As part of both my ongoing Diana Experiment and From the Vault series, here is a photograph (actually, two photographs, merged together) that I stumbled upon yesterday while combing through one of my studio hard drives in search of something else entirely.

I made these images on my trip to Sydney, Australia last August.  It was my last night in town, and I had a few hours to kill before meeting some friends for dinner, so I walked from my hotel down to Circular Quay with my hi-fi/lo-fi set up in tow (a Nikon D3x fitted with a Diana+ 55mm Wide Angle lens).

I wanted to make some long-exposure night photographs of the Sydney Harbour, but I didn't have a tripod with me. However, after some searching, I was able to find some ledges and railings to rest my camera on while shooting. These images are the result of my efforts that evening: two 5-second exposures of the iconic Sydney Harbour Bridge and Sydney Opera House fused together in Photoshop.

See more of my Diana Experiment imagery on Flickr.

Happy New Year from Adobe and me.

Here's to a happy, healthy and photo-filled 2011, indeed.

Via Photoshop.com.

I recently spent two weeks' holiday with my family in Canada.  It is a long way to travel, literally half-way around the world, from Singapore to Toronto.

But there are two little girls there that make the 24-hour airplane journey worth every minute: my nieces, Brooke (4 years-old) and Paige (6 years-old).

I made this series of photographs -- in their front hallway with presents I bought them, playing fairy princess dress-up and swinging high, higher, highest on their backyard swing set -- while visiting with them at their home this past July, as well as on my trip to Canada last December.

Brooke and Paige are wonderful subjects to photograph. Like all little girls, they love the attention.  And like all young children, they aren't (yet) self-conscious.

I love Brooke and Paige for more reasons than I can count: their vivid imaginations, their boundless curiousity, their fervid individuality.

But I think I love them most because they love me back.

See more of my Diana Experiment imagery on Flickr.

A few months ago I spent a week in Cambodia photographing a commission for SilkAir's inflight magazine, Silkwinds.  With my assigned shooting completed -- and an afternoon free before my flight back to Singapore -- I decided to visit the majestic, millennium-old Angkor Wat temple complex on the outskirts of the Siem Reap, a small provincial cluster of old villages nestled between rice paddies and stretching along the Siem Reap River.

Angkor is a sanctuary of immense artistic and archaeological significance and doubtlessly one of the most breathtaking architectural masterpieces left standing in the world today.

Having been privileged enough to tour and photograph Angkor twice before, I wanted to try and capture the ancient city differently on this visit.  So, with my Nikon D3x and Diana+ 55mm and 110mm plastic lenses, I spent four glorious hours wandering and making photographs inside the walled city that served as the capital of the Khmer Empire at the start of the 12th century.

See more of my Diana Experiment imagery on Flickr.

Earlier this year I purchased a Diana F+ DSLR adaptor for my Nikon D3x, along with the Diana+ 55mm Wide Angle and Diana+ 110mm Telephoto lenses.  To some, it might seem like blasphemy to attach a $25 piece of plastic to the front of a $7,000 digital body.  However, to me it provides a whole new way to make creative photography.

I thoroughly enjoy experimenting with this marriage of hi-fi and lo-fi, and I love the soft, dream-like feel that the Diana lenses give to my digital imagery.

I have also found that this is a fantastic little combination to bring along with me on holiday.  So many times I have lugged my huge camera bag on a vacation overseas, filled with two (or more) digital bodies and multiple glass lenses, only to lug the bag all the way back home unopened.  However, the D3x and Diana+ 55mm combo is both lightweight and fun to play with, so I have found myself packing less gear, and bringing out my camera to play more often when I am on holiday.  And that's just good for the soul.

See more of my Diana Experiment imagery on Flickr.