ON SABBATICAL

Yes, I’m on a photo sabbatical, I’ve no idea for how long but will restart this blog when I return!

ON SABBATICAL

Yes, I’m on a photo sabbatical, I’ve no idea for how long but will restart this blog when I return!

It’s been a swelting few days out and about, so as I was travelling back to London after an Easter weekend away, I decided to drop by town for a quick look at what was happening. Well, I had heard that Oxford Street has some Union Jack bunting up so I decided to investigate as I had my camera with me.

Oxford Street itself was quite clear with nothing to show as yet but Regent Street had the fabled Union Jack bunting up in all its glorious colours. All along Regent Street it could be seen.  It almost had an end of WWII, Victory in Europe Day feel in war time Britain (or how I imagined it may have felt).

Many of the big name stores are making the most of the event by having lots of Union Jack and ‘British’ type displays.

I headed for The Mall which is the mega long strip of road that leads to Buckingham Palace thinking that the street would already be lined with flags. Unfortuately this was not the case and perhaps in a couple of days time it will be up. There was already evidence of the security barriers that are being put up.

Well, I for one will be watching the event at home with my family. No way will I be there, far too many people for me! Though it will be a great occasion I’m sure of it!

Well, it’s been a long time since I have posted on my blog and I’ve not really had time to get the camera out and shoot as much as I would like. Life gets busy sometiimes and the recent period has been one of them. I have some shoots coming up so look forwards to getting out there and getting creative again.

I’m in the process of updating my website which will be cool and for the time being, I’ve uploaded a few pictures taken during a family day out in Greenwich Park. My little boy is now 8 months old!

Had bit of a disaster recently. I had loaned a memory card from a job to a friend who needed to download some photo’s that I had on the card. On receiving the memory card back I tried to put it back into my camera to look at some of the photo’s again. As I put the card into the camera, something just didn’t feel right as it didn’t seem to fit properly. As a guy what do I do? Well, just push it harder!

Big mistake! My camera just came up with some error message and would not function. I tried some other memorys cards that I had and the same thing, the error message again! Now, panic started to set in a little as my very expensive camera seemed not to be functioning!

I searched the Internet to see if I could figure out what was wrong and on closer examination of the card slot on the camera I noticed that two of the pins in the card slot had been bent closer together! I was very tempted to stick something in and try to prise them apart. However, on further investigation on the Internet it is not an uncommon problem and some people have tried prising them apart themselves with some success. There were also others warning you not to do it yourself in case you short out the camera’s circuit board and totally finish it off!

That was enough for me to take it to the Nikon pro repair shop in Vauxhall, London. It appears that they will have to replace the whole memory card unit on my Nikon with a new one! It isn’t cheap but again it is not horrendously expensive and I’d reather it be fixed properly. I will get it back next week and all ready for a couple of shoots that I have lined up.

One thing that I will be doing and that is taking the technicians advice and throwing away that damn memory card that was responsibly for this whole affair!

Well, after a long Christmas break and eating too much and not doing enough (in terms of exercise!) it’s time to get the ball rolling again. It’s been quite busy just sorting stuff out to get ready for the year. Our little one is also growig at quite a rapid rate, there hardly seems a week when he doesn’t change in some way. He’s much more alert, more energetic, more fun yet tiring at the same time, I blame the lack of sleep.

So with the New Year I’ve been having some thoughts about altering my online presence. I’m starting to think whether to get rid of my website and stick with just having a blog for the time being. This is something that I need to decide upon. I have also been thinking about what kind of shoots that I want to setup for the coming months. Next week I have a shootswap and it’s my turn to return the favour, I will post the images afterwards. There is another idea in the making with a couple of people I know to do a themed shoot but it all depends on finding a suitable location as it is based on a 1960′s TV series! I actually have the location in mind, it’s getting permission that will be the problem.

One other thing that has been on my mind is my style of photography. In one sense I know what I like, however I can’t say exactly what my style is at the moment. I guess in many ways I am still developing it (does it ever stop?!) and it seems to be a fusion of several styles. I know what I do like, yet is it me? I want to be as authentic to myself as possible as I believe that will best serve me and any clients. I think this could be a major area to focus on for me this year.

Other than that, I’m slowly starting to think more photography after my Christmas mega-slow down! Could be an exciting year ahead.

Having broken my collar bone from a mountain biking incident last year, I have just had surgery again 1 day ago to have the metal plate and screws removed! Am currently at home recovering and thinking about some other photographic projects that I would like to do.

I’m looking to more portrait and fashion work soon as I love the imagery on fashion editorials. This may be the next direction for my personal projects.

Will post some pictures up when I manage to get to take my camera out again, hopefully it won’t be too long!

Well sort of… 4 weeks into life baby Ben is managing to sleep for 2-3 hours at a time now at night and just gets up for feeding and nappy changing. People often said how I’m finding it and whether it’s really hard work. In reality, I’ve not found it very difficult, a little more tired for sure but Ben is a joy to have around. He’s sooo cute and I just loved holding him!

Anyway, since we have started to get a little more of a routine, I’m starting to feel that I can venture out more and leave my wife Alison with Ben, especially as she feels more and more confident in looking after him herself.

Of course this is great news as I am starting to think about getting out there and doing more shooting. Next weekend I have a Vintage Wedding shoot with a group of other photographers from The Photography Parlour and I really cannot wait for it. It should be great fun. What is more, I’m looking forwards to meeting up with some other photographers interested in the same thing.

In a couple of weeks time I have my first wedding to shoot which I’m really looking forwards to also. It will be my first solo gig and I’m so grateful to the bride and groom for trusting me with capturing their special day. I will certainly post some photo’s here afterwards.

Otherwise it’s enjoying the baby more and I’ve decided to make more of a commitment to keeping my blog up to date. Of course there will not be shooting all the time and photo stuff to talk about so I may well be rambling on about my personal life!

Well, here is my new look website blog that is a work in progress. actually, I’ve just set it up so need to spend some time configuring it but it should be done within the next week or so! Hurrah!