This is the Arboretum in Nottingham, UK. To create a planet like this you need to capture a 360 degree panorama. For the best results use a wide angle lens and a tripod. To create the planet you will need a little help from Photoshop.

This is the north shore of Rutland Water. I overexposed to get the sun to look like this. This type of shot is easier to do on a camera phone or compact camera with a live view LCD. The problem with most SLR/DSLR’s is you need to look through the lens to frame the shot. Focusing the sun onto your retina is not the best way to go about improving your photography. This type of shot is where the no longer made Olympus E-330 comes in to its own as it has a second sensor which can feed the LCD while the mirror is in front of the main sensor. To process a little Yellow/Blue Split toning was used to add some colour.

This is for anyone who does not have an Advent calendar. Please feel free to print this out. It’s in A4 ratio 1:1.4142.

This Obelisk from Egypt pre-dates Christmas by quite a few years but at least its from the same part of the world.

This is the Eden Project in Cornwall. The Image is an example of how you can simulate Tilt-shift photography in order to create the look of a miniature scene. Essentially you create a narrow band of focus to mimic the effect of angling the sensor/film. You can use this site to automatically make your own tilt shift images. It seems to work best with wide angle shots when you are looking down on a scene with variety of foreground and background. The Sandpit is a great example of a tilt-shift video in which they have speeded up the playback to add to the miniature effect.

This is the Sinai coast in Egypt. After developing this image in Camera RAW it showed some nasty colour distortion in the shadow areas. It looks like alternate green and purple bands over the image. If you have this problem you can use this technique to fix it. Created a new layer and set the blend mode to color. Select a soft brush and reduce the opacity to 30%. Use Alt+left click to select a good colour from the image then brush across the stripes until they disappear. Try to sample lots of different areas so the image does not become monochromatic.

I know this has been done before but I decided it was time for my take on this classic piece of digital art. Like Future World I used an image of the world in the public domain. This time showing the Pacific as I thought it would blend into the blue of my left eye. My aim was to make it look as realistic as possible despite the unrealistic concept.

Last night we went to the Ferry Meadows Firework Display. This was taken at the end of the display. It was the second time I have photographed it with two cameras. I set up my prime lens to capture the reflection across the water on a fixed tripod.  The second body had my wide angle on a tripod I could quickly point at any point of the sky. Both cameras fire almost continuously throughout the display. This is one of the rare times I do not shot in RAW. By recording jpegs only you stop the cameras slowing down as the backlog of large RAW files fill up the cameras buffer while they wait to write to the card. Firework displays are very much a batch exercise as its hard to predict what you will capture in a 4 second exposure. I took 217 images, I cut theses down to 45, Cropped a few and submitted them to Shutterstock. After a couple of days just these 2 firework shots were accepted.

It took 2 satellites 16 days to create the original image.  Fortunately it is in the public domain so It is fine to use it. Rather than the traditional Blue Marble I wanted to age the earth and give it an apocalyptic look. I used adjustment layers with masks to alter different areas of the planet. I then reduced the opacity of each layer until they looked suitably polluted or deforested.

I decided to have a go at pimping this Lada from Cuba. If anybody knows the model please leave a comment. To process this image I used the same technique as Red Chevy. Orton Effect, Fractalius and Selective Desaturation.

This was my first attempt at portraiture. Back in 2004 I decided to try and get the perfect cover shot for the lonely planet guide to Cuba. Cuba is a place soaked in history so to get that across I asked some of the old locals if I could take their picture. I liked this shot because of the crooked bars and the way his skin matched the colour on the door. This was taken when Fidel Castro was still running the country. I remember someone telling me that he had been in power so long he had seen 10 U.S. Presidents come and go. After returning from Cuba I discovered without a Model Release Statement from the local the image could not be sold. These days I have spare Model Release Statements in my camera bag all the time.