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.

Another early morning shot from our Venice Carnival Photo Tour.

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.

Many thanks to Saadia for suggesting I process this one, as despite appearances to the contrary this one turned out quite well.

Here's another shot from our 2016 Venice Carnival Photo Tour, taken early yesterday morning down at St. Mark's Square.

If you've taken a look at the original you will have noticed that this isn't a straight shot. The reason for this is that the original scene was a shop in Burano (Venice), with two interesting windows either side of a rather boring door. The straight shot didn't work - the door really wasn't all that interesting - but I really liked the way the puppets in both windows appeared to be looking at one another. So, long story short, I combined two shots, one of the window on the left, the other of the window on the right.

Something a bit different today, taken during our recent Venice Carnival Photo Tour, and processed using a variety of textures and borders.

On a related note, we've just started accepting bookings for 2016 and four of the twelve places are already booked. If you think you might be interested in joining us please take a look at the following link.

http://www.chromasia.com/training/events/venice_2_16.php

Here's another shot from our Venice Carnival Photo Tour, taken from the Rialto Bridge.

If you're interested, you can find out more about next year's trip here:

http://www.chromasia.com/training/events/venice_2_16.php

This is a shot of one of the participants from our Venice Carnival Photo Tour, shot during our natural light workshop.

This was shot during our trip to Burano during our Venice Carnival Photo Tour. It says nothing about the Carnival, or Venice, but I like how it turned out. It's also a great testament to Fuji's new lens, the XF 50-140mm f/2.8 R LM OIS WR. Even wide open this is a very sharp lens.

Back in 2012, during our first Venice Carnival Photo Tour, John Cavacas took a shot that I promised myself I'd go see for myself: the Grand Canal from the Ponte dell’Accademia, shot during the late afternoon. What with one thing and another I didn't make it down there in 2013, or last year, so I was determined to find the time during this year's trip.

As you'll see if you take a look at the original, the light was less than ideal, but the sun did poke through the clouds on a couple of occasions, but not when there was any interesting traffic on the canal. As such I ended up combining two different shots, taken a couple of minutes apart: one shot for the detail in the canal, particularly the boat in the foreground, and the other to capture the directional light on the buildings.

As for the processing: Venice is a romantic city, imbued with a visual and emotional magic that deserves something a bit more elaborate than a literal shot :-)

Oh, and if you're interested, we've just started promoting our 2016 trip. We only have 12 places, and two have already been booked, so sign up soon if you think you'd be interested in coming along.

http://www.chromasia.com/training/events/venice_2_16.php

Here's the first of my images from our 2015 Venice Carnival Photo Tour, taken during our natural light workshop with Martina, one of our truly wonderful models. We've just about finished this year's tour - it's the last day tomorrow - but if you'd be interested in joining us next year you can find out more about the trip here:

http://www.chromasia.com/training/events/venice_2_16.php

After snivelling around the house for the last couple of weeks with man-flu I thought it was about time I posted something, and as I'm heading off to the Venice Carnival again next month I thought this was a good choice.

Despite having several dozen images I could post, most of which I like, I've rather neglected the blog of late as there's been rather a lot going on (and there still is). That said, I'm going to make a concerted effort over the next week or so to post the backlog, starting with this one. It was taken in the Nason Moretti glass factory and is a shot of one of the glass blowers taking a quick break before his next vase arrived.