I am back back in London after an amazing trip around Asia with Steve Davey on his Impressions of Laos & Vietnam photo tour. Whilst I was away I managed to post some images along the way … from Bangkok we travelled north by train to Laos visiting Vientiane, Vang Vieng and Luang Prabang. I have previous posted images from all of these locations.

I must mention an amazing evening we had in Luang Prabang with Adri Berger who is fantastic photographer and videographer – check out this film Portraits from Luang Prabang. Plus the great food at the Big Tree Cafe which is run by Mija Son, his wife. If you ever visit Luang Prabang then you must go there.

From Luang Prabang, we flow to Hanoi which I also posted some images before leaving Vietnam. The images that I have just posted to my “On the Road” gallery are of the landscape and markets around Sa Pa, Can Cau and Bac Ha as well as a few images of border with China at Lao Cai.

Finally, I am catching up on my post processing and am now editing my images from last April when I travelled to Laos & Cambodia on a Steve Davey photo tour. The tour started in Bangkok catching a train north to Laos and we returned to Bangkok for a few days after the tour ended in Siem Reap. I always find looking back through my images is fascinating and brings back lots of memories.

Bangkok is an amazing city of contrasts from the bustling trade on and along the Chao Phraya river to the serene temples. Of course, there is also the night life and amazing street food which I have not got any images of from this trip. I am definitely looking forward to returning to Bangkok soon. Please look at my Bangkok gallery and let me know what you think.

Now onto the images from Laos and Cambodia which I am hoping to finish and publish before I go travelling again.

A great day out yesterday participating the Scott Kelby Worldwide Photo Walk – a great idea to get photographers everywhere out shooting and socialising. Photography doesn’t need to be a lone pursuit – it can be enjoyed with fellow photographers.

Many thanks must go to Stephen Cotterell who organised the walk along the River Thames from the Royal Festival Hall to London Bridge. It was an interesting journey along the Thames as it was also the day chosen to be World Zombie Day so there were floods of Zombies making their way in the opposite direction to us. Many of the them were very scary too!

Finally, I recommend that you check out our organiser’s podcast, Photography 121 with Stephen Cotterell with can be found in the Apple iTunes Store.

This week, I have managed to get out and create some low light and long exposure images during a photo walk around the Royal Docks in London Docklands. The image on this post is actually of me and take by Chris Ballard – thanks to Chris for letting my use this image and for organising this particular photo walk. My collection of images from this photo walk can be found on Flickr rather than on my website. We usually manage to get out of a photo walk once a month after finishing in the office visiting various location in London. There are images from the other photos walks also on my Flickr photo stream.

Chris is a gifted photographer who has decided to embark in a Project 365 this year. Please check out Chris Ballard’s 365 Project and follow his progress as he capture a different images every day for a year – in fact because it is a leap year, it will be 366 project.

I cannot believe that my trip to Laos & Cambodia is just over a week away.  It seems to have crept up very quickly and I don’t feel that I have done enough resource about either country.  Fortunately, it is one of Steve Davey’s photo tours and he has been to these countries a number of times before.  Apart from my new Canon EF 8-15 f/4 fisheye zoom lens, I have everything I need for this trip.

Before the trip, I still have lots to do … another shoot shot this afternoon and completing the post processing for last week’s shoot shot as well as this afternoon’s.  Hopefully, I can get this all done by the end of the weekend.

Today, we went to the National Portrait Gallery near Trafalgar Square to see the exhibition of photographs which were competing from Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2010.  There are some amazing portraits including David Chancellor’s winning portrait titled “Huntress with Buck”.  Taken in South Africa, it depicts a young American women returning to camp on horse back with a dead buck straddled across the horse in front of her.

My personal favourite is the second prize winner, Panayiotis Lamprou for his portrait titled “Portrait of My British Wife”.  It shows a very informal and personal shot of my wife relaxing just outside their summer house on Schinousa Island in the Aegean Sea.  The subtle light is just amazing.

The exhibition runs until 20th February 2011 so if you are in London I would recommend going.

I have just read an excellent blog by Nicole Young (aka Nicolesy) titled “The Reality of Being a Microstock Photographer” based on her own experience.   Nicolesy’s honest and frank account of being a microstock photographer is very valuable and a must read by anyone considering taking up photography full-time … thanks for sharing this!

If you have time, I would also recommend looking at the rest of Nicolesy’s web site.

On my Twitter feed this morning, I found this interesting blog by Gleb Budman of Backblaze titled Backing up photos while travelling | Backblaze Blog.  He describes the dilemma that I am sure all photographers have encountered at some point during the lives, unless they don’t travel.  How do you backup your photos without having to carry a laptop with you?

I have to thank a good friend and pro photographer Steve Davey for helping me to solve this.  When I was on one of his photo tours, he had a small device which is nothing more than a hard disk drive and multi-card reader (CF or SD).  You just insert the memory card and it backups it up to its hard drive … yes that is it!

Seeing this, I just had to have one (or similar) so I bought the Vosonic VP8870 which has the added advantage of of have a small screen which you can view your photos on – even RAW images.  It doesn’t stop me travelling without a laptop but now I always have a minimum of 2 copies of my photos (on the Vosonic and my laptop) and besides I need to get to my email.

So thanks again Steve and if anyone wants a great photographic adventure then check out Steve’s photo tours.