On Monday I was commissioned to cover the launch of a new European HQ and showroom for a large electrical and lighting manufacturer in London just down the road from the Barbican. I spent the day taking a mix of candid and formal portraits of key members of staff, snapping the customers and press people that attended and also taking some interior shots of the new showroom. It was a great job for me because I love photographing people and the day had a real buzz about it. The showroom photography was a bit more complex because of the many lighting products on display (all lit up of course) so I had to take several exposures for each finished shot and blend them together subtly using HDR software (Photomatix in this case). I always get a buzz from working in London too so I really enjoyed the whole day - I even like travelling on the tube!.

I spent Tuesday in the office editing down the 500 or so pictures that I took at the launch and managed to process and retouch around 50 finished pictures and send them off to the client. I normally use Yousendit.com to send batches of pictures but they seem to be having loads of problems as the pictures almost go then fail at the lat moment. My PC nearly flew out of the window a number of times over the weekend due to this and if they don't get things sorted out I'll cancel my account and set up my own FTP site.

Yesterday I had a meeting with a PR client and collected a couple of electrical components that I need to photograph for one of their clients which I'm hoping to shoot later today. These are small blue boxes which power up industrial lamps so they're not the most photogenic things around and I'm determined to make them look interesting and artistic.

To round off a pretty good week I'm hoping to photograph another BUPA care home - this one in East London. I'm sure this will be the last one of the year and I'm looking forward to working with the BUPA guys again next year as they've been a superb client in every way.

As any regular readers of my blog will know I've been doing a lot of video work too shooting with my 5D MK2. This has opened up a lot of new opportunites for me and also given me loads of new things to learn - from video lighting and sound to editing. Here's a link to the king of video production using DSLR cameras like the 5D MK2. His name is Vincent Laforet and the link is to his blog which has loads of useful tips and facts on film making with these really useful cameras - http://blog.vincentlaforet.com/ The tip on how to re-create a dolly or crane shot halfway down the page (it's a video link) is really cool!.

I've attached a picture of Mark the MD of Wieland Electronics that I took last week at their offices. Although it's only a very basic portrait I've posted it because it was taken with a very simple lighting technique. I just bounced one flash head off of a white wall to the right of the camera to create a daylight feel to the lighting but at the same time giving some gentle shadow across Mark's face. I used a very wide aperture of f5.6 to throw the picture behind Mark out of focus and it made a nice backdrop with electrical components setting the portrait into context.