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.

COming down through the clouds approaching Singapore

Recently I have been playing more and more with the camera and its built in HDR function. I make sure that I sit in a window seat on every flight, and always sneak my iPhone out as we start to do the approach to land, tying to capture an early impression of my destination.

I often seem to be landing at dusk or dawn, which of course means wonderful light, long shadows and better definition of the terrain below.

Cairo from 2000 feet

As many of you know I am not a great fan of HDR, but the setting on the iPhone 4 seems to produce very natural looking saturated images, so I now use it when I want the colors to be vibrant, but not too artificial.

Duomo Siena

I though I would share a couple of iPhone snaps form my last 3 months of travel. None of these images have been post-processed other than to be sized for the web and my logo to be added. All were taken with the iPhone 4 HDR setting switched on and the flash switched off.

Bangkok from 3000 feet

One image in particular astounded me as to the definition and the color – the images of the Duomo in Sienna (see above) taken if I remember correctly on February 14th this year. Just to repeat, I have not touched up this image. The saturation of the blue is exactly as the camera recorded.

The Bund, Shanghai from the Peninsula hotel

It just goes to show that the best camera is the one you have with you.

Rain over Thailand

But it can also make it a challenging place for me to shoot in, as it is a temporary “back yard” for me, and so sometimes I struggle to see something fresh or new in something so familiar and perennial.

Recently I have an increasing desire to shoot differently – what I have called in previous posts changing my “tone of voice”. For me this is about maturing my style: slowing down (photographically), being more observant and more discerning with what and why I shoot.

As an exercise one of the best ways of doing this is to revisit old haunts and push myself to shoot things that I would not historically have considered. It could be a repeating pattern of chairs, a back-lit girl standing in a fountain or a layered shot of different architectural components against the Chicago skyline

I was particularity fortunate last week to be joined in Chicago by a dear friend of mine Stuart Sipahigil – the author of “Close to Home” which is available from Craft and Vision and is a must read – who had driven up from Indiana for the day.

Together we strolled back into Millennium Park – which we had last been in during the Henri Cartier-Bresson exhibition about 9 months. This time Stuart came armed with his new Leica M9, which seemed to me to reflect who he was as a photographer – understated, thoroughly professional and capable of extraordinary results. For those of you not familiar with Stuarts work please do visit his blog and portfolio.

I am not sure that any of the images in this blog are ever going to win me any awards, but they felt different both when I was taking them and processing them. They felt less forced, more natural. They seem to reflect more the mood and the feeling of the day. My previous attempts now seemed more contrived, more forced.

So much of what we see depends on how we feel. Are we tired, stressed, open-minded, frustrated, happy or sad? Are we in a rush? Are we trying too hard? Our photography should be a window to our emotions. I know historically that I have “tried too hard”. I have put myself under pressure to create a shot – often when the shot wasn’t even there. This time I just enjoyed time with a good friend, in a great city and exploring the familiar with a different perspective and attitude.

This post – and the images within it – are all about the third of those pictures: the one we post process. SO let start at the end and show you the result of applying this to an old image (below).

The improved image of Pigeons at Jama Masjid Mosque Delhi India after full processing

I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting recently, not just about the turmoil going on in my own life, but about finding a way to start to nourish and train this “new voice” that I blogged about in Koh Samui

I am not sure that the new voice will be significantly different from the old one – not in terms of vision anyway. I think I will probably continue to conceive the same images in my mind – but hopefully now see more of that “vision” in the end image. Maybe that vision will have a slightly more resonant tone – or at least I hope it will – but I am just going to let that particular aspect of my work develop without trying to push it or try too hard.

Nor do I think I need to change my gear. I know there are people out there for whom gear is everything, but I don’t think it will matter two hoots whether I shoot Canon, Nikon, Olympus or Zenith. I have all the tools of the trade, so I think this is one part of the argument that I will let lie. That does not mean I will not continue to work at my craft – pushing some of my technical skills with the camera, trying new techniques etc but only in as much as they help to give voice to the…ugh…voice!

