If you are even vaguely interesting in real estate photography or shooting interiors of buildings using HDR techniques, I would strongly encourage you to head on over and listen to the latest PhotoNetCast. In this show, we talk to Michael James, a photographer from Florida who specialises in real estate work and uses HDR techniques in the majority if not all is work.

I’ve been a fan of Michael’s photography for several years and have been in awe at how he manages to cure the problems associated with mixed tungsten/daylight white balance. In the show, he drops several great tips on how he gets round this and other problems associated with shooting interiors in the middle of the day. Check it out either on the PhotoNetCast site or from iTunes.

This is very nicely done and scarily true from what I read of the fashion press these days.

Well look at that – I have one of my pictures on the cover of a Harlequin boddice-ripper! This is another use of my most popular “Hamilton Pool” image, the same one used on the telephone directory last year. Harlequin added the people in the foreground and cropped the image rather dramatically. By my reckoning, the models they used are about 3 feet tall but I guess they didn’t have much idea of the scale of those rocks in the foreground

I was rather honoured this week to find that my top 11 images of 2011 were one of Younes Bounhar’s 20 top picks from the photographers on Google+ who submitted a link to their work.
The set linked to his post is basically the same as my “Best of 2011” set with the addition of 1 picture since I needed 11 shots for Google and had only picked 10 for my own post.

It’s great to find that people appreciate your work but even better when the person paying the compliment is a photographer whose work you already very much enjoy. Younes is an Ottawa-based travel and landscape photographer. You can find his portfolio here and his blog here. Both are definitely worth a look.

While I’m writing, I should apologise for the fact that this blog has been rather quiet lately. I’m still posting to my photoblog daily but time that I would otherwise spend working on a couple of tutorials I have planned for here has been diverted to organising two new workshops (one for beginners in late February and another HDR class in March) and setting things up for an exciting project that will be seeing the light of day some time at the end of this month. Once these are done, I promise I’ll give this site a bit more attention than it has had for the last few months!

Here’s another image that made its way into the wild. The Spanish-language version of S.J. Parris’ “Heresy”, titled “Los herejes de Oxford” has one of my photos on the cover. This image was shot in the cloister of Glasgow University back in 2009. Random House’s graphic designer has done a rather nice job with the image, I reckon.

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas or, if your traditions differ, a wonderful, safe, healthy and happy New Year! Here’s an amusing little video I found that should help brighten your winter day.

For a change, I’ve posted my “Best of 2011″ post over on the photoblog. Head on over if you would like to take a look at the 10 pictures I consider to be my favourites this year.

I’ve just posted the annual family Christmas newsletter. Rather than repeat all the information in a post, I’ll just link to it for anyone who is interested in knowing what we’ve been up to in 2011.

How do you fancy the chance to win one of 6 20″x30″ prints from photographers Colby Brown, Elia Locardi, Jay Patel, Varina Patel, Ken Kaminesky and Alexander Safonov?

These fine people have teamed up with “The Giving Lens” to try to raise some money for kids in Nicaragua. For every $10 you donate to Empowerment International, you get a chance to win one of the prints. Why not head on over and spread the Christmas cheer while standing a chance to win a gorgeous print worth around $500?

Floodlit Capitol, originally uploaded by DaveWilsonPhotography.

Photowalks in Austin are a bit like buses. You wait around for one for ages then, all of a sudden, two arrive at the same time! Thankfully, although there are two photowalks happening next Saturday, they have been cunningly (or, more likely, luckily) arranged such that you can attend both if you have the stamina.

At 5pm, a group of us are gathering on the south steps of the Capitol building to shoot it at twilight and hopefully get a few better shots than this one. We’ll concentrate on the exterior and work our way north from there up Congress Avenue towards the Bob Bullock State History Museum and the Blanton Museum of Art. Not that I’m being selfish but there’s a particular dusk shot I want to get from the front of the Blanton Museum so, since I’m organising this one, that’s where we’ll end up.

This particular walk is intended to allow Colorado visitor Justin Balog (from the “Light as Magic” photoblog) to meet some of us Austin photobloggers so come along and say hello.

Later that evening, Trey Ratcliff and Lotus Carroll are organising another walk with a totally different focus. At 8pm, people will be meeting on 37th Street to shoot the famous Christmas decorations up there. I suspect that will be an altogether less intimate walk (100 people or so?) but a great deal of fun too. To sign up for that one, click here. I see the attendee list already includes local buddies like Alex Suarez, Mike Tuuk, Peter Tsai and Jack “photojack” Hollingsworth so we are definitely in for a spirited evening of conversation and photography.