I can hardly keep my eyes open this evening, and b) Libby has written about our trip on her blog, so rather than struggle to replicate the details I'll just point you at her latest entry instead :)

I finally got my laptop back - the hard drive was replaced, as was the left fan - and have spent the last few days catching up with various projects and sorting out a better backup regime. I'm fairly good at backing up ... normally ... but on the day my hard drive failed I hadn't done so for about five days. This doesn't sound long, but it caused me a number of headaches that could easily have been avoided had I been a bit more diligent.

I guess the bottom line is that any computer system or any of its components can fail. In the 23 months that I've had this laptop the CD drive has failed, as has the battery, and my hard drive has failed twice. You'd think that I would have learnt my lesson after the first time, when I also lost a week's work, but I'm determined that it won't happen again. I now have two backups for the laptop - a 500GB RAID 1 device at the office and a Lacie 500GB external drive at home. All I need to do is make sure that I connect them up and let Apple's Time Machine do it's stuff.

Anyway, in and amongst everything else that's been going on I haven't had a great deal of time to take photographs, but did manage to get to the beach this afternoon. I didn't get anything I was especially happy with, but do like this shot of Harmony, bundled up against the cold.

One of the things I think I'm reasonably good at is shooting in natural light. What I'm less good at though is shooting using artificial light. Sure, I can bounce a flash of the ceiling (or wall, or floor), I can use ETTL fill-flash to good effect, and I can use additional strobes to add more light to a scene when it needs it. But it's not something I'm especially comfortable with and I don't feel as though I have any real creative control over the process. In short, lighting is a bit of a dark art as far as I'm concerned.

My reason for mentioning that is that I've been feeling a bit under the weather over the last few days so, rather than dragging myself around taking crap photographs, I've taken the opportunity to catch up with one of my favourite blogs – Strobist, produced by David Hobby. If you haven't seen Strobist, and you're at all interested in lighting, you should check it out – it's extremely well written, and very informative.

Anyway, having read through quite a few of his tutorials today I thought I'd try something a bit more adventurous than usual; i.e. switching my flash to manual.

The set up for this shot was as follows:

The flash was set to 1/4 power about two feet below a glass table: snooted with a cardboard tube and triggered with a Pocket Wizard. The item on the table is a crystal ball, resting on a crystal stand, and my model for today was Camilla (who made her last appearance back in August). The end result is probably more interesting than worthy, but I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. As always, let me know what you think, and don't forget to check out Strobist if you haven't already done so.

I'm now back from Bulgaria, having had a great time in and around Veliko Tarnovo, but don't have any other pictures to post. As I mentioned, it wasn't a photographic trip, and I didn't have a great deal of free time, but I will be going back again in the future.

So, it's back to more usual material for the next few days, shot up at Fleetwood beach this afternoon. I have two new shots of this structure, which I'll put up tomorrow and the day after, but in the meanwhile, here's a shot of Tabby - our youngest daughter and least photographed of all our children.

Well, I don't know what sort of week you've all been having, but it's been a bit of a downhill journey at chez chromasia. Tabby and Finley have both got stinking colds and have both been waking up several times a night, so Libby and I are now half-dead, and my laptop decided to die on me a few hours before I was supposed to be giving a presentation on Monday evening. All in all, it's been a bit of a trial. Fortunately Tabby has been a bit better today, but Finley has been feeling decidedly sorry for himself.

All that said, we did manage to take the kids to the park for a while this afternoon and I managed to find a bit of time to try out my new lens, a Lensbaby 3G. If you've been visiting chromasia for a while you may remember that I posted some shots in 2005 taken with a Lensbaby 2.0, some of which I was quite pleased with (e.g. this one and this one). What I never really got the hang of though was the lack of control; i.e. the focus with the Lensbaby 2.0 can be continuously varied, but not locked. The Lensbaby 3G, on the other hand, allows you to lock the focus and, as a result, is considerably easier to use.

Anyway, this is a shot of Rhowan, taken at f/2.8, and the blur is a consequence of the lens; i.e. it wasn't added during post-production. And I know I've posted several portraits of Rhowan that aren't entirely dissimilar to this one, but it's a style that seems to suit her.

This is a shot of Rhowan, taken on Fleetwood beach just after she'd had a row with Harmony. I can't remember what they were arguing about, and she was running around playing again two minutes later, but she did look very forlorn for the few seconds it took me to take this shot.

On a side note: Libby took some shots of me photographing the kids that I've posted here:

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I was trying to photograph Harmony, who you can see running off in the top-right corner of the first shot, but I was slightly hampered by Tabitha's attempts to help out :-)

The second shot I posted on chromasia was a portrait of me and Rhowan, taken about a month before her second birthday, and I've posted numerous shots of her since. This one though was taken today as she celebrated her seventh birthday with her friends.

If you're interested, the original is here:

.../archives/now_we_are_seven.php

The processing was relatively straightforward and involved a black and white conversion using the Channel Mixer (see this tutorial) and a masked Curve to lighten her eyes (see this one too).

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

I went up to Fleetwood this afternoon to shoot some HDRs (all of which are rubbish) and Milly, Amirah and Harmony came along for the ride. I wasn't planning on photographing any of them, but couldn't resist snapping this shot of Milly as we strolled along the beach.

I have shot some new material since I returned from Barcelona, but haven't been especially happy with any of it, so am posting another shot taken at much the same time as this portrait of Harmony. In some ways I think I prefer this one.

I recently got hold of a new lens ;– taken from a Holga 120S and glued to a body cap – but haven't really had time to try it out, at least not seriously. I did spend some time snapping shots of Rhowan this morning though, and this is a heavily modified version of one of them (i.e. there's a lot of added blur in addition to the blur/soft-focus caused by the lens itself).

When I've got a bit more time I'll try and shoot some more material with it as I think it has a lot of potential, especially for portraiture.

As always, let me know what you think.

This is the third and final shot in this sequence: the second shot of Harmony and my favourite of the three.

This is the second of the three shots I mentioned yesterday, though in this instance this is Rhowan rather that Harmony. Of the three, I think this is my least favourite of the set, but I'd be interested to hear what you think.

And if you're interested, the original is here:

.../archives/against_the_pale_sky_2.php

As I mentioned yesterday, I took Rhowan and Harmony to see the wreck of the Riverdance yesterday morning, and while I only got one shot of the boat that I'm happy with, I got three of Rhowan and Harmony. Unusually, I have two of Harmony that I like and just one of Rhowan. This is the first one of Harmony.

As for the post-production: this one was processed almost exclusively in RAW Developer using LAB curves. RAW Developer has a great Curves, tool that includes the 'a', 'b' and Lightness curves in addition to the standard RGB curves, and if you have a Mac I'd suggest you give it a try. Unfortunately there isn't a PC version of this programme.

Also, if you're unfamiliar with LAB Color mode you might want to take a look at my first LAB Color mode tutorial that explains the basics with respect to the various LAB channels.

As always, let me know what you think.

I don't know what it is about Rhowan, but even when eating an ice cream she can look as though she's a million miles away.

On another matter: if I don't post much over the next day or so, don't be surprised. My server (a ReadyNAS NV+) has fried its power supply and I'm currently waiting for a replacement - and keeping my fingers crossed that the disks aren't fried to. Once I get back things back to some sort of technical stability I'll post more regularly again.