A shot of Tiggy, taken during our recent trip to Bulgaria.

Another portrait of Tabby, chilling out with one of her workbooks we brought over for the summer.

Our trip to Bulgaria certainly seems to be agreeing with Tabby :)

It's difficult to describe the experience of being and living in Bulgaria, but this shot captures some of its flavour: taken during a recent trip to a local waterfall for a barbecue. Libby's in the foreground, and our good friends Andy, Petsi and their young son Mario are in the background (along with Finley, our eight year old).

As a counterpoint to yesterday's portrait of Finn - which didn't really show him off at his best - here's one I took about a minute earlier.

You'd be forgiven for thinking that Finley (our nine year old son) was in a terrible mood when this was taken, but in reality he was just a bit miffed that I asked him to look up. Clearly, playing on the iPod is a lot more important than having your portrait taken ;)

This is the first of what I hope will be many shots from our trip to Bulgaria this year nd was taken opposite our friend's apartment in Gabrovo. I'm fairly happy with how it turned out, but may go back again and take my tripod: 1/17s @ ISOb 800 wasn't ideal.

I'm going to let this one speak for itself.

I had great plans for posting loads of shots while we were in Bulgaria this summer but, what with one thing and another, it didn't happen. I'll catch up over the next week or so.

In the meanwhile, here's a shot of Harmony, taken while visiting friends.

If you asked me to describe Bulgaria this image comes close to summarising an aspect of many Bulgarian towns: an old concrete building, that probably dates back to Soviet times; adverts that might have been cool in the 1970s; an old, partially dismantled vehicle; and (less obviously) a stork's nest atop a disused industrial chimney.

As many of you know, I'm heading back to the UK today for the winter, and will probably stay there until Spring. Libby and I and the kids have spent most of our time in Bulgaria over the last three years, but this year we decided to head back to Blackpool. I love the Bulgarian winters, but they're just too much hard work. Well, if you have other work to do at least. So it's back to Blackpool, and central heating, and our office, and the convenience of living in a town. It won't be the same, but it will make life a lot easier.

Libby and the kids flew back a fortnight ago tomorrow, but I'm driving back, along with a huge pile of suitcases, two small dogs, several camera bags and flight cases, and a whole pile of other stuff.

By the time your read this (it's set to auto-post) I should be somewhere near the Romanian border with Hungary. After that it's two more days back to the UK. I can't say I'm looking forward to the drive, but it will be good to get home: it's being very strange packing up the house on my own.

I'll be posting updates on Facebook as we travel along (sim card permitting), but if that doesn't work I'll post something when I get back.

In the meanwhile here's my last shot from Bulgaria: taken this summer during our week on the Black Sea Coast with Libby's parents.

Shot in Troyan, Bulgaria.

This is the last image I'll be posting before I head off to our Venice Carnival Photo Tour on Monday: a pentaptych of this set of promotional cigarette cards. The text reads "2012 delights for the new year" and each card offers you a chance to win an iPod, Zippo lighter, and so on.

What interested me about these is that they're very typical of Bulgarian advertising: i.e. using scantily-clad women to sell ... well, pretty much everything now I think about it. Later in the year, after Venice, GPP, and our Faces and Places Tour to Oman, I'm going to make a systematic attempt to document more of these advertisements.

In the meanwhile though, do let me know what you think of this one.

I was going to post another Istanbul diptych today, but as it was -23.8°C this morning – the coldest weather I've ever experienced – I thought I'd post this one instead: another Hipstamatic shot, taken yesterday morning from our lounge window.

As you can see from the original, this one was edited, mostly to change the colour balance – I wanted the scene to seem colder – but also to modify the border. And I know that these Hipstamatic shots aren't to everyone's taste, but I am pleased with how this one turned out.

This was taken during our recent trip to the Shipka Memorial, about 150 steps down from the monument (see this shot). As you'll see, the processing was quite extensive, particularly in terms of bringing out the detail in the wall, but this was definitely a scene that needed a bit of help given the dull, flat lighting.

On a different matter, our latest Critique Slot Screencast is now live, featuring an image supplied by Doug Stroud. If you're unfamiliar with the screencasts, the basic idea is that one of our subscribers submits an image (as both a layered PSD file and the original RAW) and I offer a critique in the first section, then reprocess it using the original RAW file in the second section.

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3.09pm on 28/12/11 Canon 5D Mark II EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM 34mm f/8.0 1/60 aperture priority +2/3 evaluative 100 no RAW Camera Raw Photoshop CS5 none 1x1

New Year's resolution #1: blog more frequently than I did in 2011 :)

On which note, here's the first of what I'm sure will be plenty of iPhone shots this year, taken early on the 30th of December on my drive back from Sofia airport.

As always, let me know what you think.

On a totally different matter: I've reverted to using a popup window for comments - there were just too many problems with the slide-out jQuery method - so please let me know if you have any problems with this version.

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7.10am on 30/12/11 iPhone 4 Pro HDR f/2.8 1/1250 80 no Photoshop CS5 none 3x2

This is a shot of the Shipka Memorial which was built in the 1930s to commemorate the Bulgarians who died during the Shipka Pass battle in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78.

If you've taken a look at the 'original' you'll see that I used two images for the final version: an HDR, and the darkest exposure from a three shot hand-held sequence. The processing was reasonably straightforward, but a bit time consuming insofar as I blended the sky from the darkest shot from the original exposure sequence. I also switched to Lab Color mode to mute the colours in the final version. I did think about producing a more photorealistic version, but after watching The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe with the kids this Christmas I decided that a more Narniaesque version was appropriate. As always though, let me know what you think, especially if you think a more natural result would have worked better.

