When it happens, it really happens ...

I've been wonderfully busy over the last week - which is the best feeling in the world. I have had clients each day for 7 consecutive days. Yep - I even work at the weekends!

So here's a quick review of what I did:

• Individual Business Portraits x 3
• Product Photography
• Fashion Shoot
• Business portraits - 23 people in 2 poses 
• Event Photography
• Family Portrait

Written down in a list like that it doesn't seem so great - but believe me it was fantastic. Also as well as that list of shooting I have also been to 5 networking groups, delivered a ten minute presentation on how to get the best out of your phone when capturing holiday snaps and had two 121 meetings to find out more about other people's businesses. 

 

Here's some of my work:

Fashion Shoot

 

 Product Shoot

 

 

 Event Photography

Portrait number 1

 

Portrait number 2

Pose number 1 for 23 members of staff

Portrait number 3

 

 

Family Portrait

Well when you group them together like that it seems that I am mostly a portrait photographer. I have meet some amazing people and had such fun and laughs with them. I have been told there are some lovely testimonials coming my way as well. 

 

Another great achievement this week was that I got to make use of my new lighting kit which I bought at the Photography Show back in March. I like them and will be make much more use of them in the future. Firstly thought I need to sort out a proper bag for them so that the lights and the stands they need can be easily transported/carried/moved about. This week was a little tough in that respect. But I have done a little research on Amazon and think I may have found a solution that saves my back and shoulders.

 

I have learned an awful lot from this week. And I am gloriously happy.

 

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Slightly annoyed

I have messed up a little bit.

 

I decided to take advantage of a deal on getting 100 6x4" prints from Jessops for a very reasonable price. I thought this might be a different way of handing out my work to people, something a bit more than a business card and something nice for people to keep.

 

I also purchased a ink pad and stamp so that I could put my details on the back of the photographs.

6x4" photographs stamped on the back

I love the prints and I love the stamp - look how cool those look?

 

However I had forgotten how none absorbent photography paper is. I have stamped lots of the 100 and the ink on the back - even after a day - is still smudging.

 

Grrrr. If it doesn't dry I will not be able to hand them out as they will smudge onto the front of the photograph they sit next too. Perhaps I could put them into an envelope - but that takes away from the idea. Slightly annoyed with myself. However if they do dry I will be very chuffed. Any suggestions on how to get them dry. I have tried using a hair dryer and also blotting them - but still they remain smudgeable!

 

Answers on a postcard please.

 

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Want a busy week? Here's how ...

I have had another tremendously busy week and one that is varied, interesting and immense fun.

 

It started with a shoot at a Solicitors in Leicester. Lovely people I have photographed them before but as they have taken on more staff and refreshed their website they felt it was time for an update.

Solicitor Portrait shoot using the peeling paint door backdrop

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Next I was in Derby to shoot Alive Fitness. Particularly Susan Booth who is a wonderful woman. She and Debbie are planning a very interesting sounding day (9th April) called Va Va Voom a day for women over 40 to discuss what the changes in life mean to our bodies and how we need to deal with them so that we can continue to be who we are and who we want to be. I have signed up for this day and am really looking forward to it. Susan's energy and straight forward way of delivering information means I will enjoy the day. Debbie's wonderfully clear sighted and relaxed approach helps you clear your mind so that you can be who you want to be.

Susan with her team planning the Va Va Voom day

Debbie and Susan - the terrify twosome

Food will help

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The Easter weekend had me running around in the rain capturing delightful images of a group of children taking part in an Easter Egg Hunt - on horseback. I loved every minute and wished I had done things like this when I was a kid.

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I belong to a couple of brilliant networking groups and this week I was photographing my Friday morning network so that they could have some new images for the website. The 10 minute session was a great surprise as Stewart talked us through his hobby - rather than his successful Drainage business. As you can see his hobby is brass bands and he brought along an instrument for us to have a blow.

Kevin seems to have done this before

Sally loving having a go and making us all giggle
 

 

I love my job, particularly the variety of jobs I do. My clients are pretty impressive too.

 

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What a week

It has been a great week... well that is my feeling as I sit here sipping my cup of Earl Grey on a Friday morning. So let's have a think, why am I thinking it has been a great week.

 

Firstly I was out and about with my camera shooting things this week - this always fills me with joy. Portrait, Architectural and Event Photography and a fabulous photo restoration were in the mix. Having work to do means invoices are being raised and that always makes me happy.

