My apologies for not posting anything yesterday, but I've come down with one of the many summer colds that are doing the rounds and didn't manage to take anything worth posting.

And today, things just got worse.

Our new puppy had a fight with one of our cats, and left the kitchen looking like an out-take from the Texas Chainsaw massacre, and Libby blew the engine on the car. The dog's fine (it was worse than it looked), but it looks as though our trusty old Volvo 940 has come to the end of the line. It was due it's MOT later this week, and we already thought it might prove too expensive to fix (it's only worth a few hundred quid and has done almost 200,000 miles), but it looks like it's either blown the cylinder head gasket or the turbo. Either way it's going to be too expensive to fix.

Anyway, virii, pets, and vehicles aside, I was browsing through some of the shots I took last summer in Germany, and came across this one: a shot of Roman Niewodniczanski, the owner of the winery I was photographing during my trip.

This is the second shot of Maurice that I mentioned yesterday, and while it's clearly not as lively as yesterday's, I like this one too. That said, I doubt it will be to everyone's taste, so feel free to tell me what you think.

This is the first of two shots of Maurice, a Blackpool based cabaret singer I photographed yesterday afternoon. My brief was to produce some images that could be used to promote his act, some of which needed to include a recognisable local landmark, so what better landmark to include than Blackpool Tower.

In terms of the post-production: this is a combination of a straight shot and a pseudo-HDR image. I used the HDR version to bring out the detail in his trousers and waistcoat - both of which are a dark brown pinstripe - as despite the use of fill-flash these still appeared too dark in the final shot.

As always, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

The thing I like best about event photography is that you have very little time to think, and very little control, especially when you're trying to work out the composition and lighting. Take this one as an example ...

One of the shots I needed to get was one that contained both the front of the North Pier and the performers, but we didn't have time to set up a specific shot so I needed to grab what I could while they performed. This one, as Libby and one of my older daughters pointed out, would have been better if the Pierrotters had been in front of the main sign – and I do have some shot from that angle – but this one is probably a stronger shot.

Anyway, it's the best shot I could get that contained all the elements, so let me know what you think.

I had hoped to have something new to post tonight, but as it's the end of the year I don't feel too bad about posting an archived shot from the summer.

Anyway, the image itself isn't all that important, as I just wanted to post something so I could thank you all for stopping by in 2007 and wish you a Happy New Year for 2008 :-)

I've been down in London over the last couple of days, validating a degree at UEL, so have been raiding my archive of shots I took in Germany last month.

This one was taken in the cellars of the Van Volxem winery and is a ‘true’ HDR, by which I mean it's constructed from four separate RAW files rather than one (as with this shot) – ranging from a 16 second exposure to a 3 minute one. The reason the exposure times are so long is that I shot at f/16 to get the star-shaped refraction from the lights.

Oh, and I think this one looks better with the black theme.

I had planned to get out today and shoot some new material, but by the time I'd finished everything else I needed to do, it didn't happen. So here's one more from my recent(ish) trip to Germany.

And in case you're not sure what you're looking at: this is a small fork-lift truck that's used to move crates between the vines for the harvested grapes.

I thought this was a fitting follow-up to yesterday's shot of the wine bottles :-)

This is probably the last of the shots I'll be putting up from my recent trip to Germany. It was taken as part of the commission for the Van Volxem winery, and if I'd been paying more attention when it was explained to me, I'd be able to explain it much better. What I can tell you is that it's significant that the vines are grown with this plant between them, but I can't remember the name of the plant, nor why it's especially significant.

All that aside, I think that the shot has sufficient merit to post anyway, even if I can't explain it properly ;-)

On a mostly unrelated matter: our latest tutorial went live today – Toning colour images. Further details are available here:

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

Though vineyards are generally quite attractive to photograph, I did wonder how else I might process them, hence this shot. And if you're interested, the original is here:

.../archives/the_vineyard_dreams.php

This isn't an especially exciting shot, but it was fun to set up. What wasn't so much fun was cloning out all the dust spots: and at f/32 there were quite a lot, despite the fact that it isn't all that long since I cleaned my sensor.

On another matter: I've altered the way that images are displayed on chromasia, at least for those of you who have larger screens; i.e. if your browser window is full-screen with a resolution of around 1280 x 1024 you should find that a 3x2 image is now 1030px wide rather than 800px. If you're using a smaller screen, or have JavaScript disabled, you won't see the difference, but those of you with bigger screens should be able to enjoy a noticeably larger image. I'm not planning on resizing older images, and have only implemented the change on the main index page and the individual archive pages (so far), but would be grateful of your feedback, particularly in terms of usability, errors, and so on. I'd especially like to hear from people using IE on a PC as I don't have a PC with a large enough monitor to run any tests.

