Today's shoot at Tower 42 in London was a bit of a tough one as I had to try to make a large open plan empty office look "in use" but I only had a few pieces of furniture to play with and one model. I think after a lot of work we got the shots needed so it's just a case of post processing all the RAW files and the job should be fine. The actual building is really impressive and the views from the 24th floor were stunning - I could even see the mighty Emirates stadium!.

My trusty assistant and model for today was my friend Kirsty. She is a really helpful person to have around and not only helps with the technical parts of the shoot and appears in some of the pictures but she also actually gets me to places on one piece!. I nearly always lose my travel card when we work in London and she usually looks after it for me now (although today I managed to look after it all by myself). Kirsty also saves me from getting the wrong tube which I've been known to do which is a real time saver!. Kirsty when I'm a millionaire photographer I promise to take you on full time!!!.

I'm working in the studio tomorrow photographing another big 6ft x 4ft solar panel which are a challenge to capture because they are very reflective and generally very large. Then I'm going to shoot some still life pictures for Arcangel (the European agency I sometimes work with) of some rusty padlocks etc for possible use on paperback crime book covers.

On Wednesday I'm working for Beds CC at Leighton Buzzard station photographing an initiative they are putting in place to encourage commuters to cycle, walk or get a bus instead of driving to the station.

I'm back in London on Thursday for a client's party - I've been invited along as a guest which will be great fun.

I've attached one of the photographs from last weeks shoot at Saxon Court in Milton Keynes which shows the super new car park lighting in use. I love the deep blue dusk sky!.

I've spent this morning working through the "before and after" pictures of Saxon Gate in Milton Keynes that I took for the company that supplied the new car park lights. I should have this finished by tonight and that's me up to date again except for Zoe's pictures from the studio shoot we did on Wednesday. I'm struggling to edit them down as there are so many good shots of her and I need to get the final edit down to around 30 pictures.

Next week is starting to get busy with a shoot at Tower 42 (used to be called the Natwest Tower) in London pencilled in for Monday and a shoot for Beds CC Press Office booked for Wednesday. I'm doing some still life shots in the studio on Tuesday for a European stock agency called Arcangel who supply pictures for the front covers of paperback books etc. and one of my best clients has invited me to their Christmas party in London on Thursday night so already things are looking busy which is great news.

I'm attaching another picture of Zoe today from our shoot on Wednesday. This one was shot on the leather sofa in the corner of the studio with a black velvet cloth draped behind it. I used one 800W Tungsten Redhead light with barn doors and a diffuser.

I've got two shoots planned for today and they're both in Milton Keynes which is great. In fact I've had a pretty easy time in the past couple of weeks in terms of travelling as most of my recent work has either been in the studio or in London and I do feel much better for not driving so many miles.

I'm photographing the refurbed exterior of Saxon Court in Central Milton Keynes this morning for a company who have supplied some really smart new external lights in the car park. I'm back there again late afternoon to photograph the car park at dusk to show the lighting to it's best effect.

Then I've got an evening shoot in the studio with Rhian who comes in every month or so for a shoot. Tonight I'm mainly going to shoot film instead of digital and I'm going to use Tungsten lighting rather than flash to try to get a retro feel to the pictures. Once I've had then developed and scanned I'll post some in the blog.

I've been looking through Zoe's pictures from yesterday and I'm really pleased with them. I need to get my version of Lightroom working again (I need to register it as the trial period is over!!) and once I do that I will edit the pictures properly.

I posted a picture of Zoe last night and here's another one!.

I had a great fun day in the studio today working with a lovely model called Zoe and her friend Ellie. It was our first shoot together and Zoe is such a natural model that the whole day was very easy. We did some full length shots on a lit white backdrop where I used 2 studio flash heads bouncing off reflectors at each edge of the studio to illuminate the white background and a beauty dish as the main light. Then we went out to the old disused railway station at Swanbourne where I used a studio flash head working on a Travel Pak (battery) to overpower the daylight and give a dusk look to the pictures even though we took them at around 2pm.

Then we went back into the studio for the rest of the afternoon and did some shots against the metal doors using an 800W Tungsten Redhead light with barn doors and also some moody shots on the black leather sofa against a black velvet cloth on the wall.

We also did some head and shoulder beauty shots with the large octagonal softbox as the main light and a reflector (ably held in place by Ellie) to fill any slight shadows.

I'm really pleased with the pictures and I've just processed a few through DXO as I'm keen to get them all done asap.

I've attached one from the old railway line today and will attach some more over the next few days.