The beautiful Fiona

A rather splendid equestrian property in South Leicestershire gets the star treatment

Rain stops nothing

I have been speaking to my accountant to make sure I understand how my income tax will be affected by having become a Landlord at the beginning of the year. Seems all is in hand, I understand all that I need to do, what to look out for and I also cleared up a couple of things I didn't know about. Now I don't have to worry about this and I can concentrate on pushing my business forward. This really makes me happy. 

 

I started going to a new networking group this week and met some really rather lovely people who, after only that first meeting, are asking me to work with them. This makes me happy.

 

I also met up with people I networked with last year. We had all lost touch when the group closed so we planned to meet for a curry and it was great to catch up. I had missed them. It wasn't long, I think the poppadum and chutney's had been cleared away, before work was being passed around the table. Old networking habits never die. This made me happy. 

 

I have talked through a plan I have to rationalise parts of my business. Hearing myself say the words, rather than just having the thoughts rumbling around my head, has really helped and has made me realise it is the correct thing to do. There are parts of the business that are costing money but not bringing in any money. I have to say this is a little like asking a member of staff to leave - but I think needs must. So over the next few months I am going to be making the changes. I shall keep you informed. Sad as this is, it does make me happy.

 

On a personal note: I bought myself a rather large amount of wool this week, mostly purple, to add to my stash and have started working on a project with it. This makes me happy.

 

In summary: I think I can now see why this has been a good week and why I'm feeling happy whilst sipping my Earl Grey.

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Daily RAoK

Have decided today that I should not only try and upload an image per day onto Instagram so that I am always thinking about images, art, composition, photography, and the beauty that surrounds me - but also to try and complete one random act of kindness each day - a RAoK.

 

Not sure how I will log these but will keep notes and see if I think it is worth reporting back or whether this is something that has to be kept private!

 

Today I have found an old family photograph for my cousin. She has very few of her and her mum and dad from when they lived in UK so this will be a new image for her family photo album.

 

I also started a 'Smile Jar' this month - the idea being that each time something makes you smile you jot it down onto a piece of paper and keep that in a jar and then later in the year you can empty your jar and remember all the good things.

Smile Jar at the beginning of January

 

 

I think the Smile Jar may begin to fill quickly as I complete my RAoK each day.

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Pensions and stuff

What with the news about the changes to the retirement age, the changes to NI contributions, the equalising of policies whether you are a man or woman and the changes to all sorts of benefits - meant I thought I had better get my stuff checked out. 

Quick trip round to see my friendly local financial adviser and it seems:

• I have 17 years in which to make up 5 years of NI contributions - that shouldn't be too difficult to do
• I have the best pension schemes available already. They will just sit and rise with inflation until 2024 or 2027 depending on how successive governments change the rules
• My pension can be left to someone if I require - so I need to start speaking to potential beneficiaries and see if they are interested - form an orderly queue people :-)

So I am sitting pretty with very little to worry about (at the moment). And relax.

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tut tut tut

Such a long time since I have been on here. You'll be glad to hear that it is because I have been busy. Since being distinguished with my Degree the business has gone from strength to strength. I had the most fabulous August and if I can maintain work to those levels then my future is secured.

The exhibitions - at the Making House and the Melbourne Arts Trail - went very well. Learnt so much from putting up an exhibition. They are exhausting, great fun, challenging and rewarding all at once. It is good to get your work out there in front of people and it is an excellent way to gauge how well your work goes down by speaking to people that see it for the first time. Will definitely be doing the Melbourne Arts Trail next year. Next exhibition is PINT Arts Festival, Burton - which I shall blog about separately.

Have helped set up Outline - a network group for creative people in and around East Staffordshire. The second meeting was held last week and it goes from strength to strength. Finding fellow creative people makes life so much easier and we can all help each other out - which is marvelous.

Have enjoyed my new iPhone and challenging myself to capture an image, and post it using Instagram, every day. This can be rewarding and frustrating in equal measure. I shall blog about the  challenge soon and have an idea of showing each months all together to see what emerges. To this end I ensured that September was all one theme - seahorses. This was frustrating because by focussing on one thing I was missing other opportunities, so in October I will amend my challenge.

Great to see friends being rewarded with awards, receiving commissions, getting their dream job, and finding love - oh hang on that's all me. But seriously it is great to see my friends developing and continuing with their love and passion for photography and all things creative.

Photography gang on tour - St Andrews, Sept 12 - shooting every angle

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Poor, Proud and Pretty

Went to see an exhibition of my friends work on Friday at the Venture Theatre, Ashby de la Zouch.

