Did you miss me?

I’m sorry if I’ve been a bit quiet of late, the truth is the last few weeks have been unbelievably busy. For one project I’ve driven 1,300 miles, visiting Bristol, Reading, London, Ipswich, Manchester and Edinburgh with my mobile studio kit to shoot corporate portraits for a new client. Over 160 people photographed within a week and a half and more than 6,800 images shot. These then had to be edited down and processed before delivery to the client within a couple of days. An absolutely mammoth tusk task, on top of which I already had work booked in for other clients upon my return.

Granted this project had some gruelling aspects to it, for example getting stuck on the M25 coming back from Ipswich on a Friday afternoon, in sweltering heat and the air conditioning in my car being kaput. I should probably get that fixed (which will guarantee we don’t have another warm day this year). Or the long drive from Edinburgh to home – broken by a brief visit to my brother in Co Durham, but all the same a long old haul.

Thumbnail portraits displayed in Lightroom's working window

Dealing with several thousand images is no small task

On the other hand, highlights include meeting and photographing about 160 really friendly people. Staying two nights in London in an amazing room at a photographer’s studio with lovely hosts and having some lovely meals when I got time to stop long enough to eat something other than fast food, in particular Hector’s in Stockbridge, Edinburgh where the food and the service were just brilliant. These factors become even more important to the lone traveler.

For a while, at least until the next big project comes along, I should be able to return to something more like my regular routine of corporate communications work, press release photography and business portraits. And you’ll have to get used to me being around again. Thank you for your patience!

Xcellent20

Once again I’m too swamped with work to write a full blog article. Luckily for you, an article I wrote for Wex Photographic about the rather super Fuji X20 has just been published, which is also lucky for me as it gets me off the hook for another week. I’m away next week too, so I may have to give it a rest until the week after.

In the meantime, do please read and share the Wex article with all your best friends! They’ll thank you for it I’m sure. Thank you for your patience, here’s one of the photos from the review as a reward.

Photo taken in Bath using the Fuji X20 camera

I’ve enjoyed shooting in black and white with the X20

A day in her life, a lifetime for me

Image

My first published photo (click to enlarge)

As far as I recall, this is the first photo I ever had published in a newspaper. Perhaps a little weird that I still have the cutting, but I have a few books of cuttings dating back… well, to this first one.

This particular shot was taken for a competition and book, though I don’t believe it made the final cut, which was obviously a shame. I do recall that I’d heard about the competition and didn’t have anything to enter, but I was obviously on the lookout for something.

Although the date is missing from the cutting, it would have been around 1987. At that time I was working at London Camera Exchange in Bath, right next to the abbey.

I was probably cleaning cameras and shelving when I spotted this girl going to the fountain for a drink and I must have reacted incredibly quickly because I know I pulled a camera from the display, loaded a film and a telephoto lens and took the photo through the shop window knowing that if I went outside to take it the moment would have passed.

Perhaps the failure to be included in the book scarred me for life because I’ve not entered many, if any, photographic competitions since, but seeing my photo in print gave me a thrill which set me on the path to becoming a professional photographer. I may not have won the competition, but I wonder now if I would have become a photographer if this frame hadn’t been printed. That being the case, I’m going to say I did win. I just didn’t know it at the time.