In the last blog entry I mentioned a website of a really good photographer called Eliot Siegel, I guy that I've been lucky to work with a couple of times. Today I'd like to give a shout out to a really superb young fashion photographer called Emily Soto. She's based in LA and has already done some great work in the fashion industry and has been commissioned by some top clients in both the USA and Europe. Her web site address is http://www.emilysoto.com/ and her excellent blog is http://www.emilysotoblog.com/. Both are well worth a look and there are some great tips on the blog which I always think is a really unselfish thing to do as some photographer's are very guarded about their techniques to the point of being ultra secretive!.

Since my last posting I've done another shoot for BUPA, a shoot at the Manchester Arndale Centre and also a corporate portrait of a guy called Andy Gallacher from Whitecroft Lighting who has been appointed to write a new paper for CIBSE (Institute of Building Services Engineers) and he needed a cool picture for press releases etc. Yesterday I photographed a large warehouse in Birmingham for a lighting manufacturer so it's been a good few days.

February was shaping up to be very busy and some bookings have been firmed up but we're still waiting for final conformation on a few jobs so at the moment it's still pretty fluid!. A good February would really help the cash flow so I'm hoping all the work I've been promised does come in. At least we've paid the tax bill for this year so I guess we're already better off than we were this time last year when the Corporation Tax bill was pretty big and we had to pay it off in chunks throughout the year.

Anyone who reads the blog will know that I do a lot of commissioned work and keep really busy but I never pretend that I earn a fortune because I don't!. Photography in the UK has really taken a hit over the past three years and there are ever more photographers appearing all the time so it's a labour of love in some respects. Having said that I wouldn't change jobs with anyone and I wouldn't work in an office for £500K per year!. OK maybe that's not quite true but I love my job and if I could just smooth out the work load across the year without the peaks and troughs I guess life would be perfect.

I've got a quick gadget tip today too - I popped in to Jessops in Milton Keynes yesterday and they currently have an offer on a really neat little Kodak video recorder. It only shoots at VGA quality and has a tiny fixed focus lens but for taking footage for YouTube etc it's perfect. I'm going to shoot some clips tomorrow while I'm out on another shoot for BUPA and will post the results in the blog. Here's the best bit - it's reduced from £99 to £39 so it's a bit of a bargain!. Here's a link to their website in case you're interested - http://www.jessops.com/online.store/products/78706/show.html

I've posted a picture from the Angel Building shoot from December. A series of my pictures from the Angel Building has just appeared in the latest issue of Lux magazine - as per usual I didn't get a photo credit!.