Ok, it's that time of the year again, and you might well be thinking of gifts for this special people in your life. If, by chance, they happen to be photographers, here are some gift ideas that just might be useful.

These images where shot over a weekend at Sinharaja Forest Reserve is a national park and a biodiversity hotspot in Sri Lanka. It was a fantastic place and one I would love to go back and spend more time there!

Photographs are 2-dimensional, but how sometimes you look at them, and they almost appear to be 3D. This is because in the 2D space of the image, the depth of the scene is also portrayed. Now generally, this is associated with expensive lenses, but you can give your images more depth by using some of the following tricks!

Back in 2011, I spent a very brief 40 hours in Istanbul...  with such little time, it was a rather manic trip, but in such a fantastic and vibrant city, it was difficult not to produce some memorable images. This was towards the beginning of my photographic journey, but i always like to go back and re-asses my images. Where I started, what would I have done different now, and what can i learn from them. So, i hope you enjoy this look back into my earlier works. :)

As photographers, we are training our eyes to take in the entire scene, often seeing things that non-photographers do. This is exemplified by an experiment looking at the eye movements Canon USA made. The Obsession Experiment is an advert for a printer, but the results are interesting. Check it out! :)

Hampi is (at the time of writing) the Lonely Planet's #1 sight to see in India, and after a long time, we finally made it for a trip. It is the site of an ancient city and was one of the richest cities in the world during it's heyday (1500AD), boosting an estimated population of 500,000, making it the second largest city in the world for the time. It was, however, concurred by the Deccan Muslim confederacy in 1565 and razed to the ground, leaving only ruins strewn amongst the builders! It is a fantastic place, and loved the landscape. We also visited the nearby Daroji Bear Sanctuary during this trip.

A recent paper in PLoS ONE by Vidya Athreya et al., used an innovative method to examine Leopard populations in the Indian state of Karnataka. They searched local media sources for any mentioned leopard-human incidents and applied modelling methods to draw conclusions. Their data showed that "leopards occupied around 84,000 km2 or 47% of the State’s geographic area, outside designated national parks and wildlife sanctuaries".

I think this title deserves Pro-tips rather than quick tips, but anyway. National Geographic Explorer Prasenjeet Yadav shares his experiences and thoughts about being a storyteller. He once told me, “an image has a shelf-life, a story will last forever”. I cannot agree more! :) So please, take the time to read his views, take notes, get out and start your own stories! You can check out a sample of his work at the bottom of the piece.

I was a recent trip to Hampi with my wife and son and, well, could not pass up the opportunity to visit the Daroji Bear Sanctuary. It does not have safari's, but you stand atop of a rocky outcrop looking over the boulder strewn forest that is the sanctuary, hoping to glimpse a sloth bear! We got lucky and saw three! 

The role of a photographer is to portray a story using photographs. The power we wield is huge, we can change the story and make the image reflect our own impressions. Canon Australia made this video showing what happened if you send the same guy to 6 photographers for a portrait, and each photographer thinks the guy is something different. A criminal, a millionaire, an alcoholic, a fisherman, a lifesaver or a physic...  Each portrait is different, each shows a different man.  check it out!

We live in an age of selfies, Facebook, snapchat and Instagram (to name a few), it has been estimated that we are collectively taking close to 1 trillion images a year (Yahoo estimated 880 million for 2014). It feels like everyone and there dog has a camera these days, and no matter what you shoot, the chances are someone already has a similar shot or a better one, and even if they don't already, they will... and soon.

A great image combines Creativity and Technique, and by using these two factors you will move away from just 'clicking' and image to capturing and creating them. I may not be able to teach you creativity, but I can certainly help you learn.

Taking pictures is only the start of your images life, it is not until post-processing that they really comes to fruition. I use Adobe LR CC, and love it. However, it can get slow! So here are some tips to make sure your LR is running as fast as it can! :) I hope you enjoy the video...