I spent today working on some Google marketing bits and bobs. It was supposed to be a day off to recover from my cold but I couldn't help popping in to the office and tinkering with the PC!. I've signed up to Google Adwords for both websites so It will be interesting to see if anything comes of it. I've only gone for the minimum £30 per month for each site and I don't really know what I'm doing but what the heck let's try it anyway.

I also tweaked the studio website splash page again and there's now a couple of guys on there - Melanie pointed out that the previous design was very female orientated!.

I've got a shoot in the studio tomorrow with a new model called Zoe and I'm really excited about it. It's always exciting working with someone new and we're hoping to do both studio and location shots weather permitting. I'm going to get to the studio bright and early to make sure everything is tidy and ready to go.

I've got a shoot with Rhian - one of my regular models on Thursday and again we're hoping to shoot some location work too. I'm also going to shoot some pictures on the 5x4 view camera on Thursday and maybe some tomorrow too.

One of my other model friends Rebecca (I photographed her on a couple of occasions in September) has entered Britain's Top Model so best of luck to you Rebecca. I've attached a picture from our last shoot that I've just picked out from the RAW images and it's one I didn't process at the time. Richard Avedon was one of the best photographers of all time and he introduced movement into fashion photography so this shot is influenced by his work.

I came down with the dreaded "Man Flu" over the weekend and I'm still suffering today. As usual Melanie is totally unsympathetic and obviously doesn't realise that my cold is much more severe than the one she's got at the moment!!!.

I processed the pictures from the Royal Garden Hotel today and also revised the splash page (the welcome page) of the studio website to make it look a bit more friendly and also to reflect the fact that I do product photography and family portraits too. It's always difficult to know how to pitch a web site with such a varied client base but the great thing about the studio website is that it's very easy to change the content.

I gained another new commission today to photograph some of the floors at Tower 42 in London (formerly the Natwest Tower). I need to hire a model for this shoot so I will be chasing up a few regular ladies (models!!) to see if one can make it over the next couple of weeks. I just need someone to look like a genuine office worker in a smart business suit so nothing too risque.

I'm hoping to photograph the newly refurbished exterior lighting at Saxon Gate in Milton Keynes tomorrow weather permitting. Can we actually have any more rain - surely there can't be much more of it left.

I've attached a picture of Melanie in today's blog taken at our girls night in the studio a few weeks ago. I've finally finished off all the pictures and we're posting the CD's out to Melanie's friends today.

Today was supposed to be a day off (only my 6th this year!) but I ended up popping in to the studio and playing with my 5x4 view camera for a while (well it could have been worse - what did you think I was going to say!).

I did a few odd jobs and finished off a bit of post processing too but overall it was a pretty relaxing day.

I'm going to shoot some black and white film on my Canon F1 over the weekend and next week I've got a couple of models coming into the studio and I'm going to shoot some fashion work on the big 5x4 view camera. This is a very big camera with the old fashioned looking bellows in it and you load in one sheet of film at a time instead of a roll of film. Each negative (or slide) is 5x4 inches so you get a lovely postcard sized negative to scan or print from. It's a lovely way to work and much much slower than shooting digitally but the quality is superb and it keeps my hand in at using a light meter properly. I do use a meter anyway in the studio with digital capture but it's easy to see if you've made a mistake by looking and the histogram on the back on the camera. With 5x4 film cameras if you've made a mistake it costs you money and all the set up time is wasted so it focuses the mind!.

I've attached a studio shot of Ani from our recent girls night.

I've had a bit of a mixed day today. My first shoot in London was at South Thames College in Wandsworth where I was commissioned to photograph an illuminated reception desk which looked really great in the shots taken for my brief. Unfortunately some guys from BT had been in to do some work a few days ago and they disconnected all the wiring inside the desk so none of the lighting was working. I'll have to go back in a week or so once it's been repaired.

The second job was at The Royal Garden Hotel in Kensington High Street. This is a superb hotel and the room I photographed looked great so that job went very well. The New Zealand All Blacks rugby team are staying there ahead of the game against England at the weekend and a few of their players were wondering around in the reception area so it was just as well that Melanie didn't come with me - I would never have pulled her away!.

I made the mistake of getting the bus back towards Euston from Kensington and it took ages - just getting along Oxford Street took almost 30 minutes. It was basically one long bus jam. None of the buses were full so why not have fewer buses and less congestion?.

I had planned to be in the studio tomorrow working with Rhian - one of my regular models - but she's come down with something so we've postponed until next week. That means I've got a day off so I'm going to pop over to the studio for a tidy up then I'm going to go for a really long walk and unwind.

I've attached a picture of Collete from the girl's night at the studio.

I feel great!. I've had a very productive day working in the office and I've caught up with all my post processing work (even the girlie night we did last month which I've been putting off until I had some time to work through all the pictures).

