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 :-)

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.

This is a shot of one of the many street performers in Las Ramblas, Barcelona, and I initially thought that the shots I'd taken of this woman probably wouldn't work out. If you take a look at the straight shot you'll see why (processed with the default settings in ACR):

.../archives/barcelona_7.php

So, given that the straight shot wasn't up to much, I decided to try a pseudo-HDR version (tone mapping a single RAW file using Photomatix Pro). As I hope you'll agree, this version is a big improvement.

My apologies for not posting this week but I've been working away since Tuesday, and when I wasn't working I was enjoying some great hospitality. I'll tell you where I've been in a day or so, but in the meanwhile I'd be interested to hear if anyone can guess. I've got some shots that give it away instantly, but I'll post a few less easily recognisable ones first :-)

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.

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

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:

.../archives/souk_portrait_3.php

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.

This is the first of three portraits I'll be putting up that I took in the souk last Sunday. This is probably my least favourite of the three, but it's the only one of the set that contains any context - the other two are headshots.

This was taken at Al Seef in Dubai, and I think I would have liked the shot anyway, but the fact that they're all standing on one leg meant that this was a shot I couldn't resist.

As I mentioned yesterday, I've been using Photomatix Pro to generate pseudo-HDR images from a single RAW file, and of all my recent attempts I think that this is probably my favourite, and I may well include it in next month's tutorial.

If you take a look at the original you will see that it might just have been possible to create much the same effect using a variety of masked Curves, but the HDR process makes it a lot easier.

The original image (processed using the default settings in ACR) is here:

.../archives/making_a_statement.php

Oh, and let me know what you think about the boot in the top-right corner of the image. I did think about cloning it out, but thought it added another dimension to the story.

As I mentioned yesterday, I've been spending a lot of time working through various HDR techniques at the moment, in preparation for next month's tutorial; and while the normal purpose of creating an HDR is to merge a range of bracketed exposures that cover a wide tonal range, there are other ways in which HDR software (e.g. Photomatix Pro) can be used. One technique I particularly like involves converting a single RAW file to generate a pseudo 32-bit HDR, which can then be subsequently tone mapped.

In light of this I spent some time going through my archives today looking for images to work with, and found two that I think work quite well. If you'd like to see the original (converted using the default settings in ACR), it's here:

.../archives/all_mine.php

As I hope you'll agree, this version has a bit more impact.

This is the first of two, maybe three shots from tonight's Heat the Streets event in Blackpool. Libby and I took the kids down to see the various displays, which were all the more impressive as a) they were outdoors, and b) the temperature was around 1°C – i.e. not the sort of weather to be performing with hardly any clothes on. Though, that said, the woman in tonight's shot is practically fully clothed in comparison to one of the others I'm going to put up ;-)

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.

As I mentioned in my last entry, I was shooting a friend's wedding today. Generally, wedding shots don't make great blog shots, but I thought this one was worth sharing :-)

And just to remind you all ...

If you're interested we have 150 signed and numbered calendars for sale. Full details are available on our store page:

http://www.chromasia.com/store.php