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

Here's another shot of the flower girl from the wedding I photographed in October. She was definitely cute :)

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2.31pm on 8/10/10 Canon 5D Mark II EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM 200mm f/5.6 1/250 aperture priority +1/3 evaluative 200 no RAW Lightroom 3 Photoshop CS5 none no

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

I'm having a 'stop the world, I want to get off' sort of day, so thought that this shot of the Blackpool shoreline was probably quite appropriate. All I need now is a warm sunny day, a deckchair, a good book, and a fast jet from here to there :)

This is one of the last shots I took during my recent trip to Oman, the sunset at the Jabel Shams resort. It was a beautiful place and definitely somewhere that I'll try to visit again.

On a totally different matter ...

We don't celebrate Thanksgiving in Bulgaria (or the UK), but for those of you that do, have a great day :)

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/

Towards the end of my trip to Oman I travelled to Jabel Shams (or Jebel Shams or Jabal Shams, depending on which translation you trust) with my good friend Jason. Jabel Shams, or 'mountain of the sun' is part of the Al Hajar Mountain range, and is also the home of the second largest canyon in the world.

Anyway, before I tell you about this shot, here's a brief summary of our trip ...

We set off from Muscat, the capital of Oman, at around 4pm, expecting that a) our trip to Jabel Shams would take about three hours, and b) that it would be a relatively straightforward journey. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a bit more complicated than we anticipated. The first problem we had was that we weren't entirely sure where we were going. We knew the area, but couldn't work out exactly where we needed to be, and each map we had showed a different set of GPS coordinates. Anyway, we worked out roughly where we needed to go and headed off. By 10pm, and with the assistance of various people who gave us directions, we'd managed to get to the base of the mountain and a sign that indicated that it was 37km to the top.

We set off up the road, which gradually became steeper and steeper, with turns that became increasingly tighter the further we ascended. At this point we were glad that it was dark as the drop from the side of the road was probably quite large :) Anyway, it was all going quite well, right up until the point that the road ran out and turned into a rocky track. At this point we'd only covered 15km but figured that we were probably still heading in the right direction so just needed to carry on ... just more slowly.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, we carried on driving, tried not to think about what would happen if we drove or slipped over the edge, and kept our fingers crossed. After what seemed like ages we got to what we thought was the top and found a small building and a gate. The building was deserted, and the gate looked official, so we finally decided that we'd definitely gone wrong somewhere.

As we'd run out of any other viable options we called the 'resort', explained where we were, and they told us to wait for them to come and guide us to the camp. They also told us not to go through the gate as we'd be entering air force property and could be shot.

Half an hour later we reached the camp, pitched our tent, and started to cook our dinner. Jason had brought along a disposable BBQ, burgers, sausages, bacon and steaks; which would have resulted in a delicious meal if the BBQ hadn't gone out five minutes after it had been lit. We did manage to cook the burgers, but the rest of our feast was still raw.

At this point, having nothing better to do than sit there feeling hungry, we noticed that were sitting beneath one of the most fabulous skies we'd ever seen, peppered with thousands of stars. So, rather than go to bed hungry we decided we'd stay up and photograph them.

At this stage I should say that the shot I've posted isn't the one I thought I'd be posting - we were aiming to shoot star trails - but it didn't quite work out as planned.

The way I shoot star trails is as follows: turn the ISO up to 3200 (or thereabouts), set my aperture at f/2.8, then shoot in AV mode to determine the shutter speed. As it was a really dark night the shutter speed I needed was 15 seconds. The next step involves recalculating the shutter speed for ISO 100 and a smaller aperture. So to shoot at ISO 1600 would require a thirty second exposure, ISO 800, one minute, 400, two minutes, 200, four minutes, and eight minutes for ISO 100. By the same token, altering the aperture to f/4 increases the shutter speed to 16 minutes, while f/5.6 would require 32 minutes, and so on.

Anyway, the shot you see here is the test shot: ISO 3200 (i.e. noisy), f/2.8 (not very sharp). But I knew the exposure I needed so adjusted my camera to to shoot a 28 minute exposure. I then went through the whole process with Jason who then went on to produce this rather wonderful shot ...

http://www.escapism-online.com/blog-entry.php?pid=312

His set-up shot and summary of our adventure is here:

http://www.escapism-online.com/blog-entry.php?pid=311

Unfortunately, and I blame low blood sugar as a result of our earlier BBQ failure, while I changed the exposure time and aperture on my camera, I didn't change the ISO, so after standing around for 28 minutes I ended up with a massively over-exposed version of Jason's shot. Now I'm back home I wish I'd just shot it again, but it was already 3am and we were planning on getting up at 6am to walk around the canyon, so we went to bed instead. Fortunately, after a bit of tidying up and noise reduction, the test shot didn't turn out too badly. Sure, there's some movement of the stars, and the shot is a bit soft, but it does convey a reasonable sense of what it was like to be there :)

As always, let me know what you think.

