We are delighted to announce the dates for our Spring courses which cover everything form getting the most out o your digital camera to advanced post processing techniques using Adobe Lightroom. Click on the links below to find out the detailed information on each of the courses.

Beginners Course – Getting the most out of your Digital SLR

26th Feb 2012

The Beginners’ course serves as a great introduction to photography. We look at the basic principles involved in capturing an image and learn how the camera interprets what it sees. The course has a very practical bias and our aim is to translate the technical aspects of photography into real-life examples, demonstrating how you can take creative control of your camera’s functions. Find out more

Travel Photography Course – Turning snapshots into great shots

5th & 12th Feb 2012

With such an abundance of amazing travel locations just a short hop from Singapore, this course is deigned to help you get the most from your travel in the region. Whether your interest is street photography, portrait photography, cultural photography, story telling or just getting more from your camera when you travel, this course will provide you all of the answers. Find out more

Adobe Lightroom Course – Cataloguing, processing and sharing your images

11th Mar & 8th Apr 2012

Adobe’s Lightroom software has become the post-production software of choice for many amateur and professional photographers. Version 4, continues to innovate and makes Lightroom the one-stop solution for post-production. This introductory course provides a step-by-step guide to archiving, managing and processing your digital images. Find out more

Check-in at the Sofitel's Opera wing of Hotel Metropole, Hanoi Vietnam

Hotels – especially luxury hotels such as the Metropole – differentiate themselves on service because most hotels in this price range have similar facilities. The rooms are luxurious, elegant and fitted with every convenience. There are a couple of restaurants, one often with a famous chef, there is a famous bar or lounge and an elegant Spa. The Metropole has all of these and I can particularly endorse the Spa (ask for Miss Ha).

This all comes at a price of course- one that most of us think is fair otherwise we wouldn’t stay there. But if a hotel charges these premium prices then the service needs to live up to the same exacting standards. Everyone told me that the service at the Metropole was legendary.

Sadly it is not.

It is not that the local staff are not delightful – always smiling, always willing and always very smart in their elegant uniforms. It is just that the standards are not consistent. And at this level – and at this price – they should be. The staff – and of course, the guests – deserve better from the Metropole’s management.

I might be being über-critical but as someone that has spent over 200 nights a year in hotels for the last 10 years, I do understand what good service can mean to the customer experience. More than that, I also do mystery reviews for a leading luxury hotel chain, represented a luxury hotel chain in the middle east, am building a luxury hotel and spa in Italy and my day job at Accenture is all about Improving Customer Experience, so my comments come with some objectivity.

So for me the real differentiator is not how good the service is, but how that service makes you feel. Great Hotels realize this which is why hotel branding and marketing is so much more than a website, a glossy brochure or a fancy room. greta Hotels focus on making the hotel a destination, an experience in itself using their staff, customer service and their amenities as the tools by which we experience that brand.

Done right, it drives the bottom line because a great customer experience creates an emotional connection. We are most passionate, most willing to share when we feel good about somehting. This advocacy is marketing nectar. It cannot be bought and thus the resulting independent reviews, repeat business and that elusive “word of mouth” recommendation start to create the differentiation that the Hotel was seeking in the first place.

So what went wrong at the Metropole because I had received a number of recommendations exotlling the hotel and its service?

Well, the checkout experience was one of the most confusing, poorly explained and burdensome I’ve had in many years. Even getting American Express Centurion Services on the phone didn’t seem to help. The receptionist was flustered, unable to explain the process and even the duty manager was confused. It took nearly 30 minutes.

In the brasserie restaurant you would often have to ask 2-3 times for something and on most occasions there was an error with the order. Nothing major but it was systemic.

On several occasions the turndown service for the room in the evening didn’t happen. Not that I needed it but again it is more an indication that the training and the management are not as good as they should be. In particular the F&B manager and the Head Housekeeper need to review some of their processes and training.

Mistakes happen. People have good days and bad days. We all understand that and make allowances for it. But a hotel is designed to be efficient and to “work” when it is at full occupancy, not just the low season. A brand such as Sofitel – particularly its luxury Legend hotels – cannot afford to get the basics so wrong.

I don’t think the Metropole has it right yet. Overall I loved the building. I loved most of the staff. I loved the Spa and the food was excellent. But the management needs to be less complacent, more focus on driving for perfection, have a greater attention to detail and deliver that rare yet critical and still lacking component…consistency.

