365 to 42

Well it's been quite a few days since I last updated, in fact I've just looked and it's been 2 months, how time flies. Life moves on at an incredible pace, loads of work and not much time for anything else at the moment, but still when my work is mainly taking pictures it can't be all bad. A 14 hour day yesterday starting at 6.30 and finishing around 9.00 after talking to a bride and groom, in between I worked on quotes for some jobs, designed a new business card, sold a picture from my exhibition, designed a Christmas card and ordered a load of prints for the up coming shows. After all that was still only 1/2 way down my to do list. On the home front both Caz and Ziggy are well and both are loving the fact that Caz is home most of the time, Ziggy get way more attention from Caz than he does from me. Picture for today is Ziggy at Rudyard lake on a walk a few weeks ago.

Well it's been nearly 6 weeks since I last had chance to update the blog so this really is not as active a blog as I would have wanted, but then I am a photographer first and not a writer. I said last time that I wanted to make this blog a bit more personal than it had become and less about work, but the trouble with that is that my work is also my passion and so very hard to separate from my personal side. I think that it will just have to be less corporate than my work blog so if you are easily upset be warned. That said I've nothing to rant about, no crisis on the horizon and my life is going great, I'm even getting time to blog! My biggest challenge is keeping ahead of my paper work and planning to move the business forward. The big job that I will have to start soon is to catalogue all my images, or at least those that my be saleable, around 6000. This task is needed so that I can sell pictures more easily on line and via outlets, at the moment I identify the pictures...

I've been blogging for more than 4 years and in that time have posted nearly 1500 post that have been seen over 150,000 times in 174 countries. Not bad for something that was only going to last a year and I'm not done yet. It's been a few weeks or even months since I last posted, depending on which of my blogs you read and this post is an explanation as to why and a update on what I'm planning next and is being posted on all my blogs (apologies if you follow more than one as you will get this multiple times). First a bit of history...       Turning 41 is a bit of a let down, you have had your big party for your 40th and 41 is just another year older, so with that in mind I decided to mark my 41st year by blogging a photo a day, not really knowing what a blog was or what a mammoth task it would be. That small decision made over a ten minute car journey changed my life. It changed what was a hobby, all be it quite an obsessive one, in to a full time career and...

Dusk till Dawn is the name of my latest exhibition displayed in the Foxlowe, The Market Place, Leek from the 1st of May to the 31st May 2012. The free exhibition, “Dusk till Dawn” is exploration of photography when the sun has gone down. Pho•tog•ra•phy \fə-ˈtä-grə-fē\ The process or art of producing images of objects on sensitized surfaces by the action of light. Night  \ˈnīt\ The time from dusk to dawn when no sunlight is visible. Dusk till Dawn \ˈdəsk til dän\ A collection of 12 images captured between sunset and sunrise. The idea for the exhibition came to me as the nights started to draw in last September. My days were taken up with running a full time photography business and daylight hours were reducing, giving me less time to take photographs.  A chance comment on a photography forum about the joys of night time photography, coming right at the moment that I was complaining about the lack of daylight, lead me to flip the situation and see the winter as ...

Life is just so busy, you never seem to have enough time to get the really important things done and you miss loads of other stuff in the process. Then all of a sudden something happens that stops you in your tracks and makes you think. My Mum had a heart attack on Easter Sunday, she fine, it was only a very mild one, more a warning really, but it could have been much worse, I lost my Dad to one when I was only 9. Then yesterday a lad I knew from school and had reconnected with on Facebook, in fact spent some of last week following his adventures in Dublin on holiday, die yesterday. Some things just stop you and make you think. These 2 event did just that. My first thought on hearing about Mum was that I might have never seen her again, and if that had been the case did I have any thing I wish I had said to her, in this case I could answer no, she knows how much I love her and how great I think she is. I think that losing someone close at such an early age has meant that I normally try...

Well it's been sometime since I had a moment to update this blog, March really has been mad, I've lots going on and even more planned and may even find time to take some photos. Firstly, The free exhibition, “Canal Side” an attempt to capture the many faces of the canal in all weathers and seasons, is now wonderfully displayed in the Cafe Clique, Getliffe’s yard, Leek, Staffordshire until the end of April 2012. The images are a mix of digital photographs and slides, taken along the Leek and Caldon branches of the Trent and Mersey Canal over a number of years and most of the images are being exhibited for the first time. Second my new exhibition Dusk till Dawn is to start on the 1st of May at the Foxlow and will run for the whole of May. I will also be at Art in the park on the 12th and 13th of May, more details on both nearer the time. The Leek United building society has also changed it's web site to show my spring photos, the Winter ones went down very well so I'm ho...

