Yes, it's a composite: one shot from Dubai, the other from the Ash Sharqiyah region of Oman, taken during one of mine and Issa's trips to my favourite country in the Middle East. Both the originals are visible when you hover your mouse over the 'Show the Original' link at the bottom right of the image.

I thought it was about time that I got out and shot something new, and I'm glad I did, I like this one. It was also a lot of fun to process - masking around that aerial was quite therapeutic ;-)

This isn't quite abstract enough to be unrecognisable, but I like that it's not as immediately obvious as some of my other shots of Dubai.

Another street shot from Dubai, and while I don't have much to say about the image itself it is worth mentioning that this one was processed a bit differently, i.e. I just used Capture One 9 - no Camera Raw, no Photoshop, no Curves - so the original you can see here is the RAW file prior to any changes in Capture One. Having done quite a bit of testing in recent days I suspect that a large percentage of my subsequent images will be processed in Capture One, as try as I might I can't quite get Camera Raw to produce an initial conversion that has quite the same quality.

When I first shot from the roof of the Four Points by Sheraton back in 2011 any image from there was a relative novelty. These days pretty much every photographer who has spent more than five minutes in Dubai has taken a similar shot to this one but I did think this one was worth sharing.

A gentle shot today: the Dubai skyline, shot from the Palm.

This was taken during my Shoot the City workshop for Gulf Photo Plus, from the rooftop bar at the Four Points by Sheraton hotel on Sheik Zayed Road. The eagle-eyed among you may have spotted that it was shot with an X-Pro 2, which Fujifilm MEA lent me for a few days. I didn't have time to do a full test, but my initial impressions were very good. I'm not sure I'll get one - I'm holding out for the X-T2 (which, rumour has it, should be released later this year) - but I'm definitely tempted.

It's also worth noting that this was constructed from 5 shots which were median stacked in Photoshop to remove the traffic.

For anyone who knows the fish market in Dubai you'll probably be able to work out where I took this one - it's just before the entrance to the fish market, above a wall of white tiles. I've shot it several times in the past, but this is the first time I've come up with something I've felt was worth posting.

This is a shot of a Seagull camera (made in China in the late 50s) which is focussed on the skyline around the Dubai Marina, shot on my good friend Bernard's balcony. If you take a look at the original you'll see that it's a composite of three separate exposures - one for the screen, one for the wooden body of the camera, and one for the background. I've also included a small thumbnail of me taking the shot. As you can see, it's a rather large camera :-)

This was taken during my recent Shoot the Street workshop for GPP. One of my students was shooting this guy's portrait, so while he was doing that I concentrated on his hands and ended up with one of my favourite shots from the trip.

I've been out in Dubai for the last 8 days, running a couple of workshops for Gulf Photo Plus, but had plenty of time to explore some of my favourite locations (and some new ones). This shot was taken from the Shangri-la hotel on Sheik Zayed Road, and while I've shot from there before I think this is probably my favourite: a 5 shot panorama, blended in Photoshop (check out the original for further details).

Rhowan and I spent an hour or so shooting some new portraits today, and while I didn't get many I especially liked I am pleased with this one. I messed up the lighting a bit - not enough light in her eyes - but there was sufficient detail to rescue.

As always, let me know what you think.

It's not often I post any of my iPhone shots on the blog but I thought this one was worth including. It was shot with ProCamera (which can output TIFF files), and then processed with Photoshop.

While my last shot of death was intentionally spooky (and maybe not 100% successful as a result) this one's spookiness is almost entirely accidental - never shoot at 0.8s if you want a sharp shot :)

When I first edited this image I produced something that looked very similar to the original, as I have another shot of this guy that tells a much better story so this one would have made a good comparison, but the more I looked at it the less I liked it: it was drab, the light was dull and flat, and the mood was wrong. It's just a guy, in a costume, against a fairly bland background.

The final version is an attempt to tell a more sympathetic story. That said, I'm out of my comfort zone with this one so would be interested to hear whether you think this works.

Pretty much everyone who heads down to St. Mark's Square has taken this shot but it's a classic view, well worth photographing.

Another early morning shot from our recent Venice Carnival Photo Tour.

Back in 2012, during our first Venice Carnival Photo Tour, John Cavacas got a great shot of the Grand Canal from the Ponte dell’Accademia bridge. In 2015 I took a similar shot, and this year we went down to the bridge to shoot a variety of images (this includes the black and white I posted a couple of days ago).

As you'll see, if you take a look at the original, the light wasn't great, but I did manage to create an image that captures some of the flavour of this iconic location.

Something a bit different today: an infrared shot with my converted X-E2, taken on the way back from our trip to Murano island.

I'm now back in the UK after a great week running our 2016 Venice Carnival Photo Tour. It was a 14 hour trip to get home, so I won't write much now, but I do want to say that this is definitely one of my favourite shots from the whole tour: taken at Ponte dell'Accademia a couple of days ago.