The filter reduces the amount of light entering the lens by ten stops, meaning you can obtain long exposures during daylight hours (instead of waiting ages for a dramatic sunset, only to be greeted by a grey sky. We've all been there).

A couple of weekends ago I was itching to try it out, and was certain that I'd awake on the Saturday morning to see lots of huge interesting clouds looming large over London. The combination of clouds + wind + long exposure = interesting landscape photography (hopefully). Of course, when I pulled back the curtains the sky was blue, crisp and clear - not a cloud to be seen. I must have been the only person in the southeast of England cursing the good weather.

Undeterred, I jumped on a train and set off to London Bridge, hoping that the clouds would roll in and I could capture a dramatic shot of Tower Bridge. Of course, the clouds never came, but I did manage to capture this:

Actually, I've cheated a bit here. I've processed the shot using Photomatix, so what you see is a “pseudo-HDR” shot from a single RAW file. This helped bring out some of the detail in the brickwork, and negate the impact of the harsh light.

Incidentally, this shot was exposed for thirty seconds in bright sunlight, and you can see how smooth the water is. Roll on this weekend, and let's hope the clouds roll in too.

This is Hammersmith Bridge in London, and has been processed using the excellent Topaz Adjust and Silver Efex Pro plugins. Enjoy.

I've read a lot of “Photography 365” articles over the past week or so, where photographers set themselves a goal of taking at least one shot a day. I briefly considered this myself, but ultimately decided against it. The main reason being that I didn't want to shoot for the sake of it, and flood this site with substandard images. I only upload images that I'm really proud of, which means you may have to wait a few weeks for some new shots, but also (hopefully) means that the quality of this site remains high.

So, I've set myself another project - this year, I'll shoot every major bridge in London, and will publish a book at the end of 2010 which you'll be able to buy from this site. There are a couple of caveats - the book will contain some shots from last year (I have some decent bridge shots from the last twelve months), and I won't shoot every single bridge in London. Some of them aren't particularly interesting to be honest (nope, footbridges are out, thank you very much), but I'll spend the next 12 months compiling some eye-watering shots of London's most famous crossings.

Here's one to get you started - the magnificent Tower Bridge in London:

I'll be keeping you updated via the news page, so check back regularly for more bridge-related info.

This year I'll be ramping up my marketing efforts, and one channel I'm experimenting with at the moment is YouTube. I've put together a short promo video and uploaded it to see how many views it generates, whether people click through to my site, and ultimately whether it generates any sales. I'll report any findings here.

So without further ado, view my photography video on YouTube.

As a sidenote, Grandpa Tom is 90 going on 28, and has more energy than most people I meet on a daily basis. The man's an inspiration.

I thought it might be interesting (hopefully) to outline my photography workflow, from the moment the shutter opens and closes to the final processed image. This should highlight how I end up with amazingly fantastic images (cough splutter wheeze etc.)

The shot I've chosen is Westminster Bridge, which I took at the weekend (amongst a throng of eager tourists, I hasten to add...the pain I go through just to get a shot, I don't know...)

The image straight out of the camera looks like this:

Here's the technical details of the shot:

• Camera: Canon 400D
• Lens: Sigma 10-20 @ 18mm
• Aperture: f16
• ISO: 100
• Shutter speed: 45s
• Conversion software: Aperture 3, sharpened in Photoshop CS

It's a nice shot, but there's plenty that could be improved:

• It's slightly underexposed
• There's a chuffing large smudge above and to the left of the lights in the centre of the bridge
• Some detail has been lost in the shadows
• It's too warm

Here's the list of adjustments in full, all done in Aperture 3:

• Removed the sensor smudges using the Repair tool
• Increased the exposure by half a stop (I prefer to nail the exposure when taking the shot, but had to make an exception this time.)
• Adjusted the white balance from 5114k to 4685k to “cool it off” a little bit
• Corrected barrel distortion using the PT Lens plugin
• Adjusted the Devignette slider to brighten the corners (Intensity: 1.0, Radius: 0)
• Recovered the shadows with the Shadows slider (8.85) and the Black Point slider (-5.0)
• Recovered the highlights using the Recovery slider (0.36)
• Converted to Black and White (Red: 1%, Green: 59%, Blue: 40%)
• Added a Sepia tint (Intensity: 0.46)

I then exported the image as a TIFF into Photoshop, added a small amount of dodge and burn to the bridge and Big Ben, and then sharpened using the High Pass Filter. And we're done...finally!

I hope this has been of help to you - the settings above will vary depending on the image you're processing, and of course there's one hundred ways to skin a pixellated cat, as it were. Hopefully this will get you up and running.

After we'd shot outside the house, we wandered down to the Lock and took some shots there. I then made my way home, spending half an hour wending my way down Camden High Street to the station. It was bedlam, and reminded me why I rarely venture into the heart of the city during the weekend, and also why I like the relative leafy calm of south of the river.