I've blogged for quite a few years and very early on I learned that if you open your self up to comments not all of them would be positive. My first negative comment took me by surprise and really upset me, until I realised it was a good friend having a laugh, but by then I had gone through the emotions associated with the comment and come to terms with them. Over the next few years I've had the odd bad comment and a fair share of spam, but have kept the comments free from any restrictions or censorship, but I do delete spam. A few weeks ago I received a very poor comment regarding one of my photos, but before I could respond one of my readers beat me too it Anonymous my 12 yr old can take a better pic than that lol Alison Worrall Nice reflections and colours, my fave bridge subject is Cherry eye further along the canal. Don't fancy meeting a 12 year old of such prodigious talent with such a gutless anonymous parent. My comment was "After blogging for over 4 years I ha...

The free exhibition, “Canal Side” is an attempt to capture the many faces of the canal in all weathers and seasons and is wonderfully displayed in the Cafe Clique, Getliffe’s yard, Leek, Staffordshire from the 1st to the 31st March 2012. The canal has been part of my life for over 15 years since moving to our current house over looking tunnel pool near Leek. It's the first thing I see every morning, its proximity means that a quick walk nearly always includes a stretch of it's banks and its ever changing face means I never tire of it. Over the years the canal has featured in many of my images but this is the first time that it has had star billing. The images are a mix of digital photographs and slides, taken along the Leek and Caldon branches of the Trent and Mersey Canal over a number of years and most of the images are being exhibited for the first time. This small stretch of canal, only about 10 miles in length, running down the picturesque Churnet Valley, it is very light...

365 to 42, the number of days to my 42nd birthday, little did I known when I started this blog to mark a year of my life I would be changing the course of the rest of my life. The blog is now 4 years old (and me a bit more) and has been joined by 3 more, it has long out lived the reason it was started for and has become the catalyst for a number of major changes in my life. When I started the blog I was in a dead end job, actually off work with stress and lacking any self confidence or self worth. Photography had been a hobby for years with the pictures I took never seeing the light of day mainly because I had no faith in my ability. Four years on and I'm into my second year as a professional photographer, confident in my work and looking forward to the future. Mostly the result of comments on this blog about my pictures and because I needed to keep feeding it with new and interesting images. But that is only 1/2 the story, the other big force in my life is my wonderful wife Caroly...

Meet Bella and Jade, two of the reasons I love my job, it has been nearly a year since I went full time and in that time I have had the pleasure of photographing loads of new subjects. It has not been all hard work but photographing semi naked young ladies was one of the most stressful moments of the year, until I started then it was just like any other shoot. In fact as I was working professional models it was one of the best shoots I did. My latest shoot was with Bella and a few other dogs, a real recipe for disaster, but as it turned. out it was great fun and quite painless

A busy and cold few days with lots of time spent out doors taking pictures. Thursday night and Friday morning saw me on the Roaches taking pictures for my exhibition in May, Saturday evening found me on the side of Rutland water taking yet more shots for the exhibition. In all I have taken 700 shots in 4 days, last Jan I took 488 in the whole month! The real reason I was down in Rutland was to meet up with some old friends for the weekend, and what a great week end it was loads of laughs and loads of great food. All in all a fantastic few days I can not wait till next time. Photo of Normanton Church, Rutland. ---------------- Now playing: Altered Images - Don't Talk To Me About Love via FoxyTunes

Sitting here trying to work and keep getting distracted, the picture below started out as an attempt to delete some photos, which I managed to do, but then I started to play with some of the images and ended up with this. Bang goes 1/2 an hour! ---------------- Now playing: R.E.M. - What's The Frequency, Kenneth? via FoxyTunes

I'm getting a bit depressed and the latest fad on Facebook is the cause. It's only a little thing but people have started to post the tune that was number one when they were born, which, in it's self, is not that bad, the bad bit is that I can remember most of them coming out! And some of them only seem like yesterday. Karma Chameleon was the last one posted, I'm sure that was only a few years ago. Doesn't time fly. So to join in the fun I thought I would post mine I'm A Believer - The Monkees And to save you looking it up 1967. On a different note, I've been asked by a couple of people if I will be running an introduction to photography course again this year, the answer depend on the amount of interest there is, so if this might appeals to you or someone you known could you let me known. I'm looking to focus at getting the best from any camera and exploring different styles of photography, trying to build a foundation to then let you carry on enjoying ...

2012!!! Happy New Year everyone. Hope the hangovers are not too bad. To start the year I've a new project, and it's an other daily photo blog, Buxton Daily Photo , a photo a day taken in and around Buxton and the Derbyshire Peak District. Pop over and check out the first picture. Yes I know it's another blog, as if 3 was not enough for one person, but given the success the others have had and what I have gotten from running them it seems to me to be a good idea. So I hope you all have a great new year and that 2012 brings you all you wish for. ---------------- Now playing: Simple Minds - Promised You A Miracle (12" Mix) via FoxyTunes