From front to back, this is a shot of Finley (struggling a bit in the spray), Camilla, Harmony, and Rhowan. This is the first year they've been sledging (there's not normally enough snow in the UK), and they've all really enjoyed it - once they got used to the cold at least :)

That said, Finley wasn't entirely impressed on this occasion, as you'll see when I post my next image (probably on Monday).

And if you're interested, the original is here:

.../archives/back_seat_driving.php

There wasn't anything especially complicated about the post-production, but it is worth mentioning that I used Topaz Adjust to bring out the detail in the flying snow, and spent quite a bit of time ensuring that some of the detail in the snow to either side of the sledge was still visible (i.e. a very steep Curve and a mask for those areas).

Yes, I know, two images in one month is a fairly dire achievement, but our Bulgarian winter experience has turned into more of an exercise in survival than I expected. It's still the adventure I hoped it would be, but we've also had quite a few things to deal with that weren't entirely expected. I've been updating my Facebook profile with the details, but the short version is that I sprained my back, the temperature has dropped as low as -23C, our pipes have frozen (twice), our van has broken down, and one of our electrical sockets caught fire this morning. In short then, most days have been taken up with dealing with the necessities of winter life.

It could have been a lot worse though: our village hasn't been cut-off following a heavy snowfall, the mains water hasn't frozen, our electricity supply has remained constant, we haven't run out of wood, and our roof hasn't collapsed under the weight of the snow - all of which have been known to happen in previous winters. Fingers crossed that a) the rest of the season goes reasonably smoothly, and b) I have a bit more time to document it :)

I have managed to take a few shots though, mostly with my Ricoh GRD III, and really like how this one turned out. It was taken on the way back from Yalovo and you can just see our village in the distance. If you take a look at the electricity pylon you'll see that it has two arms of the right-hand side, one on the left. It's almost impossible to make out at this resolution, but our village is immediately to the right of the lower arm on the left. It's not quite as remote as it looks :)

If you're interested, the original is linked below. As you'll see, the major change (other than the black and white conversion) involved balancing the tonal range of the foreground to the sky, i.e. the latter is now quite a bit darker (and the majority of the highlight detail has been recovered), while the foreground is much brighter.

.../archives/towards_ganchovets.php

In other news: if you'd be interested to know what we have planned for our Photoshop tutorials this year, take a look at the page I've linked below. As you'll see, we're introducing a variety of new content and media:

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

One of the things we were really looking forward to when we moved to Bulgaria was a proper "snowy" winter. All we've had so far though is a few days of snow, and the long range forecast suggests that it's going to stay quite a way above freezing for at least the next week or so. The UK on the other hand, which hasn't seen any proper snow for years, is currently in the grip of an arctic winter – it's just not fair ;)

As for this shot, it's a monument at the top of our village, the first of many shots I'll be posting this year that document our new environment.

If you're interested, the original is here:

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Here's my first shot for 2010, taken back in November when I was in Dubai – a shot of an old bicycle down at the Souk. In this instance the post-processing was reasonably straightforward other than that I combined two similar shots of the same subject to construct the final image: one for the main detail, and another to lighten and add texture to the background. If you're interested, both shots are here:

.../archives/ringing_in_the_new_year.php

And beyond that I don't have too much else to say today other than Happy New Year :)