When I spotted this guy he was smiling, and when I asked him if it would be OK if I photographed him he nodded and continued to smile. As soon as I pointed my camera at him though he adopted this rather serious expression and, despite my best efforts, stared fixedly into the middle distance for the time it took me to take a few shots. When I showed him the images he smiled.

So, hardly the most natural of portraits. And, while it would have been nice if his expression had matched the figure in the background, I think the contrast works OK too. Let me know what you think.

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10.51am on 14/11/11 Canon 5D Mark II EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM 64mm f/5.6 1/50 aperture priority +1/3 evaluative 100 no RAW Camera Raw Photoshop CS5 none no

This was taken on our recent Faces and Places Photo Tour to Istanbul, near to the Galata Tower.

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3.14pm on 8/11/11 Canon 5D Mark II EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM 200mm f/4.0 1/40 aperture priority +1/3 evaluative 400 no RAW Camera Raw Photoshop CS5 none 1x1

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 was taken down at the souqs in Dubai, and while I have no idea what the guy on the left was thinking, I do like his expression.

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10.20am on 14/11/11 Canon 5D Mark II EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM 35mm f/4.0 1/80 aperture priority +2/3 evaluative 100 no RAW Camera Raw Photoshop CS5 none minor

While I don't think this is quite as strong as yesterday's image I was drawn to take this follow-up shot for two reasons. First, I was intrigued by the fact that the guy on the left seemed to be sending messages (or similar) on two phones at the same time, entering data on both phones at much the same time. Second, and less obviously: for the few minutes we were photographing the four men (see yesterday's image for the whole group) this guy concentrated on his phones, resolutely ignoring me, Bobbi, Khaled and Syl ... well, right up until this point, when he glanced up and smiled at Bobbi before getting back to his phones.

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10.16am on 14/11/11 Canon 5D Mark II EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM 70mm f/5.0 1/40 aperture priority +1/3 evaluative 100 no RAW Camera Raw Photoshop CS5 none none

New Year's resolution #2: shoot more people!

One of the things that Bobbi and I invariably do when we're in Dubai for a GPP event is head down to the souqs for some shopping, food and photography. Bobbi normally buys enough pashminas to clothe the entire eastern seaboard of the US, a pile of safron and spices the size of a small shipping container, while simultaneously managing to charm photographs from even the most recalcitrant of the people we come across.

While she's doing all this I tend to wander around shooting random bits and pieces, but I do make the effort to shoot people too. I don't find it as easy as Bobbi, and my hit-rate of people who are willing to be snapped is quite a bit lower, but I didn't have any trouble with this group of guys. Well, other than the guy on the right who was watching Bobbi :)

As always, let me know what you think.

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10.15am on 14/11/11 Canon 5D Mark II EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM 38mm f/5.6 1/40 aperture priority +1/3 evaluative 100 no RAW Camera Raw Photoshop CS5 none none

This is a shot of our friend Neil who has been staying with us in Bulgaria for the last couple of weeks ( you may remember him from this shot) . Libby and I first met him in 2005, when he was working as the Creative Industries Development Officer for Creative Lancashire. Since then, in addition to being a good friend, he's also been a source of inspiration and encouragement, a sounding board, a critical eye, a mediator, and a general all-round good guy.

Anyway, we finally managed to convince him to come out and visit us, and during the last few weeks he's been helping us work out where we want to go with our business, and what we should do to get from here to there. It's been a tiring process, but we've made some great progress (which I'll tell you about soon) and we'll be sorry to see him go when he heads back to the UK on Tuesday.

It hasn't all been hard work though – we've managed to find time for a beer or three – and we took the day off today and headed up to the Buzludzha monument with Libby and the kids. We had a good look round the building, a great picnic, and I think I probably got a few shots that I'll be blogging over the next day or so.

I also got this shot.

As we were leaving we passed the two torches you can see behind Neil's head and he asked if we could stop and take a few photographs, including one that would make him look like a communist hero. This shot is the result, and as Neil tells me that this is his favourite portrait of him "ever", I consider it a definite success.