I'm back in London tomorrow though with 2 photo shoots lined up - one at a shop in Tooting and one at a hotel in Central London and this time I'm going to try to keep up with the post processing so it doesn't mount up too much.

The shoot at the Natural History Museum last night went very well. This time I was shooting some HD video clips of the colour change LED lighting (I shot the still pictures last month) and I will get my video editor colleague to render the footage tomorrow ready to send off to the client for editing. My Canon 5D MK2 is an incredible camera and the HD video it produces is really good quality. The great thing about a pro spec digital SLR that also shoots video is the fact that I can use all my pro spec lenses to create the video clips and also the flexibility of having only one camera to do both jobs. Although I don't claim to be a video buff the camera is very easy to use in video mode and I tend to use it for "moving stills" in that I put the camera on a tripod and set up a good architectural angle for a shot then instead of taking a still image I shoot a video clip but I don't pan the camera around at all.

The last video clip I shot was for Philips Lighting and the link to view it on YouTube is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVwV5Io3VhA

I've posted a picture from the shoot at The Clifton Club that I took last Saturday. The chandeliers were tricky to photograph because of the brightness of the lamps but I used a long exposure of 2 seconds and turned the chandeliers off just after the shutter opened.

I worked until 12.30pm last night (OK that should read 12.30am I guess but you know what I mean) and finished off the processing for the Kath Kidson store I photographed last week in Portobello Road and I updated the studio website with some new pictures.

It's now 11.30am and I've finished the Clifton Club shoot from Saturday as well as a few other smaller jobs and I feel great for catching up with my processing!!!.

I had some lovely feedback from my client about the pictures I took at Westfield last week (thanks Jo!!) and I've attached a shot of the Yo Sushi bar at Westfield to today's blog.

I'm off to walk the dogs now then I'm off to London to shoot the video clips of the Natural History Museum featuring the new colour change LED lighting.

I'm hoping to spend a quiet day at the studio tomorrow but every time I plan a quiet day something happens so fingers crossed for tomorrow.

The day was spent catching up today and I do feel much better for getting some serious post processing work done. Anyone that reads this blog regularly will see a theme occurring here - I shoot lots of jobs then get behind with the processing and then get stressed out over catching up!!. It's a catch 22 that most photographers have (those that take the job seriously that is!) as a job can be lost in the post processing if it's not done properly. I don't do massive amounts of Photoshop work but it's the RAW processing that's so vital. Digital cameras have made some aspects of photography easier but in other ways they have made more work. In the olden days of film I would shoot mainly slide (transparency) film and for sure the photography would take longer but then all the processing was down the the lab - now it's all down to me!. With black and white film the tweaks I make in Photoshop to brightness and contrast etc would all have been done in the darkroom so again although the technology is new the methods used are based on the darkroom and in the old days if a print was important enough you would pay a professional printer to do it for you.

Tomorrow I'm back at the Natural History Museum to shoot a few video clips (my digital SLR shoots HD video too) as an extra to the work I did a couple of months ago to show the new colour changing LED lighting in full swing. I'm looking forward to this as it's a bit different to shooting stills and I like the creative freedom of the moving image.

I've attached one of the pictures from Liberty in today's blog. The store looks great and I'm really pleased with the pictures.

I drove down to Bristol this morning in some terrible weather. The M4 was really bad from Swindon onwards and the rain was driving down and the wind was pretty much at gale force!. Once I got to Bristol the job went very well. I photographed a couple of very ornate rooms at The Clifton Club - a members only club in the posh part of Bristol (it has got one honestly).

The rooms featured some brass chandeliers with bare candle light bulbs which always pose a challenge and today I used my favourite technique of using a long exposure (around 2 seconds) and turning the lights off part way through the exposure to keep the brightness of the bulbs in check. I'll post a picture in the blog next week once I've processed them.

I've just looked through the girls night pictures and this time I've processed one of Maxine which I really like.

Wow I've felt tired today!. It's been a long week and I've still got tomorrow's shoot in Bristol to go yet but it's great to be busy so I'm not complaining!!.

Today's shoot at Liberty went very well. The store has been refurbished on three levels with new spotlighting and accent lighting and the displays looked great. My client was with me and we had a very hectic schedule to meet as we started at 8.00am and had to be out before the store opened at 10.ooam which was a real push.

After the liberty shoot I went over to Portobello Road to photograph the Kath Kidson store which is very colourful but quite small so this was a challenge and I ended up shooting the whole job hand held as the tripod was too big and cumbersome for the tight space.

