Feel the love...

Nice to receive a compliment in the mail, yesterday. Last week's Wedding couple took time out - from the Caribbean! - to get online and send me a little message. We all had a great day at Styal Lodge, near Wilmslow, as you can see from some of the pictures here, and they've been able to log on during their honeymoon to see all the images on their Web Gallery, a service I offer to all my Wedding couples. Anyway, they wrote: We just wanted to pass our on most heartfelt thanks for everything you did on Friday. Everyone commented on how great you were and how at ease you made everyone feel....   Cool!


So, couple of quick funnies....A bride recently wrote me a list of the shots she wanted me to get at her Wedding. First shot on the list? Bride in Wedding Dress! Now why didn't I think of that! Secondly, I've just joined a 'creative professionals' network in Manchester, and noticed they're plugging a 'Women Only' get-together next month. The venue? The Old Hag's Head!! Just telling you, is all.... :-)

You're fired!....

Talk about breaking it to me gently!! I shot a couple of dinners recently for a company in Manchester. They called me yesterday to ask if they'd booked me for any more work, and I told them no, they hadn't. This guy's exact word then was "Good!", as it seems they've decided to go "in-house" with their photography. (By the way, they don't actually employ a photographer, so you can see where that one's going!) Anyway, all is not lost for little old me, because, as this dimwit then went on to say, if they 'cock up' with this idea they might always come back to me in the future!
Erm, no, you can't! Up yours, as we say in the trade!

I'm a Protographer!...

There seems to be a real fashion for desaturated images at the moment! Ironic when you think people are spending a fortune on cameras that are designed to capture so much colour and intensity! However, when in Rome...


A pal of mine is having a new website designed at the moment, and he asked me to check out the front page. I noticed the web designer has spelt photographer as Protographer. I don't know if that's a word but I'm having it!...     Martin O'Neill, Protographer!

Kiss me quick...

I pride myself in being able to compose my images in-camera, and I'm not really one for cropping or photo-shopping once I've shot 'em, but I actually think I might have a case for a quick dab of clone tool after Friday's Wedding! Look at this lovely shot from Styal Lodge, in Cheshire, capturing the moment the bride and groom, Chris and Cheryl, first kiss each other as man and wife. The problem? No, not the beaming registrar, that's par for the course, it's where they stand! No, my problem is the unavoidable sign above Chris' head...a man making a run for it through the door! Er, no!

Anyway, hope you're enjoying the sun at last! How long did it take for you to hear someone yesterday complain "Oooh, it's too hot for me!" ?

Style in Styal...!

It's always nice for me when I get to shoot a Wedding at a venue I've not been to before, and that was the situation yesterday when I went to Styal Lodge, near Wilmslow, for the Wedding of Cheryl and Chris!
It's a really cool, compact site for a Wedding, with a lovely side-room set aside for the bride to get ready.
Guests came from far and wide for the event, too, and hey, even the weather behaved itself, so that we could get out onto the decking by the lake for some shots!

All in a week's work...

Good week for my PR photography this week, and plenty of variety, as usual! I started the week with some of my work being added to the new web-site of a horse-riding school in Cheshire, and was delighted they chose a shot like the one above, when the 'school' cat decided to take a hike along the fence just as I'd arranged for a rider to come hurtling past!
I then shot photographs for, ironically, a motor-cycle school, following new riders as they got to grips with their 'hogs'! ( Ok, their Suzuki 50cc bikes! ) and then, yesterday, I did a shot for EasyJet, at a presentation in Manchester. Tomorrow sees me at another Wedding in Wilmslow so, all in all, another pretty good week for Martin O'Neill Photography! Speaking of Weddings, I've now made a link more prominent on my website, allowing you to get straight to my Slide-show and a great selection of my images!

Ciao for now!

Ah, Mid Summer.....

It's the longest day, the official start of Summer, so it is now Definitely Summertime! No, it IS, honestly! Ignore the fact that your drought-proof plants, as recommended by Alan Titchmarsh, have drowned in that puddle by the patio; ignore the fact that you are still wearing a fleece, and the fact that the only time you've had your BBQ out this year is to wire brush the rust off...IT'S SUMMER!!!

Ah, take's me back to a trip I made to the South Pacific, when June 21st was the shortest day, yet everyone was, of course, still so lovely and warm! It was a trip I made with a model...literally!
Here she is in the picture, my good friend Moanin' Minnie, sunbathing on the beach in Fiji!
She'd certainly be moaning if she were here on this crappy day, that's for sure!
Check out the link if you'd like to see more of her travels, and then...

GET OUTSIDE, it's SUMMER!!

Peckforton Castle...

Thoughts today are for Peckforton Castle, its owners and all the couples who are planning to marry there soon! There was a pretty bad fire there over the weekend and I don't know how that'll affect everyone's plans for the future! I've shot many a Wedding there in the past, and have bookings there for the future myself!

Fingers crossed for all!

Peace and love, man...

I've calmed down after yesterday's little explosion, and I expect to speak to the company today to resolve things.
Time to look back into the garden then, itself an explosion, of colour, scent and 'makes you feel good'-ness. Cold again, though, and really sorry to say this summer is finding it difficult to get going!
Oh, hang on..the phone is ringing..to be continued!

Good point...

