Blog Hit - down but not out

Ooooopps - seems like my blog is getting ignored. I have discovered the Instagram app on my iPhone I have been uploading an image a day through July as a little challenge. This means I have taken my eye off the blogging ball.

At the end of July I will produce a composite of the images taken during the challenge, in the meantime - rather than show you my Instagram images because you will have seen the link to those on Facebook and Twitter - I will show you what I did last weekend:

I don't know if it meant just one light or all the lights in the Church?

The view towards Leicestershire and Rutland

We sent Marie up to the tower - she seemed to be enjoying herself

Uncle Pete: "I am havin' a fagggggg"

I am seeing this cloud formation a lot at the moment

This week I am trying to have the week off to get a lot of jobs done in the house and in the office - getting everything sorted so that I can make the transition from student to business owner. So far I am not having much luck, there is work to do and lethargy struck. However, my handyman came round yesterday and is back again on Friday so I will use that to spur me on. Toughest job I have to do is to develop a system for my work flow. I want it to be easy enough for someone to take it over. At the moment it is a jumbled mess (probably resembles my head) I need to streamline, sort, consolidate, simplify and organise - well that will take more than a week. Onwards.

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Keeping Clients Happy

What a fabulous week I have had. Been to 3 networking meetings, made many sales and booked in appointments for 121s and commissions for work.

Whilst I have been doing that I have been working on a number of commissions including one for a local company that have embraced my 'small world' work so much so they have given me toy vans painted in their livery to photograph and called to say "the vans would look great in puddles".

In contrast to that I have been capturing images for a website that will be going live in September to hit the gift giving time of year - commonly know as Christmas. This morning has seen me photographing the owner dressed in boots, woolly jumper and hat on one of the few days this month when it has been bright, sunny and, almost, summery. But we had to capture autumn to fit in with the feel for the website.

Here are a couple of shots from those commissions:

Toy Vans

Christmas is coming

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This is a first

I like my clients  - I enjoy working with them. I love the passion they have about their business. It is that passion I try to capture in images I create for them.

I love to see how much they enjoy seeing the photographs I produce and yesterday was a first ... my client actually screamed when she saw her images. I don't expect all my clients to do this - but it really made me smile. I'd like to point out here - she loved them!  

I have lots more work to do for her - but here are the screamers!

More will follow after the next shoot in a weeks time.

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Compton Verney

After seeing a piece in the Guardian on Saturday - decided to visit an Exhibition on 'Flight - and the artistic imagination' at Compton Verney. The exhibition explored the instinctive human desire to fly. There were paintings, sculpture, photographs, documents, prints and video. All coming together to show how artists have represented the experience of flight in both fact and fantasy from the 1400s to the present day.

There was work by Leonardo da Vinci, Henri Matisse, Paul Nash, Elizabeth Frink and Mark Wallinger amongst others.

I was unable to take any photographs whilst in the exhibition so will provide links to websites so you can see the works I am referring to:

Paul Nash - Battle of Britain (1941) bbc website

Paul Nash - The delicacy used to depict the con trails are not replicated in the landscape or cloud structures, perhaps emphasising how frail and delicate man is amongst all this.

Henri Matisse - Icarus - in Jazz (1947)

Henri Matisse - It was a delight to see this book - in the flesh - it was open on page 54 and I spent a while trying to translate the french : 

"un moment

di libres

ne deviation

pas faire au

complis un

grande voyage

en avion aux

jeunes gens

ayanlteermime

leurs etudes".

Pat Douthwaite - Death of Amy Johnson (1976). National Galleries Scotland

Another painting that stood out for me was Pat Douthwaite's Death of Amy Johnson - I think it appeals to my love of abstract.

What a lovely day. I got so much inspiration for new ideas and projects from this visit - it is always good to recharge your batteries with looking at other work and it does not have to be in the field of photography.

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