I do however just want to share with you a few of the images from todays shoot around the old quarter of Hanoi with Luong Giang and Nguyen Thu Quynh – two charming vietnamese girls that I had met through another photographer and who wanted some pictures of themselves taken in the vietnamese traditional dress of Ao Dai and the Non hat.

It was really a blast. I haven’t laughed so much in ages. I met up with the translator Nic, whose girlfriend was Luong Giang (not his sister…I was right to be suspicious on that one!) and one of her friends, Quynh, to take a few shots of the girls around the Old Quarter of Hanoi. They wanted to practice posing for the camera and I was happy to provide the means.

We just laughed and played about in the freezing temperatures, stopping for occasional “thermal pauses” – a quick 5 minutes in the car with the heating turned on for the girls to defrost – before heading back out to continue the shoot.

Anyway I thought I would share some of the images. As I say, nothing prize winning, but just a really fun day of messing about with some cameras, reflectors and even some off-camera flash.

And who could possibly object to spending the day with two such entertaining and charming young Vietnamese ladies!

The full set of images will be uploaded into the portfolio section over the next few days!

When I usually go out on my own with no specific brief I always do an exercise for a few minutes. Not the bend and touch your toes variety which would surely have looked incongruous but a”dust off the cobwebs” type of exercise. I normally pick a subject – it can be a color or a theme such as children , bicycles, fruit, flowers etc. I then give myself 5 or 10 minutes to shoot only that subject. It makes me focus; to really look for patterns, colors, pattens and shapes. Todays theme was actually a technique. I wedged myself inside the old Southern gate, braving the mad moped riders who seem to think I was a legitimate target and just practiced at panning.

After this I wandered off down a tiny side street when, passing a small temple, I heard chanting, clapping and yelling. I peered around the corner to see a staircase festooned with shoes and, gingerly putting my head through the door at the top, I came across this tiny temple bursting with people. In the corner were three musicians on traditional instruments producing a beautiful melodic chant like sound and in the centre was a young woman, whirling and yelling as the crowd clapped her on. I was immediately invited in and found a place to watch.

To the uninitiated it was a cross between whirling dervishes, an informal exorcism and pass the parcel. this was Hanoi’s way of rewarding me for my perseverance. It transpired that I had found Vietnam’s version of the bridal shower.

The young woman in the centre, dressed in a beautiful ornate traditional gown and headdress was wheeling and turning – throwing out small denomination bank notes to the ever appreciative audience.

I desperately wanted to capture some of this maggie but the light was terrible and even with my ISO at 3200 and a fast lens, I was getting sub 1/15 of a second if I was lucky. Furthermore, The place was so packed that I really could do nothing other than watch as my cameras would definitely have intruded. But again Hanoi surprised me.

A lady – who turned out to be the bride’s cousin – grabbed me by the arm in a vulcan death grip and marched me towards the door. Embarrassed that I had blundered carelessly into some ritual, I was making my apologies when she passed by the door and, shooing the bride’s family to one side, pushed me down to the very front on the left hand side.

Whilst this got me incredibly close it also put me right behind one of the main actors in this elaborate theatre and made it almost impossible to get a clear shot of the bride to be. Over the course of about an hour the bride changed – or rather was helped into – a variety of vibrant traditional costumes. With each new get up she would light joysticks or small wooden candles and then resume her whirling and whooping.

Other times the whirling and whopping would be accompanied by the handout of cash, which got ever more generous as the event went on. Despite my best efforts to try and not be in line for any free donations, and not wishing to offend by returning any that were given to me, I am ashamed to say I actually came out of the whole event $15 the richer!

It was an extraordinary 90 minutes and a tremedous privilege to witness everything at first hand; to be allowed to shoot some videos and some images and to have seen the real Hanoi up close and personal.

Whilst the conditions mean that the images are grainy and focusing was a challenge, for once the images were of secondary importance. I shall remember the joy, music and laughter that Hanoi’s Old quarter surprised me with for many years to come.

I remembered reading a great post by Gavin Gough about “Chasing his mojo” in Hanoi’s old quarter a year or so back and a city that could offer me a chance to re-find mine – to reconnect photographically – was an exciting prospect.

Granted it is winter here and “Tet” and so the city might not proffer some of the photographic treats it has shared with others so readily, but I was very surprised.

Hanoi is no longer a city of bicycles lazily propped up against a fading yellow wall or being ridden by school children wearing the traditional white Ao Dai. Indeed on my walk this morning I counted the bicycles I saw. Four. Hanoi – even its charming old quarter – is a city over-run with new scooters, BMW’s, Range Rover and other luxury cars.