I might just simplify things and shoot one body and one lens for a while to try and get back to grass roots, but I need to give this whole areas some more “noodling” time.

The original RAW color image as shot in camera

But one area that I do want to focus on is my post processing. The recent superb Craft & Vision book, “The Power of Black And White” by Piet Van den Eynde, inspired me to review how I look at both color and black and white images.

I went back to an image of pigeons dispersing against the morning sky that I had shot earlier in the year in Delhi of the Jama Masjid Mosque. The one above is the original mediocre color image as shot in camera. The one below was the black and white version I originally created before being inspired by Piet’s eBook.

The original crude Black and White Conversion

I reworked it from color, past the black and white version that adorns the masthead of this blog and can be seen above and in its full proportions in an earlier post and onto a more sophisticated version (the first image in this post), applying many of the techniques suggested by Piet Van den Eynde, including experimenting with a split tone (below)

Split tone of the same enhanced image of Pigeons at Jama masjid, Delhi, India

Lightroom is such a powerful tool, and I for one am guilty of thinking I know more than I do – skipping over passages or tutorials because I think I have it sewn up. From a mediocre image we have ended up with a powerful black and white image and a split tone variant both of which are so much closer to what I originally conceived of. In this case I narrowed the gap between the the 3 images to deliver the vision and voice.

But – and this is Dr Ryan’s prescription for this blog – this is not about “rescuing poor images”, as the original image was not bad to begin with. It is about using the digital darkroom properly to deliver the final image as close to the conceived image. In this case I achieved this just by slowing down, just by taking a more critical eye and being more selective and yet more adventurous with my Lightroom workflow. As a result I am excited about how suddenly a whole new body of work is beginning to appear.

Vocally it sounds and feels different. It seems to be more rounded, more resonant. More confident.

So have a think about the 3 pictures and your 1 voice. Can you work on each of those areas all at once? Probably not. Pick one aspect and make some changes. Experiment. Slow Down.

Maybe by looking at other photographers work and writing down what you like or dislike it will help you to mature your vision. Maybe it is by taking less images or focusing on composition, getting more familiar with a particular lens or technique or maybe – as in my case – it is as simple as slowing down and being more selective and more thorough with your post processing.

Good luck. Let me know how you get on.

Whilst the materials used in the mosque are of a poor quality compared with many of the Mughal Mosques, and whilst the proportions are not as perfect as that of the Jama Masjid (see images further down the post) to me this is part of its charm.

It is very much a working Madrassa (school) and Mosque. The courtyard is divided in two. In one half is the Mosque, flanked on either side by the open classrooms of the Madrassa. The other half is made up of very rudimentary living quarters, where the young students sleep many to a room.

I visited the mosque a couple of times, including during the important Friday afternoon prayers where the courtyard quickly filled with the devout coming to make their supplications.

It seemed invasive to try and take images during this ceremony, even though a young imam beckoned me to do so. I was content to sit on at the side of the courtyard in the warm afternoon sun and just listen to the call to prayer followed by the Imam who seemed to be giving some sort of sermon. My camera stayed firmly packed away.

On the other occasion I visited I was welcomed back by a couple of the students who remembered me sitting there from the day before. As a result I was immediately adopted and invited into their small dark room – too dark and too personal a situation to consider taking any images – where we talked in Arabish – a weird mix of Arabic, English and hand gestures.

I must have said something funny, as before I knew it the conversation turned to Cricket. Now I realize that the majority of you reading this will think that Cricket is a daft game with a boredom threshold approach that of 3 year old on an overdose of E numbers, but for many is South Asia, Cricket is the national sport, and its stars akin to rock stars.

