A Face at Bayon

The Bayon is one of the most enigmatic and powerful religious buildings in the world. Built as the state temple of Jayavarman VII, it uses a mass of face towers to create a mountain of ascending peaks. In total there are 37 towers remaining , most of which are carved with four faces  – the overall effect is overwhelming with these massive heads looking at you from every direction. 
Bayon Temple is surrounded by two long walls bearing an extraordinary collection of bas-relief scenes of legendary and historical events. …

This is not what you see in the travel brochures!

Sunset over the Gulf of Thailand

While our great leaders spent days in Copenhagen not agreeing a way forward to combat climate change I had the unfortunate experience of spending a few days in Pattaya on the Gulf of Thailand. For the four days I spent there a thick haze engulfed the coastline. My host was apologetic, but noted that this was a common occurance these days. My planned stay of seven days was cut to four as I decided to return to the relatively  clean …

It happens to us all at least once…. Without thinking you press the ‘delete all’ button and then it dawns, OMG… and you’ve lost everything.
I had a recent bad experience after returning from a trip to Provence. I linked my camera to my pc and left it to download the 100s of RAW images I’d taken. Returning an hour or so later, everything looked fine, the download had completed and so I packed away my gear. A few days later, I decided to process images I had taken specifically for …

There is an easy answer…. Do not put it dead centre of the photo otherwise it will look like a snap shot. So where should you put it?
First of all decide what part of the image you wish to emphasis – the sea or the sky. If you have a great looking sky then put the horizon at the bottom third of your photo. This will lead the eye to the most interesting part of the photo. If the ground is more interesting then simply do the opposite, put it at the …

I took this image of the iconic London Underground sign in the Canary Wharf  financial district of London. I want to get the sign to ‘pop’….

 
The original image was taken in RAW format and intial processed by increasing the white balance temperature to bring out the colours in the sign. I quite like the overall effect this has had on the buildings too, but I wanted to London Underground sign to stand out more.
Using Photoshop Elements, I added a Hue/Saturation layer. I first masked the sign and then reduced the …