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 :)

As you'll know if you've been reading my latest few entries I've been in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Oman during the last few weeks. I doubt I'll be posting many shots from Dubai and Abu Dhabi – I was too busy to spend any time shooting – but I do have quite a lot that were taken in Oman: some more portraits from the Muttrah Souq, and a range of shots that I took at Jabal Shams (home of one of the largest canyons in the world). This is the first, a shot of Jason at sunrise, taken near the Jabel Shams resort.

I'll write more about my trip when I post my next shot, but in the meanwhile, let me know what you think of this one.

As I mentioned when I posted my last shot Bobbi and are currently in Oman. What I didn't mention is that in addition to some much needed R&R after the Gulf Photo Plus FotoWeekend, we're also scouting possible locations for a 'people and places' photography workshop that we're hoping to run in March, immediately after the main GPP training event (March 7th-12th). At this stage we haven't worked out all the details, but it's looking like it's going to be a three day event involving shooting at the Mosque, the Muttrah Souq, the beach, Jabal Shams - one of the largest canyons in the world - and a few other locations. I'll post more details as and when they become available, but it's looking like it's going to be a great event. Let me know if you'd be interested in attending and I'll send you a more detailed outline.

In the meanwhile, here's the first of four shots that I took down at the souq yesterday afternoon. Oh, and I suspect that this one might elicit a mixed response. I think the guy looks really friendly (which matched my experience at the time), but Libby was less convinced. Let me know what you think.

The last few times I've been in Dubai as an instructor at one of the Gulf Photo Plus training events I've managed to grab quite a few shots, either during my shooting workshops, or while out and about with my fellow instructors. This time though (the FotoWeekend event) we've been really busy so I haven't got much to show you other than the two shots that I've already posted ... hence today's image, a shot of a pair of broken sunglasses on Blackpool beach.

That said, I'm heading down to Oman later today for a few day's shooting with Bobbi Lane. We don't have any fixed plans, but I suspect we'll spend time on the beach, down at the Souks, and might take a trip further out to grab a few landscapes. We're travelling for most of today, but I might have something to post by tomorrow evening.

Before we headed out to the desert my students and I spent some time discussing the types of shots we should aim for. It was a landscape workshop, so clearly we needed some shots of the dunes, the sky, and so on, but we also discussed a range of more specific shots we might take: footprints in the sand, tyre tracks, people, patterns in the sand, and so on.

This is my 'patterns in the sand' shot.

In other news ...

Bobbi and I head down to Abu Dhabi this morning, to deliver a few more workshops, but after that we're off to Muscat (Oman) for some serious 'people and places' shooting :)

Every time I come to a Gulf Photo Plus training event I hope that I'll find the time to blog each day, or if not each day then at least every couple of days. It never seems to happen though, and as this is the sixth time I've been out here as an instructor you'd think that I'd know that it's just not possible: we have workshops each day, people to meet, things to plan, students to talk to, and beers to drink. It's a great event, that I really enjoy attending, but it doesn't leave much time for anything else :)

Anyway, tomorrow's the last day, and my two final seminars are finally finished, so I thought I'd post one of the shots that I took earlier this week: two of my students, taken out in the desert on the first day of my landscape workshop.

As for the next few days or so ...

Bobbi and I travel down to Abu Dhabi on Monday, before returning to Dubai on Wednesday evening. We're both running workshops and Bobbi is also giving a public presentation on Monday afternoon. After that we're heading off to Oman to shoot in and around Muscat. Bobbi flies back to the States on the 14th but I'll be staying there for an extra couple of days and will hook up with Jason and Catalin for another couple of days shooting. I head back to Bulgaria on the 17th.

I'm hoping to post quite a few more shots before I head back.

Of all the images that I took at Buzludzha, this is my favourite, but I almost didn't process it. Well, I did take a quick look at the images in Photomatix Pro, but couldn't come up with anything that I thought would work all that well so decided to leave this view for another time. When Craig posted his version though I decided that it was definitely worth making more of an effort. Initially, I thought I'd aim for a fairly natural interpretation, much as Craig did, but the more I worked on it the more it seemed that an OTT interpretation would work better.

Anyway, it's still a flawed image (there are some tone mapping issues here and there), but as I've already spent at least four hours working on this one I'm not inclined to do too much more to it at this stage.

As always, let me know what you think.

Oh, and the 'show the original' image is the tone mapped image exported from Photomatix Pro, not one of the original exposure sequence.