A Nightime Walk

@alun lambert: Thanks Alun.....I went B&W with this one because there were some weird flare colours from the streetlight including purple!

@Ana Lúcia: Hi Ana....thanks very much. I'm really pleased that you think it has some atmosphere.

@Lorraine: Hi Lorraine...that's very kind of you. Thanks!
(PS - this is where I've collected my favourite photos in one spot although I wouldn't exactly call it a 'hall of fame' :-)
http://photo.net/photodb/member-photos?user_id=3871380

@alex centrella: Thanks Alex.....I'm not sure that there is any common 'style' that runs in my photos apart from using the same border which helps tie them together but I'm really pleased that you like my portfolio!

@Michael Skorulski: Thanks very much Michael!

@Michael Rawluk: Thanks Michael....it's very kind of you to say that as night photography is my favourite.

@Stefan: Thanks very much Stefan!

@Wysterior: Thanks very much!

@tom: Thanks Tom.....I'm really pleased that you think it has mood and atmosphere as that's the kind of thing I was aiming for :-)

@sherri: Thanks Sherri. Iknow it's not perfect compositionally as the lampost is sprouting from the top of my head on this one and those stripy shadows just behind my back are a little distracting but nevertheless it's a stronger image than the photos I tried of this scene that were empty of human life.

@danthro: Thanks Danthro.....I put myself into a few shots on this series of nightime photos that i took in Annecy as a bit of an experiment and although there are issues with the composition I liked this version better than the ones with no figure.

For me when I view other peoples photos, seeing a figure in the shot allows me to imagine myself being there much more readily so there is more emotional involvement.

On this one it would have been nice to have two supermodels to act as a 'romantic couple' for the shot but we all have to make do the best we can don't we :-)

@doublekkphotogrphy: Thanks very much!

@Stu: There's no big secret Stu :-)

I've recently switched from using Photoshop Elements to using CS3.

In CS3 I use the B&W conversion tool which has a slider for each colours intensity - I adjust each one of these until I get something I like the look of and then after that I adjust contrast using the curves tool as well as localised dodging and burning using a digitiser tablet for more precise control than a mouse gives.
Sometimes I use usm for local contrast enhancement at a setting of about 10-50-0.

Depending on how far down the path you are with Photoshop, that will all sound either ridiculously hard or sound so simple that you'll realise that I don't really know what I'm talking about and I'm a novice at it :-)