Christmas ..

Yep, soon be Christmas! Can you believe it's 'the longest day' already? Half the year gone and advent calendars already in the shops! (Ok, that's a fib and you know it!) I can't wait for the second half of this year, though. It's going to be so exciting, what with the new studio and all, and as soon as I've written this blog I'll be off there again for the first full day of redecoration (Ikea is doing very well out of me at the moment!) It's going to be great to invite people in there for a shoot and, along those lines, I had a baby portrait session yesterday - one that, I hope, will go down in history as the last time I go out to the client's house to take portrait photographs. (Unless, of course, you need 28 family members photographing, in which case I'll be over in a jiffy!) I also had another lady come by yesterday and ask if she could bring in an old photograph for me to restore. I hope her pictures from the past are a good sign for the future, and then it'll be like all my Christmasses have come at once!..

#culchethportraitphotography

Future policy ..

Time to renew my car insurance, and my current insurer has quoted me a renewal rate of £339 and very kindly told me that I don't need to do a thing to carry on being insured, as they'll take my money out of my bank account all by their clever little selves and send me a new certificate on the due date. Now nowbody these days just allows an insurance company to roll over its policy - do you? - so, of course, the first thing I did was to get online and get some comparison prices. Cheapest equivalent?  £207 !! I rang my company and told them. "Oh .." they said "Did we say £339? Sorry, we meant £240 !!.." Cheeky little ratbags! Chucking a hundred quid onto my policy and hoping I just didn't notice! Nice! Anyway, couldn't resist showing you this picture from my archive! Drama on the high streets of Birmingham when this learner driver reversed into me in 1979! I think the insurers have paid up!.. 

I'm off to Sandbach today to shoot some baby portraits. This will probably be the last time I shoot an individual's portrait on location. After this they can come to me at my new studio! That's my future policy!..

Up the wall ..

I'm having a lot of fun looking for suitable work to go on the walls of my new studio. This lovely shot was one of the first I thought of, caught at the end of a portrait session as the little lady grew tired. (Oh, I work my models hard!) Add to that a couple of nice Wedding photos, a funky 'happy family' and a cool 'teenager with attitude' shot and I think that'll do it! I'm also sourcing furniture and fittings for the room, with a 'warm but workmanlike' theme being favoured at the moment. Having said that, it's time now to put my plans down and put my Wedding head on. I have two Weddings this weekend, starting today at Mere Court Hotel, near Knutsford. I won't mention the weather...

My PIL tickets arrived yesterday. The band are playing The Ritz at the end of the month, but I'm getting so paranoid about the missing the gig (See Monday's Blog!) I think I'll just camp out at the venue the night before! I have it in mind to try to get John Lydon's autograph, too. He's definitely one of those people that 'changed history' and I'd love to add him alongside Morrissey, Ali, George Best and Margaret Thatcher. Actually, I'd better not mention to him that Maggie's already in the book. He'd go up the wall, wouldn't he?..