To cut a long story short, I found myself, cricket bat in hand, entering a small fenced off area in the middle of the courtyard, with what looked like a grave stone for a wicket, where I solemnly defended the reputation of all Englishmen against the pride of India. The odd deft block, sweep or drive maintained my credibility and, with honoured restored, I retreated to the “boundary”, picked up my camera and went in search of some cultural images from within the Mosque.

There is a serenity and an unpretentious practicality about Fatehpuri Masjid that I just loved. The light underneath the arches bouncing of the pinky-red walls made for wonderful catch-lights, and the warmth of the reception and the openness of those that I met, quickly made this one of my favorite places.

Immediately after this I jumped in a bicycle rickshaw for the short trip to Jama Masjid, the grander more imposing and more formal Mughal Mosque on the southern flank of Chandni Chowk.

Although it is a working Mosque, its scale and position make it a major tourist attraction, evidence by the crowds of westerners, especially the women wearing the obligatory multicolored cotton overcoat the mosque provides to overcome any shortcoming in their dress code. The result is as if Cirque Du Soleil’s clowns decided to visit en masse. Somewhat incongruous and as a result a challenge to take some images that properly display its majesty and religious significance.

I spent an hour or so avoiding the “clowns”, trying to find some images that reflected what I saw and felt, One opportunity was provided by the mass of pigeons that would congregate in a corner of the courtyard, only to fly away en masse every time someone went near them. It gave me one or two goes at getting the image I wanted, and that seemed to capture how I saw this wonderful Mosque.

Let me know your thoughts on these images and please do share the post with others by clicking on the “share” link below, which will allow you to send it via a variety of different social media networks.

The long, wide Chandni Chowk street which is flanked by narrow alley ways, small markets and stalls selling everything from books to saris, is perhaps one of Old Delhi’s more famous attractions.

Flanked at one end by the majestic Red Fort, who size and unusual red stone make it an imposing destination in its own right and at the other by the less substantial but equally bewitching Fatehpuri Masjid – an old Mosque and Madrassa – it is a location rich in cultural diversity, opportunity and local colour.

Gavin Gough had kindly recommended a route and pointed out a couple of specific locations, but for the large part I wondered happily down dark, dirty alleyways, content to explore on whim anything that looked unusual or different.

One of the first places that you come to of any great importance is a large Sikh Temple. The temple itself was functional rather than beautiful, but I did use the vantage point it provided to take some pictures of the street below (see the first picture in this post).

Each day inside the large temple kitchens, food is prepared by an army of volunteers, coordinated by temple officials, dressed in their wonderful orange robes. Cooking is undertaken on an industrial scale, using the largest pan you have ever seen (above) to make great vats of dahl, followed by a room full of women rolling and making the local bread and a team diligently peeling hundreds of Potatoes.

This is a community at work. They could not have been more welcoming and I spent a happy half an hour makes dough balls and rolling them out whilst chatting to the woman, before I picked up my camera and took some images.

After carrying on down the street I turned left into a narrow road, where Gavin had previously photographed a wonderful but tiny blue bookstore. When I was there the owner had changed the usage form a bookstore to a tiny Clothes store, but the vibrancy of the colors and it unusual size still made a fun image.

From there I stopped for a much need cup of masala chai, before heading down another narrow alleyway to a particular spot that Gavin had recommended for panning. You can see a couple of my images below. The street was only about 10 feet across, and with motorbikes, rickshaws and pedestrians giving and taking no quarter – especially not to a photographer – I had to put a wide-angle lens on and press myself to the wall to try and give myself enough room to take the shots.

From there a windy route through the tiny streets , each of which in turn presented opportunities, until I finally arrived at Fatehpuri Masjid – a beautiful mosque and madrassa, but which I will leave as the subject of tomorrow’s post.

Do share your thoughts. Perhaps you’ve been there and have a similar picture to share? If you want to see the full collection then either check it out on facebook, flickr or see them all in my image archive from the menu above.