This one was taken at much the same time as this one, approximately 45° to the left.

On a loosely related matter: there's a discussion on my recent posts on Craig Judd's site today. Specifically:

"I mean I haven't spoken to Dave in length about his trip to Germany recently, but I would love to get his opinion on whether he felt as free of spirit to shoot in his usual style, or whether he was technically castrated by the requirements of the client."

And I'll answer that in a roundabout way ...

Tomorrow, John is coming over and I'm taking my 15mm fisheye for a stroll around our local multi-storey carpark, particularly the stairwells. I'm choosing the venue, the equipment, the subject matter, the company, and so on … and if I get anything decent, I'll post it here. And I will feel "free of spirit", as Craig put it, not least because there's no pressure, and the only needs to be met are my own.

When you shoot for a client, things can be quite different; i.e. the main priority is to satisfy their brief or expectations rather than your own. While I was in Germany I was extremely fortunate in that I had a lot of say over what got photographed, at what time of day, under what lighting conditions, and so on. Sure, I didn't have an entirely free hand – there were some things that definitely needed to be photographed – but I had a lot of input into the creative process. I should also add that had I been on holiday in the area I would probably have taken many of the shots I've posted anyway, so I guess that's a good sign that I didn't feel too constrained.

When I was in the Bahamas, on the other hand, I didn't have quite the same freedom, as the majority of the shots were art-directed; i.e. the agency knew exactly what the shot should look like. My job the was to realise their vision, not my own. And if you remember, the majority of the shots I posted from that trip were of the models I was working with, shot on my own time. If you're interested though, eight of the set shots are reproduced in this gallery.

So, what's the answer to Craig's question? I don't think there is a simple one, not least because I enjoy all three of the scenarios I outlined above, as much as anything else because their requirements vary. When you're working towards an art-directed shot, for example, it's your job to make the best of the scene, the lighting at the time, the props, and so on: and I really enjoy the technical aspects of that sort of work.

When you're working to a less specific brief, as I was in Germany, you have more freedom to ponder how to take a shot, when to take it, the best vantage point, and so on. And with this sort of job the challenge is both technical and aesthetic, and again, I really enjoy the challenge of having to find the shots to meet a brief.

Personal work, on the other hand, is more to do with aesthetics than any technical concerns. For example, I'll often go 'beachcombing' on overcast days as I much prefer diffuse light for those sort of shots; i.e. if the shot is available, I'll take it: if not, I won't. Likewise, I photograph my children at times when they don't mind being photographed, rather than attempting to get them to pose. And I guess that my best work, in my opinion at least, is done under these sorts of conditions.

All that said though, I don't think that any of the above scenarios impact on my "freedom of spirit": I love taking photographs, irrespective of the circumstances under which they are taken, or who I'm taking them for. I suspect that my best work is produced when I'm left to my own devices, or have a high degree of control of the process, but I also enjoy the challenge of more prescriptive commercial work.

Does that answer the question? I'm not sure ...

One of the things I learnt while in Germany is that there's a vast difference between hand-crafted wines and the ones that are mass-produced for the supermarket shelves. For example, only 5% of the world's vineyards are harvested by hand. For Van Volxem wines (the winery I was shooting for last month) each vineyard is picked three times: once to remove any bad grapes; on a second occasion, to harvest the first crop of grapes for their cheaper vintages; and on a final occasion to pick the remaining grapes for their more select wines. This photograph was taken to reference the hand-crafted nature of their wines, so it's a bit out of context when posted as a blog entry, but I decided that it was probably worth posting here too.

I'm not normally a 'morning' person, but I'm glad I was up to witness this scene. And don't ask why I was shooting at ISO 800, it wasn't intentional.

And my apologies to those of you who have already seen this one - I inadvertently published it when I meant to schedule it for today.

As promised, here's another landscape shot. There were two things that appealed to me about this one: the structure of the vineyards in the background, and the shooting hut in the foreground.

So far I've posted some of the portraits I took during my recent trip, but over the next few days I thought I'd put up some landscapes. This one was taken about a mile north of Wiltingen, facing south towards a tight bend in the river Saar. As you can see, it was a beautiful location.

As promised, here's the second shot of Ralph. And thought I don't really know him, I suspect that this one is a more 'accurate' portrait than the last ;-)

I'm now back home from my trip to Germany and will write more about it after I've caught up on my sleep, but in the meanwhile here's the first of two shots of Ralph, an extremely photogenic apprentice at the Van Volxem winery. Tomorrow's shot is considerably more striking, but I really liked his expression in this one.

Yesterday's shot was a portrait of Herr Wagner, today's is one of his son, Ralf.

This is Herr Wagner, who owns one of the vineyards in the area we've been photographing. As you can see, his life has not been an easy one.