Anyway, the waiting is about to come to and end as Libby is going into hospital tomorrow (Sunday 8th) for an induction. Our daughter isn't due until the 11th, but there have been a variety of complications, the net result of which is that both Libby and the docs have decided to hurry things on a bit. We had planned on a home birth – which would have been great as we could have kept in touch using Skype – but I guess I'll have to make do with text message updates and the odd phone call here and there.

So, think of me tomorrow, as I'm pacing around Bulgaria, while 2000 miles away Libby will be giving birth to our daughter. Fingers crossed it all goes smoothly.

Oh, and if you're interested in seeing how things are going, I'll be updating my Facebook profile throughout the day.

http://www.facebook.com/chromasia

As for this shot: it's another grabbed street capture, taken in Venice a few weeks ago.

On a different matter: my apologies for not posting much recently, but as many of you know, I'm currently home-alone with the kids, while Libby is back in the UK waiting for our latest daughter to make an appearance. She's not due until the 11th of November, and they won't be able to fly back to Bulgaria for two weeks after that, so my updates might be rather infrequent between now and then.

I will be heading out to Dubai again though - November 19-22 - as I'm one of the instructors at the GPP Fotoweek event, alongside Bobbi Lane, Robin Nichols, David Tejada, and Chris Hurtt. It should be a great event, and if you're interested in attending, there's a full list of all the workshops here:

http://www.gulfphotoplus.com/fotoweekend-workshops.php

In other news: it's just over two weeks since Libby headed back to the UK to have the baby (due 11th November), and about four and a half weeks until she gets back. She's doing fine, and the kids and I are surviving pretty well, but time is r e a l l y  b e g i n n i n g  t o  d r a g and I miss her :(

I'd be interested to hear how you think the two compare, and which you prefer.

On a related matter, the second shot I posted in this series – venezia #2 – has been nominated for the Photo of the Year category of the 2009 Photoblog Awards. If you would like to vote for that image you can do so here:

http://vote.photoblogawards.com/photoblog.php?name=venezia-2

My own submission for that category was one of my favourite HDR shots from this year – BSC - Workington. If you'd like to vote for that one, the relevant page is here:

http://vote.photoblogawards.com/photoblog.php?name=bsc---workington

That said, I did try processing three of them, all of which are included on the following page:

.../archives/venezia_6.php

Unfortunately though, despite the fact that there are some interesting elements in each of the three shots, none of them ended up being worth posting, and I was about to ditch all three when I realised that they might work if I combined them.

In terms of the post-production: first, I combined the three images by stacking them and using Soft Light blend mode and masks to create an image composed of all three originals. I then duplicated and flipped the image, then used another mask to blend this newly created layer with the three images below it. I then warped and altered the colour balance of the left side of the image and increased the overall saturation using the Channel Mixer. I also added some local contrast using the Topaz Adjust plugin.

I don't have a tutorial that covers this sort of montaging technique, at least not specifically, but many of the techniques I used to blend the original images are covered in my Working with textures: part one tutorial.

The end result is an image, in my opinion at least, that's faithful to the spirit of the original scene, but not the reality. As always, let me know what you think.

Oh, and this one works much better with the black theme.

The second, related reason, is that once I've taken this type of shot I find it very hard to judge which ones work, and which ones don't. For example, there are aspects of this one that I like - particularly the interaction between the parents and the child - but I don't have any real sense of the merit of the image as a whole (or its lack of merit).

Anyway, given that my reaction to this one was reasonably favourable I thought I'd post it and see what you think.

If you're interested, the original is here:

.../archives/closer_to_home.php

The post-processing for this one was relatively straightforward. I cropped the image, added a minor amount of local contrast using Topaz Detail, then used a number of Curves to adjust both the tonal range and contrast (as described in my Tonal Range and the Curves tool tutorial), and the colour balance (as described in my Toning Colour Images tutorial). The net result, in my opinion at least, is that the final image is considerably more striking than the rather dull, flat original.

On a totally different matter: the kids and I are currently fending for ourselves out here in Bulgaria as Libby is back in the UK for the next six weeks (or thereabouts). As some of you already know, she's expecting our latest child on November 11th, so has headed back to the UK to give birth there. We did look into the possibility of the baby being born in BG but, for a whole variety of reasons, decided that the UK was probably a safer option for both Libby and the baby.

In the meanwhile, because three of our younger kids are now in nursery or school, the rest of us have stayed here. I suspect it's going to be a rather long six weeks, but at least we'll be able to keep in touch via Skype, Facebook, Twitter and so on. I'll keep you all updated and will post a shot of the baby as soon as the two of them get back :-)

.../archives/venezia_3.php

At this point I'd love to be able to say that this was intentional, i.e. that I deliberately exposed the shot in this way, but I was rushing to catch up with the bride and groom at this point so snapped a few frames as they walked down the alley. Fortunately, it worked out.

In terms of the post-production: this one was relatively straightforward, i.e. I cropped the image, cloned out a few distracting elements, converted the image to black and white using the channel mixer (as described in this tutorial), added a fairly strong Curve that clipped the highlights (resulting in the loss of detail in the stonework in front of the bride and groom), and then toned the image using a second Curve (as described here).