From April 17 1975 until January 7th 1979 the brutal, ultra-communist Khmer Rouge regime controlled the whole of Cambodia, which they renamed “Democratic Kampuchea”. The Khmer Rouge were headed by Saloth Sar , who also went by the nomme du guerre, Pol Pot. During their short and violent rule nearly 2.5 million Cambodians perished – about a third of the population.

Though they were driven from power in 1979, they retreated up into the mountains and border areas persisting until their final defeat in 1998. Surviving Khmer Rouge leaders are only now beginning to face trial for their crimes against humanity, in a UN backed court set up by the monarchist government of Cambodia.

The Khmer Rouge though have not totally disappeared. Corruption and violence remains as a sinister undercurrent to this otherwise peaceful and happy nation. The mass of luxury 4x4s and new houses often funded through some form of dodgy deal are often owned or linked back to Khmer Rouge.

As a former Soldier and someone who has witnessed what man’s inhumanity to man can do – and which indirectly led me to found Focus for Humanity - I wanted to experience the museum and memorial, partly out of respect but partly to draw my own memories of those 1970s news reports and my misconceptions of this otherwise charming country to a close.

I went to Toul Sleng Genocide museum – the former high school that had become the chief torture and interrogation center of the regime under its name, S-21. Some 17000 people were “processed” at S-21, of which less than 10 survived. The torture rooms retain their beds, the concrete and wooden tiny cells bear testament to the evil that was perpetrated here. In the museum section the original water-boarding and dunk tanks make gruesome exhibits.

In the second part of the morning I drove the 6kms to Choeung Ek memorial – otherwise known as “The Killing Fields”. This is one of the may cites throughout Cambodia where the genocide was perpetrated and where all 17000 of the S-21 prisoners were executed summarily and buried in mass graves. The moving memorial is graphic and a brutal reminder of what the Khmer Rouge perpetrated.

I want to give you fair warning. Some of these images in the slideshow below are a little gruesome. However I would urge you to watch the it – it is only 4 minutes long and I think it is a nice way to remember those 2 million that perished under the tyranny of Pol Pot. It is best viewed full screen!

Let me know your thoughts – good and bad. This has been a surprisingly personal and emotional experience and I just wanted to share it with you.

It has the advantage that it is not on the main tourist route or “must see” list and so the constant approaches, proposals or offers that are part of Phnom Penh daily life, are thankfully not evident on Koh Dak (sounds like Kodak, which Jeffrey Chapman suggested would be encouraging for photographers).

I’d chosen to go there partly due to some recommendations from fellow photographers Nathan Horton (who runs excellent tours, workshops and tuition in South East Asia) and Mark Van Luyk, a Focus for Humanity member and photographer who runs a creative agency for NGOs based out of Phnom Penh.

Whilst the silk weaving was interesting and I got a couple of fun shots, it was not the photo opportunity or compelling story I had envisaged. Many houses on the island had the rickety wooden weaving loom underneath the house, and in the cool of the shade, the family were busy weaving away. I struggled to find the right angle or light to make anything other than a snap despite trying at several different houses and with some wonderfully tolerant Cambodians!

Rather than fret about not finding the story I had envisaged, I carried on wandering on foot through the remainder of the village. And thank goodness I did. About 10 minutes later I discovered a large secondary school where classes were in full swing.

As I wandered past the classrooms, all with their windows and doors open to allow a breeze into the stifling heat, children would look up and shout “hello”. The teachers invited me in, even asking me to give an impromptu English lesson! What I loved about this school was the warmth of the welcome and the willingness to allow a a complete stranger to interrupt their class. Can you imagine that happening in the UK or USA?

As a result I got to spend a couple of hours there with fairly unrestricted access. I felt more relaxed, less pressured and even with the restrictions of only really having access via the doors or windows, I managed to get some lovely images some of which are shown in the post. The rest are available either on my Facebook page, flickr or in my online galleries.