Chris Mear was exhibiting his work for Disintegrating Histories and the work he did whilst volunteering in Tanzania. He had a unique way of hanging his work - which I think worked really well and got around the issue of him not being allowed to hammer and drill into the wall at the Venture Theatre. All items were on sale and in particular the limited print run of the books he has created for each of these pieces of work.

"Photography For The Preservation of Disintegrating Histories"

"Life is life, he said hakuna matata"

Click on the link to go to poor, proud and pretty website to buy your own copy.

I love Chris's work and in the new work for disintegrating histories I am seeing his work develop with subtlety and his subjects clearly love having him around.

Exhibiting with Chris was Kate Doyle - showing her work 'Man in a Wood'. It was good to see all of the images from this piece of work together at last. I also loved Kate's unique way of showing her work bearing in mind the constraints imposed by the venue about attaching items to the walls.

Well done to you both and I hope you manage to get it on tour and I will be along to see it again if you do.

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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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New Look Website

It's all coming together just as I promised myself. But it has been hard work.

I decided that by the time my graduation degree show was going up (Show starts tomorrow) that I would have my new logo designed and incorporated into everything. The final part of this massive jigsaw is my website and today it was finally all-together and looking gorgeous.

I love that I can now showcase my time-lapse movies when I create them. I do need to learn my way around the CMS to upload them myself - but for now there are 5 on there. Please go and have a look.

How cool is this?
New logo, RSS twitter feed, Time-lapse page. 

Thanks go to Jat and the team at 3bit.

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Anxiety Levels

Exhibition goes up in Burton Town Hall on 18th June - I have asked for prices on the options I want to investigate for framing my 3 pieces. With a deadline of 15th June I thought asking for prices on 31st May would be a timely thing to do.

It seems that because I am asking for so many different options I have over faced the guys and am still waiting for a quote. I would like floating frames but if I cant afford that I need to see how much the other options are.

After ringing for the second time I am assured that I will get my work by the 15th but that they haven't had time to sort out a quote for me yet!

eeeeeeeeeeeek

I like things to be done and things to be in the bag - this is a great company and I totally trust them - but it does nothing to allay the anxiety that will fester until I receive the quote and send off the images to them.

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Time-Lapse Madness

Well I did it. Two cameras set up to capture the happiness and joy, fun and frivolity of the Jubilee Street Party in Market Street, Ashby.

One camera was safely locked away in an office, clicking and capturing a narrow view of about 9 tables from a first floor window; the second at street level near the pelican crossing at the Town Hall Market. The other cameras were used for various stills and mini time-lapses. I had enjoyed capturing one with the Fuji point and shoot, so I mounted it onto my new tiny tripod and got some candid shoots of peoples feet, rubbish, balloons and children having fun.

My favourite image of the day

It's hard work being a photographer!

There were occasional drizzling moments so I sent my sister off to get me a plastic bag. As long as the parts of the camera containing all the electronics were covered I didn't mind. The lens was well protected and it didn't matter if a few spots got onto the glass.

It was a lovely day. We were all putting on and taking off our coats as the sun came and went. There was a brass band, a choir, a horse and a fun fair.

Home to undertake a mammoth downloading session - approx 2800 images. The time-lapse was set to capture one image every 15 seconds and I stayed for 5 hours. Phew!

The office window view

Market Street before everyone arrived

The street level set up

The next 5 days will see me creating a movie out of these images and when I'm happy with it I'll post something here to show you.

Thanks go to Ashby Town Council who gave me permission to do this and found ways for it to work for me - Karen Edwards. Thanks to the new town mayor Geriant Jones - for his generous offers of hospitality. Thanks to Prescient Power (Karl) who let me set up a camera in his offices in amongst the Ashby Art Festival.

And of course the day would have been a lot more difficult without the help and entertainment provided by my two assistants: Marie Mayes and Bruce Crawford.

My sister trying her best to create a red, white and blue tongue!

My plan for this work is to hand it over to Ashby Town Council for their use and to the Ashby Museum. My take on a tiny piece of a lovely day.

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Exhibition decisions being made

My exhibition at Burton Town Hall for the week of 18th June is looming large. Have been deciding which of my images to exhibit, how big and what type of frame. I like three different types of frame and have set myself a generous budget.

Have been in touch with Hayman Graphics to ask for a quote on the three types of finish - batterned foamex, foamex with thin frame or floating frame. The cost will be the determining factor. Spent the afternoon checking what size the images need to be and which will work best together. I have decided on the planes and gulls triptych (spelling?) - the large colour image in the middle will be A1 and the two black and white ones at the side will be A2.

I am also getting a quote for other images from my small world project which I may exhibit at Melbourne Arts Festival in September. Plan A and Plan B sorted.

