365 to 42

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 ...