Oh, and for those of you who can't read the Cyrillic alphabet, the title is a reference to this guy ;-)

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4.22pm on 15/5/11 Canon 5D Mark II EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM 55mm f/5.6 1/800 aperture priority +1/3 evaluative 100 no RAW Camera Raw Photoshop CS5 none minor(ish)

This is a portrait of our good friend Neil, and as it's made its way onto his Facebook profile I guess it's fair to say that it turned out OK :-)

As the processing was also quite interesting – there are three separate layers for the black and white conversion – I've also added it as this week's Mini-PSD. If you're interested there's some further info here:

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

And finally (if you missed my last two entries), we're offering a 25% discount on our Photoshop tutorials to celebrate Easter, so if you've been thinking about improving your post-production skills, now would be a great time to sign up! Please note though: this offer ends at midnight today.

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

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4.40pm on 26/3/11 Canon 5D Mark II EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM 64mm f/5.6 1/50 aperture priority +1/3 evaluative 400 no RAW Camera Raw Photoshop CS5 none none

This is a follow-up to this image, a shot of this falconer and his falcon taken at the Bab Al Shams resort, near to Dubai.

I underexposed by two stops to create the silhouette and used an aperture of f/16 to create the star-burst effect.

The post-production was also relatively straightforward: I shifted the white balance in Camera Raw to cool down the image, added a few curves to increase the contrast, and then transformed the image to make a slight change to the composition.

In other news ...

Get a 25% discount on our Photoshop tutorials
From now until midnight (UTC-8) on the 26th of April you can get a 25% discount on the first year’s payment of an annual subscription, our lifetime membership, or our lifetime membership upgrade. All you need to do to take advantage of either offer – and gain access to all our existing tutorials, Mini-PSDs, Critique Slot Screencasts, members’ forum, and our current members’ offers – is enter the coupon code below in the box at the bottom of the sign up screen. Have a happy Easter :-)

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

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5.44pm on 13/3/11 Canon 5D Mark II EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM 57mm f/16 1/2000 aperture priority -2 evaluative 100 no RAW Camera Raw Photoshop CS5 none minor transformation

I met this guy while providing some one-to-one training for Mat Schenks. We'd headed up to Fleetwood to shoot the beach, but bumped into this guy starting his shift at the Fleetwood Coast Watch station.

If you're interested, Mat's shot is here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/11119558/...

I've also posted this image as this week's Mini-PSD as there were a number of interesting aspects to the post-processing, including using multiply blend mode to darken the image and adding an image based layer set to Color blend mode to restore the original colours.

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10.33am on 26/3/11 Canon 5D Mark II EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM 46mm f/8.0 1/80 aperture priority +2/3 evaluative 100 no RAW Camera Raw Photoshop CS5 Topaz Detail minor rotation

While I often produce images like this one, well, every once in a while, I rarely post them as I'm frequently dissatisfied with the results. It's rarely a technical problem – I understand the techniques well enough – but more to do with the fact that I lack any clear aesthetic goal(s) when producing them. As such my attempts often end up looking like I layered a random collection of images just for the sake of it ... which never looks good.

Anyway, on this occasion I did have a good idea about what I wanted to say, and how to put the images together, and I'm pleased with how it turned out.

You may have noticed that the 'show the original' link is missing for this one. This isn't because I used multiple images, but because I thought it would be interesting to ask you how many originals you think I used to create it. So feel free to speculate, both about the number of originals, and their content, and let me know.

