I finally caught up with all the post processing today - hooray!.

The Compton Street Sports Centre project (Little Venice Sports Centre) took longer than I thought and many of the final pictures were blended together to capture the full range of brightness (HDR imaging) which always takes a lot longer than processing standard pictures.

The Canon 5D MK2 does hold a lot of detail in the shadow areas so in some cases I can underexpose the overall picture and then pull out extra detail in the darker areas during post processing but in extreme cases I still use HDR or layer blending to put back any lost highlights. In the case of the Compton Street project the ceiling in the gym was very bright in the correctly exposed picture so I took a much darker shot and put that detail back to make the photograph look as the eye would see the scene. I've attached one of the gym shots to today's blog to show the effect I'm talking about.

I've been looking through the raw video footage I shot last week at the furniture installation job in Wrotham and the 5D MK2 produces stunning video output when shot in full HD mode. The picture is so sharp and clear and this opens up so many opportunities for photographers and videographers alike. If anyone is reading this and is thinking of buying the 5D MK2 or 7D with a view to video production I would recommend it without any hesitation.

After finishing my post production work I spent the rest of the day researching some potential new clients that I want to approach - mainly architectural practices in and around London. The competition is pretty intense when you start to approach the big practices like Richard Rogers (now Rogers Stirk Harbour) but you just have to keep chipping away. I'm lucky in that I've worked with Richard Rogers Architects before so that does help but it's still hard work to gain new clients. Marketing is the downfall of many photographers and it's hard to find time to really sit down and focus on new potential clients but I do try whenever I get a spare afternoon to come up with new companies to approach.

On the topic of new customers I'm looking to get a new printed book portfolio sorted out but in the meantime I'm looking to buy a new A3 printer so I can update my current portfolio. My Canon i9100 seems to be working OK but it's a few years old and the new Epson A3 printers are supposed to be very sharp and able to produce exhibition quality prints. I just need to get Melanie to sign off the £650 I need to buy one!.

I've attached an HDR shot of the gym as mentioned earlier in the blog.