When you do see the charismatic figure of a conical hatted woman shuffling under the weight of their Quang Gang, before you can consider taking a picture, they have stopped, put down their baskets and approached you for $1.

On the first day here I thought that perhaps it was me – that perhaps I had lost my “mojo”. I thought perhaps that I wasn’t slowing down enough or being observant enough. Perhaps I was trying to hard or had too high expectations.

Perhaps. But having now gone out in all weathers (the sun finally broke through after 2 days of cold damp drizzling rain) and all hours, Hanoi’s sold quarter seems all too similar to many other South East Asian cities where the price of advancement has been scarified at the alter of culture.

Has Hanoi’s old quarter lost some of its own Mojo?

Maybe. But scratch the surface a little harder and some of that charm and opportunity can still be found.

Granted it is not as easy as it used to be. Pictures of the wonderful old architecture will have the multiple trailing telephone and electricity hours strung right through the middle of it. But the pople are as charming as ever, the markets as vibrant as ever and the streets as colorful as ever. You just have to watch your backdrop, frame your images more carefully and get in close.

Location

Siem Reap, Cambodia, gateway to the ancient, jungle clad, Khmer temples of Angkor. A bustling vibrant, town, Siem Reap has an energy and vigor that makes it the perfect place for intrepid, photographers to practice and hone their craft. It’s the ideal location for you to be able to concentrate on your photography, and the photographic opportunities of the area are unrivaled. Within close proximity one can explore, temples, markets, lakes, rivers, forests, rice paddies, villages and more.

Instructors

Each of your instructors is in his own right, successful, well known, experienced, photographers who love to teach and share their passion with other photo enthusiasts. They will challenge you and cheer you on. You can check each of them out at:

Activities

Objectives

To enjoy your photography with a group of like-minded individuals, explore, learn, apply and improve. We will help you push the limits of your ability and imagination, and you will leave this workshop a better photographer.

The workshop focus is to push yourself to the limits of your ability and imagination, to have an outstanding and unusual cultural experience and to enjoy and learn from the company of others. Working comfortably in foreign or new locations, particularly in a developing country, can take years of understanding and experience. We hope to jump start you in your environment to enable you to make the most of your location and for you to be able to concentrate on your photography.

Equipment

You’ll need a DSLR, Digital SLR with lenses offering a focal length from wide (24mm or wider) to telephoto (100mm or longer), a laptop or netbook computer running image viewing software such as Breeze Browser, Picasa or Photo Mechanic and an image editing program such as Adobe Photoshop, or a combintation software program such as Lightroom. You will also need a copy of Soundslides software in order to produce your multimedia project (available here www.soundslides.com for $69.95). Additionally we strongly recommend a back-up device such as an external hard drive.

There is detailed information on how to sign up, the itinerary, what to bring at the dedicated Angkor Photo Workshop website

The focus of the exhibition is “Natural Tendencies” – a collection of mediums from sculpture, photography, fine art and silk printing that explore the natural world. There is considerable buzz in the local media about the exhibition and It is great to be included in such a fun and unusual theme.

You can find out about the exhibition, the other artists and information including opening times and directions from their website. Entrance is free and if you are near Henley on Thames do drop in and buy a picture!!

Angor Photo Workshop participants - Copyright 2011 Gavin Gough

For this reason alone the last two weeks on the inaugural Angkor Photo Workshop, led by Karl Grobl, Gavin Gough, Matt Brandon and myself has been remarkable. I can’t think when I last so enjoyed such a large group’s diverse experience, humor and company.

Looking for Matt Brandon - the fourth Musketeer

And now it is at an end. We leave this morning for Siem Reap and the airport – although Gavin and I are staying on for a few days of personal shooting. It has been a humbling experience to watch each and everyone of the participants blossom (photographically!) and as is so often the case on workshops we have learned as much from them as they have hopefully taken from us. Below is a slideshow with a few images contributed by each of the participants:

I’ve also included the 4 winning Soundslides presentations that were competed at the end of the first week, to give you a hint at some of the talent and creativity we so enjoyed. Without exception, none of the group had used Soundslides and Audacity before, yet everyone mastered it and produced wonderful multimedia presentations.

To Ruti, Scot, Jasper, Melissa, Catherine, Lisa, Chris, Ursula, Carl, Jenny, Darrell, Andrew, Tim and Ayn thank you for your energy, passion and friendship.

And to each of you reading this – save the last 2 weeks of July 2012 and come and join the four of us on the second Angkor Photo Workshop.

