Baby, look at you now ..

This week's all about babies! I photographed a Christening at the weekend and I have four photo-shoots to come with young families at the studio. In between all of that I'm getting myself organised for the first Wedding Fayre I'll have done in eight months! Wow, where did that time go? I'll be down at the lovely Hollin Hall Country House Hotel on Sunday from 11 o'clock. Free engagement shoot and signing board if you book me from this event, by the way! Sounds good, baby ..

If I only had time ..

I was down in Birmingham yesterday for the annual UK Photography Show and I'm pleased to report that my credit card has survived intact. Boy, I could have done it some serious damage there .. you can imagine all the new gear that was on display! As it was, I actually came away with a couple of bargains. I spent a mere £20 on a gorgeous orange/red backdrop - normal price way over £100 - and a book that I wanted to get was in a buy one/get one free offer! Brilliant! Highlight of the day for me was during a talk I attended on 'The art of the quick portrait'. The guy giving the demo showed us lots of shots of 'celebs' that he took mere minutes to produce. He then got into a bit of a technical mess with a camera that wouldn't tether to his laptop properly, and came out with an ironic quote that I'll bet has been uttered by every Wedding photographer under the sun.
"I wish .." he said ".. we had a bit more time.."

 

A complete whitewash ..

Look what I had to photograph today! Doesn't look much, does it, but I've had to wait almost two weeks for that space to be turned back into a white wall! It was the site of an amazing mural, the creation of which I covered as a Stop Motion video a couple of years back and, if you click here to see it, you'll understand why it took so much emulsion paint to get it back to 'normal'..

Still, all good things come to an end and now that the company has moved to bigger premises it remains to be seen what the new residents will make of it .. 

Thirty seven years ..

It's very strange to think that 37 years have now passed since I took this photograph but today is the anniversary of that Joy Division gig at Bowdon Vale Youth Club. Thirty seven years ago, as a wee 18 year old lad, I rode on my little Honda 50 motorbike to the gig and took two rolls of film of a band that 'felt good'! Unfortunately, I failed miserably in getting my local newspaper to use the shots and they sat unused for the next 25 years! It's good that they're out there now. It's just a shame that Ian isn't ..

My feminine side ..

Brides are given lots of advice by Wedding magazines when it comes to choosing a photographer for their Big Day .. 'Make sure you like their style' - 'Are they someone you feel you'd actually like as a guest at your Wedding?' - 'Are they within your budget range?' .. and so on .. and when I meet a new bride all these things naturally come into play. However, if a lady decides she doesn't want to book me I'm always, obviously, curious as to why not. I don't take things personally - you can't win 'em all, as they say - but none of that prepared me for the reason I was given by a lady who came to see me recently. She'd decided not to book me  - she said - because she wanted a female photographer ...

 

The tears of women ..

I popped down to London to see a band over the weekend, and got to the Lee Miller exhibition whilst I was there. She was a woman photographer in the proverbial 'man's world' - covering the Second World War and beyond - so it was rather ironic that my progress down Oxford Street was halted somewhat when I had to stop to let this women's rights rally pass. I felt the word 'Gap' was rather well placed..

Anyway, the band were great and the exhibition was worth seeing, so I headed home for Mother's Day only for both our Mums to be too poorly to see us! Oh, dear! Get well soon, Mums! I did get some good news though, as I'd printed a portrait of two youngsters I'd shot in the studio which was given as a gift on Mother's Day. Apparently it caused "happy tears" .. the only kind of tears a lady should have!.. 

Nice to be remembered ..

I was having a chat this week with a young lady who got married last July - I'd seen some of her Wedding photographs on her Facebook page but don't worry, I'm not a stalker, there was a reason but never mind that now! Who did your photographs? I asked her. She stopped and thought about it. "Er, **** somebody, I think.." she said, but I was very unhappy as she didn't do any of the pictures I really wanted!..

Ten minutes after that I welcomed to my studio a couple whose Wedding I photographed at Tatton Park ten years ago. They wanted an anniversary portrait-shoot and instantly, as they say, they thought of me! Not only that, but they told me they'd gone round their house that morning and counted twenty-two of my Wedding photographs on their wall! Ten years on! How lovely to be remembered!...

Just saying ...

What a load of rubbish ..

The first of March, so technically Spring - Hurrah! - and a good excuse to show you my Flickr photograph of an amusingly 'disguised' wheely-bin next to some privets..

Funnily enough, my PR work today is a load of rubbish. Erm, let me rephrase that .. today I'll be shooting for a recycling company and some of the shots on the list include close-ups of 'people recycling cans' .. told you it was rubbish!..

Actually, the client is a new one to me and, when I asked how he'd found me, he told me he'd Googled 'Manchester PR Photographers' and .. to quote, he replied "I thought your website stood out and was a lot better than other photographers websites" Hmm, not so rubbish after all ..