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

There's not much I can tell you about this one other than a) it was snapped as Tom and I followed the bride and groom around Venice, and b) I thought the guy had an interesting face and world-class eyebrows :-)

When I posted venezia #3 I mentioned that I trusted to luck with the exposure - mostly because I didn't have time to do anything else. With this shot though I decided to deliberately go for a more high-key image, by overexposing by +1 EV, and while I think I prefer the slightly moodier look of venezia #3, I also like this one too. Technically, and aesthetically, I think it's a bit weaker, but symbolically I think it's more interesting, i.e. they're walking towards a bright or unknown future.

I'd be interested to hear how you think the two compare, and which you prefer.

On a related matter, the second shot I posted in this series – venezia #2 – has been nominated for the Photo of the Year category of the 2009 Photoblog Awards. If you would like to vote for that image you can do so here:

http://vote.photoblogawards.com/photoblog.php?name=venezia-2

My own submission for that category was one of my favourite HDR shots from this year – BSC - Workington. If you'd like to vote for that one, the relevant page is here:

http://vote.photoblogawards.com/photoblog.php?name=bsc---workington

As I was waiting for the guests to arrive at Venice town hall for the wedding I shot a couple of weekends ago I noticed some masks in a shop window. I took a variety of shots, from different angles, but wasn't convinced that any of them would work out as there was quite a bit of glare from the window, and I couldn't really get an angle I was happy with.

That said, I did try processing three of them, all of which are included on the following page:

.../archives/venezia_6.php

Unfortunately though, despite the fact that there are some interesting elements in each of the three shots, none of them ended up being worth posting, and I was about to ditch all three when I realised that they might work if I combined them.

In terms of the post-production: first, I combined the three images by stacking them and using Soft Light blend mode and masks to create an image composed of all three originals. I then duplicated and flipped the image, then used another mask to blend this newly created layer with the three images below it. I then warped and altered the colour balance of the left side of the image and increased the overall saturation using the Channel Mixer. I also added some local contrast using the Topaz Adjust plugin.

I don't have a tutorial that covers this sort of montaging technique, at least not specifically, but many of the techniques I used to blend the original images are covered in my Working with textures: part one tutorial.

The end result is an image, in my opinion at least, that's faithful to the spirit of the original scene, but not the reality. As always, let me know what you think.

Oh, and this one works much better with the black theme.

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.

While I think I prefer the previous two shots I posted of the bride and groom from the wedding I shot in Venice recently, I like this one too. It was taken just before we started our walk around Venice,and was grabbed as the bride and groom were saying a temporary goodbye to their guests, and while I would have preferred a less cluttered shot (table legs in the foreground, people in the background), it was either grab the shot or miss the moment. I'm glad I chose the former.

I do have three, possibly four more wedding shots that I'll post, but I thought I'd put this one up first. It's not quite a beachcoming shot, but it's of the same genre: a discarded item, easily overlooked.

If you're interested, the original is here:

.../archives/closer_to_home.php

The post-processing for this one was relatively straightforward. I cropped the image, added a minor amount of local contrast using Topaz Detail, then used a number of Curves to adjust both the tonal range and contrast (as described in my Tonal Range and the Curves tool tutorial), and the colour balance (as described in my Toning Colour Images tutorial). The net result, in my opinion at least, is that the final image is considerably more striking than the rather dull, flat original.

On a totally different matter: the kids and I are currently fending for ourselves out here in Bulgaria as Libby is back in the UK for the next six weeks (or thereabouts). As some of you already know, she's expecting our latest child on November 11th, so has headed back to the UK to give birth there. We did look into the possibility of the baby being born in BG but, for a whole variety of reasons, decided that the UK was probably a safer option for both Libby and the baby.

In the meanwhile, because three of our younger kids are now in nursery or school, the rest of us have stayed here. I suspect it's going to be a rather long six weeks, but at least we'll be able to keep in touch via Skype, Facebook, Twitter and so on. I'll keep you all updated and will post a shot of the baby as soon as the two of them get back :-)

Of all the shots I took of the bride and groom during our walk through Venice, I think that this is one of my favourites – aesthetically, because it captures a moment that I think was definitely worth recording, and technically, because it was shot in circumstances that I would normally avoid, i.e. the dynamic range of the original scene was quite high. As such I was going to lose either some shadow detail, or highlight detail, or both. In this case, as you can see from the original image (linked below), I lost the shadow detail:

.../archives/venezia_3.php

At this point I'd love to be able to say that this was intentional, i.e. that I deliberately exposed the shot in this way, but I was rushing to catch up with the bride and groom at this point so snapped a few frames as they walked down the alley. Fortunately, it worked out.

In terms of the post-production: this one was relatively straightforward, i.e. I cropped the image, cloned out a few distracting elements, converted the image to black and white using the channel mixer (as described in this tutorial), added a fairly strong Curve that clipped the highlights (resulting in the loss of detail in the stonework in front of the bride and groom), and then toned the image using a second Curve (as described here).

As I mentioned when I posted my previous entry I shot a wedding in Venice at the weekend with Tom Wicky. Tom shot the bride getting ready in the morning then we both shot the ceremony (at Venice Town Hall). Once the ceremony had finished Tom and I took a 45 minute walk through Venice with the bride and groom: Tom shot the 'formal' portraits while I concentrated on recording the less formal aspects of our stroll. I haven't had a chance to work through all of them yet, but did like this one.

I was away this weekend, shooting a wedding in Venice with Tom Wicky. It's a city I haven't visited before, and while I didn't have a great deal of time to explore it during this trip, it's definitely somewhere I'd like to visit again. I'll post a few shots from the wedding over the next few days, but in the meanwhile here's a diptych I shot in Venice airport.

In case you're wondering what you're looking at: these are semi-transparent overlays on the outside windows. I did think about posting just one of them, but didn't think either of them worked especially well on their own. Both were shot with my Ricoh GRD III.