This isn't the usual kind of thing I'd post but I can't begin to imagine what the parents of missing child, Madeline, must be going through & every little bit of exposure will hopefully bring them nearer to finding their daughter.

Depending on the weather, and the amount of equipment we're carrying, we'll sometimes pop the F5 with a couple of rolls of infrared film into the camera bag and shoot off a few frames at a wedding.

I've been bugging Paul about some infrared he shot at a couple of weddings and he kept telling me the film was still unfinished & in the F5. Yeah right! Yesterday I found it filed away ... he'd developed it & forgotten about it! I scanned in a few shots & post processed them and I'm loving the shot below!

Having said that, next time we shoot HIE we'll be dropping the ISO to about 200 (instead of 400) to try to eliminate some grain & use a yellow filter (instead of red). As much as I love film grain, with infrared, this amount of grain works better on landscapes rather than portraits.

Paul shot the shipwreck below at Akrotiri beach at dawn using a slow shutter speed. The original idea was for the sun to light the ship but typically he picked a cloudy day (on what's normally a sunny island!) so he lit the shipwreck with the car headlights instead!

This particular beach is great for photography because of the lack of people & rocky seascape. It's a short but strange dirt road drive through barren land which contains about 30 or so MASSIVE antennae belonging to the British RAF base situated at Akrotiri. We're planning on shooting some bridal images there either on this visit back to Cyprus or next.

This shot of Paul's is a real blast from the past. It was shot about 10 years ago (on Fuji Superia 400 - before we discovered slide film!!) and looking back on it now this was the turning point for our photography.

As we're off to Cyprus in less than two weeks, I thought that over the next couple of days I'd post a few images of my favorite places in Cyprus. Surprisingly enough, although I lived over there for about 8 years, I don't have that many shots of the island and it's definitely something I need to rectify when I'm next there. Most of the images we have were shot on film so need to be found & scanned (huge chore - not so much the scanning bit but the finding part!) The two below were shot recently on a digital camera, that's why they're up first!

The images below are of an old pier just past a town called Pomos. I wouldn't call it the safest of piers to be walking on! The wooden slats are way past their sell by date & full of cracks & holes & the posts holding them up are more than a little rusted! I didn't mind standing underneath but as I can't swim I found it almost impossible walking too far onto the pier! This used to be a mining area but is now pretty much deserted but one of the prettiest parts of the Greek side of the island and a great place to go for sea food.

For those of you that don't know, I say Greek side of the island because Cyprus was invaded by the Turks in 1974 & it's still divided. Although the borders were recently opened up & you can now travel to the northern side, Cyprus still has the only divided capital city in Europe (possibly the world??).

This morning Paul got his report card back from the Austrian Super Circuit competition to find he'd won a gold medal in the sports category. This particular competition has been running for about 14 years & is hugely popular worldwide. The high quality of images published in their catalog is superb and it's quite an achievement to be included in there (it was my turn last year!!). It's Paul's second gold medal award at the Austrian Super Circuit so he's rather pleased with himself this morning! The award-winning image is posted below.

Two weeks today we'll be travelling to Cyprus. As much as I love to travel (doesn't everyone?!) I always tend to start stressing about my trip a couple of weeks before I'm due to leave. The crazy thing is I'm not scared of flying so I don't even know what it is that makes me loop out every time I'm due to travel! As soon as I get my butt in the airport lounge all the stress vanishes... how freaky is that?!

Anyway, enough of my peculiarities!

The purpose of our trip, other than for a short break, is to shoot a couple of portrait sessions, a trash-the-dress shoot & to deliver a wedding album for a wedding we shot back in November. The book has turned out beautifully and I'm certain Maria & Aris are going to be over the moon with it! Here are a few of the page layouts from the book:

Becker, a cutting edge photographer specializing in fashionable photojournalist wedding photography, posted an article on his blog a couple of weeks back called "bedhead". He invited photographers to shoot self-portraits of themselves first thing in the morning. That's not my favorite time of the day at all, as you can probably tell from the shots I've posted.

I blog and Paul (my husband & the other half of Amorphia Photography) sits back & reads the blog. Question is, does just reading the blog mean he deserves a photo on the side bar? Hhmmm, that's a tough one, huh?! While I debate that & the meaning of life, here's just how photogenic my other half is...

I spent yesterday with a roomful of eager photographers hanging on the every word of two of the world’s top wedding photographers – Joe Buissink & Yervant – and now I’m sat here wondering what to write that will do yesterday any kind of justice. I’m not a writer & trying to express what it was all about for me on a personal level isn’t as easy as I thought it would be!

When I first began wedding photography I made the mistake of wondering who of the two, Yervant or Joe, is better but in time I became a little wiser and realised how different they both are and I came to the conclusion that comparing them is a futile waste of time. Having a personal preference between the two is a completely different subject! They come at wedding photography from totally different angles and sometimes with opposing ideas, all of which works for them with stunning & beautiful results. Joe’s images are all heart & soul, whilst Yervant’s are brilliantly edgy & modern. Joe captures an emotional, never-to-be repeated moment & Yervant creates a moment to perfection. Joe’s breath-taking images look like they were captured in the 30’s or 40’s and could hang on anyone's wall as a work of art but Yervant’s flawless work looks like he’s just shot a fashionable center spread for this month’s issue of Harper’s Bazaar.

