Last week, HP's annual European Labs University event took place on the windy but sunny island of Kos, Greece. 250 journalists were given the opportunity to attend seminars presented by HP engineers and scientists covering diverse topics as psychometric testing theory, to ink technology and the latest developments in media-centre PCs.

It was also an opportunity for us to preview many of HP's new products, under non disclosure, that will be launched in the coming months in readiness for the all-important Christmas market.

For a second year running, one of the guest presenters was Douglas Kirkland, the California-based celebrity and fashion photographer. As part of his seminar, we took part in a model shoot in and around the conference centre and hotel grounds in Mastihari, guided along the way by Kirkland.

Using HP Photosmart cameras and printers we then produced a selection of prints from the shoot and Kirkland provided some personal critique on our results. Kirkland's class was so popular that people were ducking out of other classes to gate-crash his!

Originally blurred accidentally because of a too-slow slow shutter speed, it still looked kind of nice, so I emphasised the effect using the motion blur tool in Photoshop

Most of us lucky enough to attend the Kirkland sessions were able to submit one print for a competition judged by the man himself. I'm pleased to say that I was rather surprised that my print was one of the seven chosen out of around sixty entries and this netted me a signed copy of Kirkland's book about his surreal experience photographing Marilyn Monroe, titled: "An Evening With Marilyn". The picture is above and below is a rather shell-shocked me having just received my book from Douglas Kirkland.

Here are a few more shots from the session that I took:

And, finally - who do you think that hat suits the most?!

Why not visit the Douglas Kirkland Web site?