Christmas catch-up..

I suppose I should call this my 'Post-Party' post as it is now the morning after the night before, and that's another freelance photographers' Christmas booze-up done and dusted! As usual there was lots of catching up done, and much toasting of each other's success in making it through another year and still being a photographer. Shock revelation of the night was the fact that a photographer we'd all known from about twenty years ago had been found dead in his flat after lying there for a week undetected. Oh yes, we're a chirpy bunch when we get going!..

On with the show now and this last week before Christmas seems to be all about last-minute portrait sessions. The studio's going to be heaving with families flying in for eleventh-hour gift ideas, and Santa's sack's going to be bulging with gorgeous family photos...

Speaking of Santa, here's a nice juxtaposition of Father Christmas and the fairy lights lined up with the moon over Manchester's Christmas market. I managed to shoot it on my 'phone without spilling my Gluwein and I do believe - if you look very closely - you can just see Tim Peake in the top left hand corner!..

Get that down yer neck ..

Party time! Off for the 'Office Do' this afternoon, which has the potential to be a sad, lonely affair seeing as I work on my own! Fortunately there's my usual bunch of freelance renegade chums to call on, and we'll all be crawling out of the woodwork to descend on Manchester in about three hours time!..

I'm feeling the most un-Christmassy I have ever felt this year. Something's just not switched on! At the moment, the day I can't wait for next week is the 27th, when I'm off to shoot a Wedding in Cheshire. Maybe a few mulled wines and some hearty chortling with me muckers will put me right.
I can only hope..

That's so last century ..

There was a programme on telly last night called 'That's so last century' in which guests reacquainted themselves "with the gadgets and games of their childhood, including ... 35mm cameras!" Talk about making a man feel old!..

I did feel old this morning! I haven't watched the programme yet as I was out on the first of my Chrimbo booze-ups last night, and boy, did I know about it when I woke up! Last century? I think that was the last time I was able to cope with a heavy session..

Anyway, that's me in the party spirit now, much like I was in this photo of me and me little sis Catherine, circa 1964. Yes dear, the nineteen hundreds..

Party party...

Well, it's that time of the year again, folks! Today's the Annual Office Christmas Party - hurrah, hurrah! Trouble is, being a self-employed one-man-band, that can turn out to be a pretty boring affair, so it's off into town to meet up with all those other crazy freelance photographers out there. Yeah, both of them! I've complained about this before, but do you have any idea how hard it is to get a bunch of freelance photographers together for a booze-up? They won't - not even for an annual get-together - give up any work that comes their way. Mind you, I can't blame them, so it's just me and two mates who're set to meet up at the Christmas Market later. I guess it says a lot about the state of our diaries eh, so spare a thought for the three saddo snappers sipping shandies in the shade of the super-sized Santa in Manchester's Albert Square this afternoon! (Cue violins!)

Naaah! We'll have a blast! Of course we will! It's a tradition we've upheld since the heady work-filled days of the mid-eighties, and it says a lot that the three of us are all still working as photographers to this day! I'll have to watch the suds though, because tomorrow I'll be working as a stall-holder in Culcheth. I'm setting up a stand in the CPS centre to offer my Florescence work, as well as Gift Vouchers for Portraits and Camera Tuition. Come on down from ten o'clock! Bring Paracetomol! Cheers!

Give it some welly...

Not your normal shot from a Wedding, but all the more fun for that... and now I really must move on from the fact that it was snowing on Saturday!!

I had my office Christmas party last night which, as a self-employed photographer, is a little more tricky than it sounds! It involves trying to tie up with as many other freelance snappers as possible and heading into town for a booze-up. But have you ever tried to get a gang of freelance photographers together in the same room? It's a bloody nightmare! There's always someone who'll get a job coming in and have to miss the 'do', and even as late as 3pm yesterday one photographer pulled out, saying he was too busy! Mind you, in these straitened times, if it's a choice between working and drinking, it's obvious the booze'll get the boot!