My second surprise of the day was an hour or so later at one of the local “Wat” or temples, where I arrived just as the 12 resident Buddhist monks, were about to have their lunch. I bought them all some drinks and water as a part offering/part “thank you” for letting me sit and chat with them. They received the “gifts” with such humility and then chanted a blessing for me and my family which was incredibly personal and moving.

Their English was excellent and we chatted for about 20 minutes before the eldest of the monks (perhaps only in his early 20s) suggested I take a couple of pictures. Despite the invitation I felt slightly invasive. I was conscious that this was their lunchtime, and I didn’t want to make them feel uncomfortable, so I took a couple of “snaps” because they were expecting me to and had suggested I took some images, but i then left them in peace, and headed back to the ferry, the tuk-tuk and eventually the bustle of Phnom Penh.

It ended up being a great day – full of surprise, full of warmth and laughter. The best possible introduction to this wonderful country and its delightful people. But looming at the back of my mind is the Cambodia of the past. It seems strange that such a kind and open culture could have got caught up in the genocide of the Khmer Rouge. I am off tomorrow to the Genocide museum and the Killing fields – not something you look forward to but something I think that I need to see and experience. I hope to post on this tomorrow.

Thank you for you continued support, comments and feedback through the blog and twitter. It is tremendously empowering to think that others are sharing this journey with me, and I’d love it if you could encourage others to follow, comment or share their thoughts too.

For most westerners and tourists the lure of the Bund, the old French concession or the endless new malls and shops full of western luxury brands is matched only by the impressive skyline of stunning skyscrapers lit at night by endless colored LED lights. The old Shanghai has disappeared save for a small few areas which have been so cosmetically sanitized that they look more like Covent Garden in London than colonial Shanghai.

I wanted to escape the Shanghai that everyone sees; I wanted to explore the every day Shanghai of the 20 million inhabitants that provide the “fuel” for this great engine of Chinese growth. This is the Shanghai of those who have been relocated to make way for the new city; the Shanghai of those who get around on electric scooters or the Shanghai of the pensioners content to play majhong or sit all day in the street and chat.

I was fortunate enough to be introduced by Kerry Ellis whom I had met on “Italy Within The Frame” earlier in the year to Jennifer Matheny, a Texan by birth but whose life seemed to read like a travel monologue and make me feel positively the “stay at home dad”!

Over the last 3 years Jennifer has been photographing the “real” Shanghai by jumping on a bus, a scooter or the metro and just exploring different neighborhood through the lens. You can see her wonderful images here, all of them showing wonderful observation, viewpoint and composition. To me they are an extended photo essay of the real shanghai that I was so keen to experience and so I was excited to be able to join her for my one free day.

We went to the end of the line – literally – to Minhang, the final stop of the metro in Shanghai’s south west suburb to a community that is part development zone, part relocated inhabitants and part traditional rural community.

Our exploration took us into markets, housing estates, past factories and through small impoverished communities, tenuously hanging onto “traditional” life or at least traditional in the sense that anything post-revolutionary can be “traditional”.

We found a warmth of welcome, endless laughter, hospitality and openness that belied the austere view so many of us have of China. Children played with us, pensioners laughed, joked and posed. We wandered into workshops, recycling plants or houses and without fail received smiles, welcome signs and a stream of mandarin that invariably resulted in endless laughter when they realized my mandarin consisted of 3 phrases and 4 gestures, none of which seemed to be appropriate that day.

I’ve thrown together a sideshow of some of those images, which I processed in black and white because it seem appropriate to the documentary feel to the day. For those of you that prefer to see everything in color, I have also proposed the same images, which as a result almost seem to tell a different story and in addition to those shown in this post, the remainder can be viewed here.

China – Shanghai Urban portraits – Images by Marco Ryan

Let me know what you think of any of them, drop a comment or retweet the post and don’t forget to have a look at Jennifer’s work.

Next stop is Singapore, and then the following weekend will either be in Bali or Cambodia. “zài jiàn ! ” from China.