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Buzzing ears and vibrating trousers

Nasty headache on Sunday was not going to be improved by going to a gig at the Rescue Rooms.

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Lighting kit a go-go

Been and got it and what a wonderful surprise - a shop with staff that know there stuff and are happy to chat with you about what you are after. It was a pleasure to hand over a large sum of money to them. Would recommend you check out Morris Photography for any camera accessories.

It all came in so many boxes - it was like Christmas

I was so excited about fetching this kit, pathetically so. The final piece of kit that I need. Everything else will be about improvements, replacements or development. Here I go then - out into the big bad world out there - but you know what it wont be bad and if it's big then that means there will be plenty of work to go around.

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Successful Journey

Well it could have been a disaster of missed trains, delays and cancellations. But thanks to all the delightful station staff at the far too numerous changes I needed to do I safely got to Glasgow. I have never changed trains so many times in a journey and I have been to stations I've never been to before.

My unrealistic romantic ideas of train travel have been a little dinted today, but I am thankful for all the help in finding platforms and coaches. And now I can relax with 5 days with little planned ahead of me.

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The End is Nigh

Very soon I will no longer have to go into College. No longer will I have to sit in the cafe or gallery space and overhear conversations of children.

They know everything, but really they know nothing. They think they are grown up, but still snort like a child at something risqué. They have no manners, no sense of style and no grace.

I hope they are learning, but most of them talk about how they haven't done work. This seems to be greated by the rest of the group like a badge of honour. I hope they succeed. I hope they get through this awkward phase to become brilliant adults. I hope they get jobs but most of all - I hope they grow up.

However, this all leads me to the conclusion that what I am most grateful for, apart from a happy, content and peaceful life, is that I never had children. Don't get me wrong - I do like children - what I am saying is that I'm glad I don't have my own.

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2 Cathedrals, 2 Days, 1 Birthday

Our little trip to Kent has been interesting.

DAY ONE:

Arrived Rochester - well actually Strood. Had to cross the Medway on foot over one of the three bridges that span the water all very close together. Then we were in historic Rochester.

Many fine and frankly ancient buildings along the medieval High Street. Unique shops, very few chains, weirdly named alleys, cobbled streets and most buildings had a plaque or memorial stone to some event or some one. Over the years, clearly it has all happened in Rochester.

The connection, however tenuous, with Charles Dickens, is squeezed out at every available way. And why not I say.

 

The castle and cathedral are almost side by side - so they were both photographed. We had slight confusion of where to have lunch. Our desire to find pubs put of the good pub guide has more recently had disastrous results. (only disastrous for our tummies) and once again we found a pub that didn't serve food. The Coopers Arms (no relation) did however serve a lovely ale which we consumed with glee.

Rochester Castle

Rochester Cathedral has had many changes and additions over the centuries. Its facade is built of gorgeous honey coloured stone with delightful carvings. Clearly there has been some restoration but it does look lovely. The war memorial mosaics in the nave were very interesting. The interior is full of the different styles connected with cathedrals Norman arches, Gothic windows, Victorian screens, Pugin tiles. The over riding memory of the place is that, like Rochester itself, every available spot is dedicated to, or in memory of, someone.

Visited the 'largest second-hand book shop in England'. Obviously lots of books. Time and money spent in joy.

The Crypt at Rochester - wonderful space

Headed to Whitstable, the home of Peter Cushing. We sang the Peter Cushing song. (See here). We had tea in the Peter Cushing Weatherspoons. A sumptuous former art deco cinema - what a lovely place lovingly refurbished. Then onto the beach to try some long exposures of the seascape at twilight. We saw fireworks off in the distance and wondered if they were to celebrate Boris's win as Lord Mayor of London? But a little unsure of the geography so didn't really know.

Whitstable Beach

Back to hotel which is in a place called 'Bobbing' much mirth and merriment was to be had with the sat nav - childish I know but we are on holiday and it is nearly my birthday. Downloaded all images captured today. There are some with potential. I particularly like mine of the huge crypt. Whilst we were downloading we watched a documentary on BBC Four about Fleetwood Mac. Music and Photography. Brilliant.

DAY TWO:

Set off the Canterbury Cathedral. Wow what a space. We paid £9.50 to get in - quite steep but I say again wow. Spent all day in the Cathedral with a quick walk around the city centre to find lunch. Beautiful city with tremendously old buildings. I'll let the images do the talking:

Oh yes it was my birthday too - I got a splendid present - Oblique Strategies, Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt. This will be so helpful when I get stuck with a project or a business idea. Cant wait to show them off.

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