Anyway, here are some of the best shots from the day:

I've found that the more I learn about photography, the more there is to learn. It's all so simple when you're starting out - pick up a camera, stick it on full auto, point it at a subject and click the shutter. Then you pick up a book someone has recommended, digest it thoroughly, and then realise that it's a little more involved than just shoving the camera in someones face. For me, this is one of the joys of photography - I've learned so much in the past few years, but I still have so much to learn.

On my photography journey, I've read a fair few books. The following are will hopefully elevate your photography up a level or two, and as a result come thoroughly recommended:

The Digital Photography Book - Scott Kelby

There are three volumes of this book, and Volume One was the very first photography book I purchased. Scott Kelby is the Editor and Publisher of Photoshop User Magazine, as well as being a superb photographer in his own right, and this series of books are written in a, “I want to to know how to take a picture of a beautiful landscape / stunning portrait / fantastic macro etc, but I don't want to know the technical details, ta very much”.

For example, the chapters are fairly self-explanatory. Shoot At Your Lens' Sharpest Aperture, Don't Shoot Down On Flowers and, The Golden Rule Of Landscape Photography, to name but a few. Each takes up two pages at the most, so are all easy to digest.

For me and my curious nature, this “shoot first, ask questions later” approach works well. I found that once I'd taken a decent shot by following the book, I was inspired to find out why it was a good shot by carrying out further research. These books don't weigh you down with technical details, but will hopefully inspire you to learn more and to take great pictures.

The Photographer's Eye - Michael Freeman

When I read this book, photography started to make sense. If Kelby's books are a gentle introduction to photography, Freeman's tome plants its hand firmly between your shoulder blades and pushes hard. This isn't a how-to, but a when, where and why type of book.

It's a natural progression from Kelby's works, as it explains the various compositional and design elements that contribute to a “good” photograph. For example, each chapter is broken down into subsections; Design Basics touches on Contrast, Gestalt perception, Rhythm and Visual weight, to name a few. Graphic & Photographic Elements covers Horizontal lines, Curves, Vectors, Focus and Motion, and Composing With Light and Colour touches upon Chiaroscuro and key, Colour Relationships and Black and White.

This isn't a nice easy read over a cup of tea and a digestive, but an essential piece of work that needs to be studied and applied. If you only buy one book from this list, this should be it.

Digital Photography Masterclass - Tom Ang

In some ways this is similar to Freeman's book as Ang discusses composition in some depth, but his book isn't so specific. Instead, it's divided into four distinct sections - Mastering Your Camera, Developing Your Skills, The Digital Darkroom and Advancing Your Photography.

Each section is subdivided into “tutorials” - for example, section one Mastering Your Camera is subdivided into five tutorials; tutorial one “key camera controls” discusses shutter settings and depth of field, and tutorial four “obtaining the best image” touches upon lens qualities, methods of focusing and zoom or prime lenses.

What I particularly like about this book is that Ang analyses an image at the end of each tutorial. For example, tutorial eight “using available light” in the Developing Your Skills section looks at a shot of a cathedral interior, and breaks the image down - in this case, aberrations, accurate verticals and recovering highlights. Another nice touch is the “assignment” tutorial, in which Ang analyses images taken by other photographers.

I also enjoyed the The Digital Darkroom tutorial, which covers various image editing workflow techniques. Subjects covered here include curves and tone, hue and saturation and working in RAW, all extremely useful for the beginner and experienced photographer alike.

The Complete Guide to Professional Wedding Photography - Damien Lovegrove

Thinking of becoming a professional wedding photographer? You crazy fool, you. However, if you are, you'd do far worse than to read this excellent book.

Damien Lovegrove is an extremely succesful wedding photographer, and it's not difficult to see why - there are some stunning photographs in this book. However, this isn't all about “How to take fantastic wedding photographs” - this book also covers planning the shoot (so unbelievably important I can't even begin to explain), digital post-production workflow (again, incredibly useful as you really don't want to spend hours processing each shot...time is money, remember), and, perhaps most importantly, life and business strategies.

I've met a lot of creative people in my life, and one skill that most of them don't have is business acumen. Let's face it, all we want to do is take nice photographs, design nice websites and make nice music, and we're not really interested in the business side of things. However, this is what separates successful creatives and ones who aren't - knowing how to run and market a business is perhaps more important than what you do in the business.

Lovegrove covers this in depth, and there are around 100 pages dedicated to sales, marketing and profits. Yes, he discusses photographic style, light and so on, but the business side of things is emphasised, and rightly so.

Exposures - Jane Bown

This isn't a how-to book. It doesn't discuss apertures, shutter speeds or composition, but is quite simply a collection of sublime portrait photographs.

Jane Bown is a portrait photographer and has worked for The Observer newspaper since 1949. What marks her out from other portrait photographers is that she only ever uses natural light, and she's apparently used the same camera for the last 40 years.

This is a collection of beautiful, inspiring photographs, and deserves a place on your coffee table. Heck, if you don't have a coffee table then buy one just for this book.