The Pink Mosque, Shiraz, Iran
Fujifilm X-T3 with XF8-16mmF2.8 R LM WR @ 8mm, f5.6 @ 1/60 second, ISO 500

I'm just back from Iran and a photo tour with Nuran Zorlu and a group of intrepid photographers. What an amazing country to visit! While there, we managed to dance around some flooded areas and the weather kept on producing some great skies and photo opportunities.

Many people raise their eyebrows when I say I've been to Iran, but when you're there, on the ground, you feel very safe and very welcome. Every day at least a dozen people would say, "Welcome to Iran - I hope you enjoy my country". The Iranians are both proud and incredibly hospitable.

This trip, Nuran excelled himself, discovering not only some new landscapes to shoot, but some great restaurants. He 'appears' to be speaking Farsi with the locals, but based on the locals' responses, I'm not fully convinced he's communicating word-perfect just yet! Nevertheless, there are lots of smiles, laughs and at the end, great food arrived on our tables.

The photo above was taken on our first day of the photo tour in Shiraz, the birthplace of the red wine by the same name. It is inside the Pink Mosque and our guide Niloo posed for us. There is just a short time every morning when the light streams in through the stained glass windows, so timing is important. And you won't have the space to yourself, so patience is needed and a little luck for all the other tourists to step out of your picture!

And keeping with my new year resolution, all the steps were done in Capture One - you can click through to the website to see the unprocessed file.