As much as I could listen to Yervant and his adorable accent all day, Joe had me mesmerized every time he spoke. Both are charismatic & inspiring people but I warmed to Joe the first time I met him a couple of years ago and despite having already seen most of his images and heard his stories he still managed to make me cry. I don’t believe it was just because of his photography or his words but mainly because of the extreme passion he expresses in both of these. No other photographer I've met talks to my emotions as much as he does.

I learnt so much from both of these photographers yesterday but I walked away from the seminar with two points banging around in my head:

As talented & well-thought of as these men are, they are two of the most down-to-earth, personable & genuine people I’ve yet to meet at the higher end of this industry. There wasn’t one ounce of arrogance or vanity from either of them but instead I witnessed an unpretentious manner from two men who have every right to boast about their achievements & talents. For me, yesterday was also a lesson in humility as well as photography. Do not misunderstand humility as a lack of confidence because both these men ooze confidence but it is well balanced with a deep respect for others.

Finally, each of us brings something different to our photography, a piece of ourselves, even subconsciously a part of our upbringing & background, a piece of our heart & soul but primarily our passion. We can categorize ourselves as a photojournalist wedding photographer for example but what truly matters is being passionate about our work and not which category we fall into. Both Yervant & Joe fit into different slots in wedding photography but the fact is it makes no difference. Both are as ardent as each other, each of their styles are strong and they have refined their art with as much passion as they can muster and even more importantly, despite being so long in the photographic industry, they have kept their spirit & love for photography alive.

The key word, not just for today’s blog piece, but for the length of my photographic career is passion.

Joe Buissink & Yervant are teaming up for some one-day seminars over the next couple of weeks in the UK. The first is tomorrow in London which Paul & I will be attending. For more info, please visit Double Talk Seminars

Earlier today, I "found" the shots below on my external hard drive when I was spring-cleaning. I tend to take personal photos, get all excited about seeing them, make sure I store a couple of copies and forget about them! I dragged this bunch into Photoshop today and I've decided I seriously need to do something with them other than put them back into storage...

Seems like my "get in my blog" post took off a little faster than I thought! So much for me getting round to tidying my desktop today!

Here are a few desktops with their respective slogans for their blogs. The desktop images link directly to that person's blog so if you're liking how their desktop looks & how funky their slogan sounds then click on their image, visit their blog and please make sure to leave lots of blog lovin' on the sites you visit!

Next stop after the external drive is my delightfully cluttered desktop which may look incredibly unorganized to you but ask me where anything is and I'll find it straight away!

If anyone's up for emailing me a screenshot of their organized/unorganized desktop, I'll post the first few sent & my favorites with a link back to your blog. Think of a catchy or funny slogan you want to go alongside the link to your blog. For example, the current one on my email signature is... "Get in my blog"! Send your desktops & slogans to info@amorphiaphotography.com Images no bigger than 400px wide & 72dpi please!

Last night I realized my 300GB external hard-drive was pretty much full so today I've had the tedious job of going through everything and burning off any unnecessary folders on the drive. I'm still wading through it because I keep getting distracted with reading other people's blogs or finding a photo I'd forgotten about and opening it up in Photoshop. Throughout the day I'll post up some of the distractions I've taken into Photoshop and wasted my time on!

Paul & I are going to the Photo Vision Roadshow tomorrow. It's taking place right on our doorstep at the beautiful & historic grounds of Hatfield House and the schedule has a couple of talks that should be particularly interesting.

I've been trying to achieve a specific effect for a couple of weeks now & today I pulled up an old NYC image and it just happened accidentally! The effect is made up of a wadge of layers including layer masks, adjustment layers with channel mixers, curves, grain, high passes and blending modes. Whether or not I remember how to replicate it is a completely different subject!

...working on a whole bunch of Brett & Lindsey's photos but they seem to have already chosen a couple of the funkiest as favorites to go on their walls!

I'm really pleased with all the different looks I've managed to create throughout the entire & lengthy post-processing, which has ranged from subdued, muted tones to vibrant, brash images. I especially like two of the newest ones posted below...

I glanced at my horoscope whilst reading a magazine & it mentioned something about being like a Lotus.

The phrase aroused my curiosity so I looked it up and found that lotus flowers are used to inspire people to continue striving through difficulties and to show their best part to the outside world, no matter how bad the circumstances may be. The lotus rises above the mud, unblemised & untouched, and produces beautiful and fragrant flowers.

So, the conclusion I've come to is that, I think my horoscope has it wrong yet again! I'm not feeling like I'm surrounded by "mud" this week but the positive message to push through difficulties & "blossom" despite them is definitely one to keep in mind... especially if you're a stressed out bride-to-be!