Finally, if you're interested in learning more about working with textures, take a look at my Working With Textures tutorials (details about part one here and part two here). Both were co-written with Mike Regnier and, if you take a look at either of his websites, you'll see that he's a whole lot better at this than me. Well, most of the time at least ;-)

http://www.regnierstudio.com/
http://regnierphotography.com/

Update: I've now enabled the 'show the original' and, as you can see, I only used two images to create the final version :)

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

This is the last of the shots I took in October with my good friend Craig: a shot of a goat-herder wandering the shore of our local lake. Right now I'd be happy to trade places, at least for a while – the idea of living a simple life seems quite appealing today :-)

Oh, and if you're interested, Craig posted a shot of the same guy here:

http://www.id7.co.uk/iblog/?p=526

In other news, I'm running a new class with PPSOP: The Art of Black and White Photography. If you click the previous link you'll see that the course covers: black and white conversion techniques; working with portraits; combining conversion techniques and selectively altering tonal range and contrast; and toning and colorizing your black and white images. It's going to be a great course :-)

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2.23pm on 20/10/10 Canon 5D Mark II EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM 200mm f/4.0 1/200 aperture priority +1/3 evaluative 100 no RAW Camera Raw Photoshop CS5 none minor

This is another shot of Iva Sakarova, taken back in September, at the same time as this one, but I've held off posting it as I can't decide whether I like it or not. Sometimes I've opened it up and thought it was great, while at other times I've looked at it and wondered why I bothered. Part of the problem, I think, is that it's so far from my usual style that I just can't evaluate it alongside my other images, either in terms of content (as a portrait), or in terms of post-production (it was produced in Lab Color Mode). Anyway, it's sat there, haunting me since last September, so rather than keep looking at it and wondering what to do with it ... here it is. Let me know what you think.

In other news, my apologies for the lack of recent updates but I've spent most of this week working on a new online course for PPSOP (the Perfect Picture School of Photography). I already run one Digital Darkroom course – Unleashing the Power of High Dynamic Range (HDR) Images – and from February I'll be running another. Hopefully I'll be able to post more details over the weekend.

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12.06pm on 4/9/10 Canon 5D Mark II EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM 30mm f/9.0 1/160 manual n/a evaluative 100 580EX II (1/2 power) 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

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

I came across this guy in the Muttrah Souq (Muscat, Oman), selling traditional Omani canes and rings, and decided to ask him if he'd mind if I photographed him. As soon as I asked though he immediately adopted this slightly unnerving pose, so I shot a few frames and then thanked him for his time. Once I'd stopped taking photographs he smiled and waved goodbye. I'm not sure quite why he thought I wanted the 'ferocious' look, and I doubt I'd have approached him if he'd looked like this from the outset, but it was certainly a look that suited him :)

In other news ...

I'll be running two post-production workshops in Austin, Texas in February 2011. The first is a one-day HDR workshop on the 4th, while the second is a two day workshop on Creating Dramatic Images, covering a range of intermediate and advanced post-production techniques. If you'd like some further information on the course content, costings, and so on, please email Dave Wilson who will be coordinating both workshops:

dave AT davewilsonphotography DOT com

We already have a lot of provisional interest in both workshops, so if you think you'd be interested in either of them drop Dave a line fairly soon.

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4.33pm 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 800 no RAW Camera Raw Photoshop CS5 none minor

After Jason and I had shot the stars at Jabel Shams we went bed at 3.00am but set our alarms for six, so we could get up and shoot the sunrise. Well, that was the plan at least, but after I woke up for the second time (at around 4.30am), near frozen to death, I turned my alarm off. Predictably enough though Jason's still went off so we dragged ourselves out of bed and dashed across the road to where we'd been shooting star trails. We missed the sunrise by about 30 minutes, but did shoot some silhouettes of each other.

Jason's shot is here:

http://www.escapism-online.com/blog-entry.php?pid=313

This is another portrait taken at the Muttrah Souq in Muscat (Oman) and beyond that there isn't too much more I can tell you about this one other than to say I think his expression is great.

In other news ...

We're currently offering a 25% discount on our Photoshop tutorials to celebrate Thanksgiving. Happy Holidays :-)

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

This is another shot from the Muttrah Souq in Muscat (Oman), taken at much the same time as this one, and I can't explain why but I really like how this one turned out: there's just something about his shy almost coy expression that really makes me smile :)