First place, Lisa Brockman and Scot Sargeant

Second Equal: Ursula Wall and Carl Johan Ragnarsson

Second Equal: Ayn Brown and Chris Choulos

Third Place: Catherine Wisner and Jenny Krasner

These are big, bold, pictures showing an Ankor Wat already disappearing under the pressure of tourism and I would urge you if you are in Siem Reap to look at his work. You can also view it online via his website.

Bayan Temple Angkor Wat

I was looking at some color images I had taken around Angkor Wat (One of which is above) and I began to wonder whether I could create a similar effect in Lightroom, and a quick Google for Infra red and Silver Gelatin plugins brought me plenty of free options, (for the purists I am not suggesting that a quick Lightroom preset will have the same impact as a hand processed and printed IR/Silver Gelatin prints) and the two I liked the best are:

gantico.com/en
Digital Photo Buzz

Once you have downloaded them, then you can copy them in to your the Lightroom Developer presets folder (normally under /Library/Application support/Adobe/Lightoom/develop presets/ on a mac), then make sure you open/restart Lightroom. I found them both a little heavy handed and I wanted a little more grain in m images to mimic the hand processing, so I made a few little tweaks and then re-saved the preset.

Bayan Temple, Angkor Wat as an Infrared image

Each image will of course require some tweaking adjusting, probably some burning and dodging too using the fine adjustment brush, but you can create some pretty remarkable results just with the basic preset.

Have fun and let me know how you get on!

I have blogged before about my previous visit to Toul Seng - also known as S-21 – and the nearby Killing fields, when I visited Cambodia a year or so ago. When I returned this time with Karl Grobl, Gavin Gough and members of the Agkor Photo Workshops - we had the extraordinary experience of a personal tour with Chum Mey – 1 of the only 7 people to survive this notorious torture camp, with the 17000 or so less fortunate meeting their grisly death in the nearby killing Fields.

Chum Mey - one of only three remaining S-21 Toul Seng survivors

Chum Mey and Bou Meng are 2 of the remaining 3 still alive today, and as Chum Mey led us from room to room, showing how he was shackled, water tortured, beaten or electrocuted, so the horror of Pol Pot’s genocide became more apparent. Bou Meng – a charismatic small man – remained sat behind a small table piled high with his book, happy to share his story and be photographed.

Bou Meng - one of only three remaining S21 Toul Seng Survivor

Chum Mey brought the horrors of his capture, detention, torture and survival to life – if that is the appropriate expression to use. Kept alive partly by his ability to repair machines such as typewriters, he told us how he survived two years of torture and fear in a Khmer Rouge death camp, his hopes for his pregnant wife and unborn child.

Close to tears he related how, as the Vietnamese soldiers approached to liberate Phnom Penh, he was marched at gunpoint into the provinces by his fleeing Khmer Rouge jailers. He had a chance encounter with his wife and the young son who was born a few weeks after he was sent to the infamous Tuol Sleng prison in early 1977 but, after two days of traveling together with a group of other prisoners, the guards ordered them to walk into a rice field before suddenly opening fire with their AK-47 assault rifles.

With tears rolling down his cheeks, he related how they shot his wife in front of him. “She turned to me and yelled, ‘Please run, they are killing me now’. I heard my son crying and then they fired again, killing him. When I sleep, I still see their faces, and every day I still think of them”

Chum Mey explains how he was shackled during his time at S-21 Toul Seng

His life now is focused on two things: being a witness and appellant at the International Tribunal where the 4 remaining Pol Pot regime leaders are on trial or subject to appeal and secondly escorting visitors around his former jail.

For many of us it was difficult to understand why, with the memories still clearly raw after 35 years, he chooses to spend his life this way. But with the calm authority of a survivor now at peace with his life, he and Bou Meng are adamant that the younger generation must know the full story, that they must learn the value of humanity and understand the lessons that history can teach us.

Bou Meng - S21 Survivor - talks to Cambodian School children about his experiences

But theirs is a story that must not be forgotten. I feel – having been so touched by their humility, their objectivity and their kindness – that I must find a small way of bringing some of this story to a wider audience.

So working with Karl Grobl, we will try and combine some of the images we both shot that day, some of the audio we recorded into a short Soundslides presentation that I hope to post in the next week or so. Of course a 2 min multimedia presentation cannot really do justice to their story. But I hope it might encourage some of you to read about them, to visit Cambodia and to understand a little bit more of the extraordinary men who are the remaining survivors of Toul Seng – or S-21 – prison camp, and the genocide perpetrated by Pol Pot and his regime.