Finally, if you're a friend of mine of Facebook you can take a look at Libby's album from the trip. She got some great shots of the kids in the snow.

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2.26pm on 28/12/11 Canon 5D Mark II EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM 24mm f/8.0 1/320, 1/160, 1/80 manual n/a evaluative 100 no RAW Camera Raw Photoshop CS5 none minor

This is the last of the shots I'll be posting from my recent trip to the Buzludzha monument: a closer view of the text on the left side of the building, just visible on the left of this shot. If our research is accurate the text is a verse from either "The International" or "The Worker's March".

I've also used this image as this week's Mini-PSD as the processing was quite interesting. If you've taken a look at the original you'll see that the sky is mostly blown out. To correct this I blended three exposures: the metered exposure (which is the one you can see if you hover your mouse over the 'show the original' link beneath the image), the -2EV exposure (for the sky), and the +1EV exposure to lighten some of the darker areas of the building. From there I used a variety of masked curves and other adjustments to boost both the contrast and saturation.

It's not my favourite shot of the monument (I still think that this one will take some beating), but I am pleased with how it turned out.

In other news, all my one-to-one training days in September are now booked, but there are still places available on both my Blackpool workshops: The Art of Black and White Photography (September 16th) and Creating Dramatic Images (September 17th & 18th). There are plenty of places available for the black and white workshop but not quite so many for Creating Dramatic Images. So, if you think you will be interested in attending, book fairly soon. Oh, and you can get a 10% early-bird discount if you book before the 31st.

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12.29pm on 15/5/11 Canon 5D Mark II EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM 16mm f/8.0 1/15, 1/60, & 1/125 aperture priority +2/3 evaluative 100 no RAW Camera Raw Photoshop CS5 Topaz Detail none

As I mentioned when I posted my last entry, the interior of the Buzludzha monument houses a 500 sq.m. fresco which includes portraits of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Todor Zhivkov (the leader of the People's Republic of Bulgaria from 1954 to 1989). This fresco is visible in this shot.

Additionally, there are mosaics all around the outer ring of the structure too: on the wall you can see on the far-left of this shot (my favourite from this location). These are made from stone rather than marble, and seem to be mostly celebrations of war, conflict and military power.

Of all the ones that are still visible, this was one of the most striking: a knife-wielding soldier carrying a smiling child on his shoulders. The two just don't seem to go together, ... at all. That said, I'm sure that if I'd been born in Bulgaria, and lived through the Soviet occupation, it wouldn't seem anywhere near so strange or alien.

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2.51pm on 15/5/11 Canon 5D Mark II EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM 25mm f/4.5 1/50 aperture priority +2/3 evaluative 100 no RAW Camera Raw Photoshop CS5 Topaz Detail transformed (skew)

As I mentioned the other day we've been working on some new developments for our training site, particularly in terms of providing more information about the various photography and post-production workshops we run throughout the year. If you'd be interested in taking a look, the main page is here:

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

It includes details of two workshops we'll be running in September in Blackpool: The Art of Black and White Photography (on the 16th) and Creating Dramatic Images (on the 17th and 18th). You'll also find some further information on our UK one-to-one training dates for 2011, a photo tour to Istanbul in November that I'll be running with Bobbi Lane, and the Gulf Photo Plus Fotoweekend, also taking place in November.

If you have any questions about any of the new content, just drop me a line.

Anyway, back to today's image ...

Since I posted my first set of images of the Buzludzha monument, back in October 2010, we've managed to find out a bit more about it, though we're not 100% confident about the accuracy of some of what follows.

It's the largest monument in Bulgaria, located on mount Buzludzha (1441m) in the Balkan Mountains, and was built to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the Buzludzha congress – where the Bulgarian Social-Democratic Workers' Party was founded (the predecessor to the Bulgarian Communist Party).

16 million leva were collected, as both voluntary and obligatory donations, of which 14,186,000 were spent on the monument. The rest was spent on the construction of three kindergartens. It took military construction units almost seven years to complete, and more than 6000 workers and experts took part in the construction. Over 20 leading Bulgarian artists worked for 18 months in order to complete the interior decoration, and verses of "The International" and "The Worker's March" were inscribed on the entrance of of the memorial.

The interior was partially clad in marble and the staircases were decorated with red cathedral glass. In the 15 meter-high main hall a 500 sq.m. fresco was constructed, which included portraits of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Todor Zhivkov (the leader of the People's Republic of Bulgaria from 1954 to 1989). The dome of the structure was covered with thirty tonnes of copper and two 12m stars of ruby glass were built into the top of the 70m high tower. These were made in the Soviet Union, and were three times bigger than those in the Kremlin. You can see one of the stars at the top of the tower in this shot.

The monument was inaugurated by Todor Zhivkov in 1981.

On 10th of November 1989 Zhivkov stepped down after 35 years in power, the day after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Immediately afterwards the Politburo ordered the removal of his portrait from the memorial (you can see the gap in the mural in this shot). In 1991 the monument was ceded to the state, abandoned, looted and left to rot.

As for the post-production ...

If you take a look at the original you'll see the tone-mapped image (produced using Photomatix Pro) and small thumbnails of the seven original exposures. In this instance the tone mapping was reasonably conservative, as I wanted to avoid producing something that looked overly HDR-like, but I did want to create an image that captured the surreal nature of this building. As to whether it's entirely successful – I'm not sure. I do like it, but may revisit it again as I'm not 100% convinced that I made the best of this one. Let me know what you think.

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2.41pm on 15/5/11 Canon 5D Mark II EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM 16mm f/8.0 7 exposures (1/8 to 1/500) manual n/a evaluative 100 no RAW Photomatix Pro Photoshop CS5 Topaz Detail minor