This is our last ever Sunday Showcase and how nice it is that it just happens to fall on Christmas day! For this Sunday Showcase I have put together some of Memory Gate’s favourite hair and fashion images from the last couple of years.

Although I am primarily a baby and wedding photographer I do enjoy the odd fashion or hair shoot. These images are just that….. enjoy…..

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This is the last of my retrospective travel photography showcase feature.

These images were taken back in 2005 in my first ever visit to Russia. Earlier in the day we had been photographing tourists at one of St Petersberg’s famous churches (can’t remember which one it was though). On my way back and whilst carrying my Nikon D1X in my bag on my back, someone tried to unzip my backpack. As a turned around and they ran off but little did I realize that the bag was still unzipped. After a few more paces the weight of the camera unzipped my bag fully and came tumbling out onto the pavement. The bang of the body hitting the floor was enough to make me jump but the sound of smashing glass got me worried. Luckily all that was damaged (smashed) was the lens filter.

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We’re nearly finished with my year long retrospective, self indulgent, travel photography project. This week’s pictures were taken in Oslo in a fly-in one day visit back in 2006. I have re-visited and re-edited all of these images using the Guy Gowan Process actions and some of my own tinkering.

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Whatever type of photography you are into Rome is an absolute goldmine. The millions of vistiors make it amazing for street photographers, the architecture is perfect for any photographer exploring composition and the weather means that you have fantastic light for most of the year.

I visited Rome for the first time in 2006 and spent two full days scouting around the massive ancient city. If I have one tip for anyone going there for the first time it’s to avoid peak season, try not to spend too long at each point of interest (as there are so many) and bring lots of memory cards!

These images represent about 1% of what I shot over the two days I spent in Rome. The picture above is one of my favorites, it’s not technically the most accomplished of shots but as a tourist photographer myself at the time it makes me smile to see an old school photographer with a modern approach.

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I’ve visited Lisbon a handful of times but this series of images was taken back in 2006 after crossing the Atlantic on a 5 sea day repositioning cruise from the Caribbean.

The amount of graffiti in Lisbon did surprise me at first but at the same time I did find it all quite interesting juxtaposed with the old architecture.

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Back in 2005 whilst still working on ships we were on repositioning cruise from the Caribbean to Europe and one of our first stops was Hamberg. We actually spent two days in the Hamberg and had a very rare overnight stay in the city. For most of us it was the first time in 4 or 5 months that we had the opportunity to have a night out that was not in the crew bar! As you can imagine it got quite messy, I discovered that none of the taxi drivers in Hamberg at 3am speak English and that Hamberg’s docks are very very large indeed and it’s not as easy as you might think to find a 100,000 ton ship.

That said I did still find time to explore the city and take a few shots. A a small selection that I picked out and reprocessed.

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Normally I reserve this Sunday slot for an image showcase but this week I just want to share an update about where I will be taking this site in the future.

I started PhotoCreative365 on December 31st 2009 and have published at least one article or podcast everyday since then. This has been by any means no small undertaking but it has also been an incredible experience for me.

After two years, nearly 1000 articles and podcasts PhotoCreative365 will start to undergo some dramatic changes in 2012.

I’m still undecided on the exact direction but the last ‘daily’ post at PhotoCreative365 will be on December 31st 2011.

All of the past content will remain and I will still continue to post here…..just not on a daily basis.

Thank you for your support and I hope you’ve enjoyed the content thus far.

We still have seven more weeks of daily content to come and lots more exciting things on the horizon.

If you’d like to submit some images for one of our last Sunday Showcase features then drop me an email.
The same goes if you’d like to write a guest post or product review.

Well now I have the complete set. iMac, MacBook Pro, iPad 2 and the iPhone 4s. I am now a fully paid up member of the Apple obsessive collective but it is on my last purchase (iPhone 4s) that I am writing this article with some relief. If you listened to podcast Episode 87 you’ll already be aware of my frustration at O2 and my launch day woes.

That was a couple of weeks ago.

Since then I have received my new phone via courier after complaining via live chat, email, Twitter and eventually by phone.
I listened in almost disbelief when the O2 customer service girl said the words “we can upgrade you over the phone now if you like Mr Shilling”.

Time to put that behind me and get playing.

After Emma spent 10 minutes arguing with Siri and asking where she can dump a body I started to explore what it was like to have a fully functioning phone. Did I mention I upgraded from a ‘clunky at best’ iPhone 3?

I’m not going to write a long review or list the features as there is plenty of information like that already.

What I am going to do is share some of the images that I have been taking over the past couple of weeks. I will continue with some more sharing in the future and there might even be a video or two in there as well.

I’ve never thought of myself as a street photographer or anything of the sort I have been getting into Instagram. I’m getting into the habit of sharing my iPhone images on Tumblr as I feel that I have been not giving it much attention lately. You can find me on Tumblr at http://photocreative365.tumblr.com/

Here’s a couple of other shots taken on the platform at Vauxhall using the iPhone 4s HDR function

To be honest I was quite impressed with how bright they were and the HDR function certainly does something.
Up bright and early the next day and on my way back to Clapham Common for a shoot I took this image walking down the stairs of my local train station. Again it does show off the HDR possibilities but this time in sunlight.

Here’s a few other shots I’ve been taking over the past couple of weeks including some shots I took at a SWPP training day in London with Richard Walton.

Here’s a couple edited in Instagram

As I said, I will continue to keep sharing but if you want to share some of your own iPhone4s images then please feel free to share links in the comments.

I’ve always been interested in photographing architecture for no other reason than pleasure and when I visit a new city I often find myself pointing my camera upwards. This series of images was taken back in 2005 while I was still working on ships.

There is certainly no shortage of inspirational modern architecture in Rotterdam and I always enjoy the juxtaposition the different buildings against the sky and clouds.

As with many European cities Rotterdam has a a tram network and a played around with photographing the power cables against the sky and other buildings.

The Erasmusbrug, a cable stayed bridge across the Nieuwe Maas river, is also a particularly interesting subject to photograph. The 802 metre long bridge has a 139 metre-high asymmetrical pylon, nicknamed ”The Swan” which is what you’ll see in these last two images.

In today’s Sunday showcase I’m continuing my retrospective travel photography project. Although I’m no longer posting these as part of a daily 365 project it’s still nice to go back through the old hard drives to see what I can find.

This is the second series of images I took in 2006 in The Azores. See Azores Landscapes 

None of the images were commissioned nor was their intention but they are a collection of images that I feel are wasted stored away. Even though I had been working as a professional photographer (in some capacity or another) during that time, these images were taken for pleasure and nothing else.

All of these images were shot on my Canon 20D and editing in Photoshop using the Guy Gowan Process action.