A great portrait captures the magical moment of recognition between photographer and subject. It is a moment of clarity - sometimes an accident and sometimes a gift. What makes a portrait compelling & memorable? How do you bring out the essence of an individual? These concepts and portrait photography techniques will be covered by Clint McLean; photographer and photo editor at The National M Magazine. Learn more after the jump..

NEW in May: Photoshop CS4 Intermediate class in May and new Level 1 and 2 classes added in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Also, last chance to book for the Macro photography workshop with Don Cocksedge on June 4.

If you want to take your Photoshop skills beyond the basics, consider this intermediate workshop with Alex Jeffries that will take place over two Saturdays, May 8th and 15th

The second Slidefest where locally based photographers will present an assortment of personal photography projects will be held on Wednesday, May 19th at 7:30pm at the Knowledge Village Auditorium

May sees an unprecedented number of photography exhibitions and events in Dubai. There are loads of photography exhibitions on offer so don't miss out on thiis bumper month of photography shows.

The winners of the Canon Celebrating My City competition have been announced. Thank you to all the participants from 13 countries for their excellent submissions but in the end, there were only 13 winners from each country and the grand prize winner.

Win cash prizes worth QR (or AED) 20,000 by submitting football images to the Qatar Passion for Football photography competition

Read on to see what's new in CS5 and if its worth upgrading. Also, get details on attending the Beach Bash and a special offer on Adobe CS5 for all GPP members

We have a few new books added to the store: Photographing Nature, Digital Landscape Photography and Macro Photography. Also, NEW is a portable lightbox that is ideal for product, still-life and macro photography.

In this excellent two-part article, David Noton British photographer shares his insights and advice into selecting and using camera lenses. A must read for all beginner and amateur photographers.

We share our picks of the best photo stories, essays and tidbits from the web from last month. This month, we feature a photoessay profiling the state of football in South Africa, a BBC interview with Sebastian Salgado and look at what all the fuss is about with HD-DLSRs that are taking the video world by storm..