So, I'm quietly minding my own business, yesterday afternoon, when there was a call from a company who rig stages and lighting at events. You took some shots at the "**" dinner last month, they said, and we wondered how we could get hold of some. Oh, I said, no problem. I'll put them online for you and you can see the shots you'd like to order! Fine!
Next thing, this young lady's boss rang. So, this chap asks, when they're online, can we download them? Of course you can, I said, if you "cross my palm with silver"!           
Pause!
We have to pay?  Funnily enough, sir, yes, you do! I own the copyright and I worked rather hard at that dinner to get these shots that you've just said you'd like to own. The guy from this company, let's call it JH Creative, then became rather indignant about this crazy suggestion of mine that he should pay for my work. I'm going to the client, he said, they'll give them to me for nothing. No, sir, they won't. That company understands copyright and they won't let you have the pictures. (By the way, we're talking a whole twenty five quid, here!)
What did you want to use them for? I asked.
We want to put them into proposals for when we go to new clients, he said. We can show them what we do when we pitch for new work! Oh! I said, so my work is so good that you'd proudly use it to promote your own product, yet you don't want to pay anything for it? Nice one!

Well, how come you own the copyright? he asked.
All you did was "POINT THE CAMERA!"

This is a company that uses the word "creative" in its title, yet even it doesn't see any value or worth in good photography. Is it any wonder the image of photography is going downhill?

It's a shame this company won't get to see this work. It is, though I say so myself, bloody great stuff, and makes the few lightbulbs and bits of wood that they threw together that evening look really good!

First things first...

It's stopped raining! Halle-bloody-lujah!
Quick! Out into the garden! Shoot some flowers!

Ok, back inside to deal with all the unwanted phone calls from the people who can guarantee me page one of Google; the people who assure me they have a list of brides in my area, just dying to book me, and to the professional photographer who emailed me to say that they'd come up with a great way for professional photographers to make money in these straitened times of ours...
Run seminars at £114 a time to tell professional photographers how to make money in these straitened times!
Leave me alone, let me take photographs, please, thank you!

Eat yer heart out, Parr!..

A little bit of detail from Saturday's Wedding!
If Martin Parr or Peter Dench had shot these they'd be in a gallery/book/exhibition by now!
Envious, me?

Had an e-mail inviting me to enter a Photography competition over the weekend.
I was quite interested, until I spotted the bit about it costing, wait for it, twenty five quid to enter!!
How does that work, then? Here's £25 of my hard-earned money, now see if you like my picture!
Erm, no thank you!

Oh, and it's raining......still !

And relax....

Sunday, a day of rest! Definitely!
I worked so hard at yesterday's Wedding, and already have the couple's page up on my website!
(9am Sunday morning!!) This was at one of my favourite venues, Willington Hall, near Chester.
It's an absolutely gorgeous place, and I think everyone that goes there instantly feels like landed gentry!
So, feet up, tons of Earl Grey and The Observer today! Well deserved, naturally!

Drought, eh?...

So why is my garden floating off towards the sea? Oh, the joys of living in England, eh? Never mind, let's just see if I can shoot a Wedding this weekend without my lenses going rusty! Cold, too, isn't it? Well, that's cool -Ha ha!-  It'll give me good practice for the winter, when I won't be able to afford to put the heat on!

Apart from that, everything is great! Just designed this ad for a new Cheshire Wedding Publication. Whaddya think?

Smut!

Bit of outright porn for you, today! Ok, maybe not, but fun to think you used to be able to get shots like this in the Manchester Evening News! In fact, I remember actually covering Miss Wet T-shirt contests, and getting the winners in the 'paper! Lord, bring back the eighties!

Quiet day, today! Just recharging the batteries (literally) before the next Wedding on Saturday, and had a lovely call from a guy in Japan yesterday who's booked me for his Wedding in August.
In Cheshire, not Tokyo, but there ya go!

Pop!

Who hell he...

Can you put me out of my misery? Does anyone know who this is?
It's just one of a few shots I have in my music archive that sadly means nothing to me anymore.
Basically, I haven't the foggiest idea who it is! Sorry, Mr Singer!
Answers on a postcard, or an email if you have the technology, Lol!

It's raining, sunshine...

What a weekend!
Too sunny for Saturday's Wedding, too rainy for Sunday's!
Naturally I, as an amazing professional, coped stupendously, turning out an average of 780 damned fine shots on each of the days I was working.
Even managed a conversation with a Wedding guest whose daughter is going to buy a "good camera" .."Ooh, whaddya call it, Barbara?..Canon! There ya go!"..and do Wedding Photography as a "side-line!"
Thrilling, missus, thrilling!

Gotta have a laugh, innit...

Well, I think it's about time you had a photograph of a girl with a traffic cone on her head!
Why? Hey, why not!

It's Friday and it's sunny and I've got two Weddings to shoot this weekend.  Ain't life fun!

(I'm guessing 1978 for this shot! Taken from my archive of shots from good ol' Eccles!)

Every cloud...

Just a quickie today, 'cos I'm flying round like the proverbial blue-arsed....

So, I was thinking about the collapse of Focus DIY! Does that bode well for Wedding snappers?
Might people now start to look for Focus Get an actual Professional Photographer to Do it?

Just my mind, then, eh?

Jesus!

No sign of June bursting out all over yet, but my Blog Stats sure as hell are!   I had 994 readers last month, which is really quite amazing, and I don't even care if 991 of 'em are my Mum!
Just to think that people that I don't know have made an active effort to read what I write is quite, quite flattering! I mean, we're talking everywhere from Iraq to China via Turkey, Russia and The Netherlands.
Seriously, thank you for the interest, everybody!

One of those 'Stuck in front of the computer' days today, as I sort through Wedding photographs and start to prepare new albums. One of 'my brides' from two years ago has finally delivered her picture choices, and it's amazing to look back even just two short years to notice changes in my ways of working.
For a start, I get the shots in focus these days! Only joking!

Talking about trips back in time, here's one of my Olympus XA shots from my book Don't Miss This!
Where did all those years go? Jesus!