My knee is still sore from the shoot at Tabio in Westfield earlier in the week where I banged it on a shelf. On my way into the tube to go to Portobello Rd the bloody automatic barriers shut onto my case which then hit my knee in exactly the same place that I banged it at Tabio. That really hurt - I really don't like those barriers!.

Anyway I'm having an early night for once and hopefully will feel more alive tomorrow.

I've posted a picture from the girls night at the studio - this time it's of Nikki.

I managed to get the Aldi Bedworth pictures finished today which has just about kept my head above water with the post shoot processing workload. I'm back in town tonight as I'm staying over in London ready for a 7.30am start at Liberty (the department store).
I always feel under so much pressure when I get a backlog of work to post process and because I've done so may smaller jobs this week things have mounted up. I'm going to try to keep next week clear until I've caught right back up but if any urgent jobs come up I'll do them as I never let any clients down.
I've been working through the shots of Melanie's friends from our girls night in the studio and I've posted a picture of Paula in today's blog.

I had a busy day today working in Westfield Shopping Centre in London. Firstly I photographed the Yo-Sushi restaurant then the Tabio boutique and finally the Donna Ida designer clothes shop. I managed to crack my knee on a shelf in Tabio whilst getting up off the floor after taking a shot from low down and ended up doing the ministry of funny walks for the rest of the day. In fact it's still sore now - who said photography was a safe profession!.

Yo Sushi and Tabio went really well but Donna Ida was a very tricky shoot as the internal space is pretty tight and the ceiling is high. Also the layout is quite odd with a changing area positioned in the centre of the shop effectively breaking the floor space up into odd sized bits.

Tomorrow's jobs in London have been put back until next week which will give me some time to catch up on some post processing. I've also got a job on Saturday now at The Clifton Club in Bristol which is great news.

I popped in to the studio on the way home and had a tidy up. I like to visit the studio every day if possible just to make sure it's all OK and there's the added bonus of a cup of hot chocolate from Dad's Cafe (that's the name of the cafe - it's not my Dad's cafe!!) next door!. They make great hot drinks and food and Theresa is a top lady so if you're in the Bletchley area and need some sustenance pull in to MK:TWO business centre and visit the cafe.

I haven't processed today's pictures yet or the shots from Monday so I've attached a picture from Laurens portfolio in a colour profile called Cold Tone which I really like. Once again I have to stress how much I love Lightroom by Adobe - these colour profiles are just so cool.

Today was the quiet before the storm as I spent most of the day processing the rest of Lauren's pictures from her portfolio shoot a couple of weeks ago as she came back to me this morning with her final selection of pictures from the shoot. I then finished scanning the old 1940's brochure and prepared that for printing for one of my regular clients and after all that took my dogs for a lovely walk up in Brickhill Woods just before it got dark.

Tomorrow I've got three jobs in Westfield Shopping Centre in London - two designer shops and the Yo-Sushi restaurant. I'm starting Yo Sushi at 9.00am so need to get a train from Leighton Buzzard by 7.30am latest.

Then I'm back in London on Thursday for more designer shop photography and again on Friday at Liberties Department store. That's a 7.30am start though which is very early for me.

I've designed a small ad tonight for the MK Style magazine to promote the studio so hopefully that will hit the mark and bring in a few portfolio shoots and makeovers for the weekends between now and Christmas. I love doing work with models and also portraits and makeovers but I haven't really had time to advertise locally. It's a catch 22 really - I don't want to take on too much work and the commercial side is very busy at the moment but on the other hand I love working with people in the studio and I'm still working towards my goal of working for Vogue and Harper's Bazaar before the end of next year.

I've posted a picture of Lauren from the processing work I did today.

After a great weekend it was back to work again today and I spent the morning scanning in a 1940's brochure that one of my clients has asked me to reproduce for their archive. I then finished off the family pictures I took in the studio last weekend for a mate who wanted some nice pictures to give to folks at Christmas.


Then I drove up to Bedworth to photograph the outside lighting installed at a new Aldi store by day and at night.


This proved to be a tricky job as the car park was quite small and the lights were a long way apart (good lighting but hard to photograph) and I couldn't get many really creative angles for the shots. I did try to get into some very rough looking flats opposite that had a rusty old balcony on the third floor which would have given me a good aeriel view but the doors were well locked and I couldn't find a way in. The night shots looked better and I got lots of car headlight trails to give the pictures some sense of motion.


I've been updating my Flickr page tonight so if you get a chance take a look there's loads more pictures on there now and I think the Flickr galleries show the pictures off better than the gallery on our website.


I've got a catch up day tomorrow then I've been commissioned to shoot 4 retail outlets over two days in London on Wednesday and Thursday and on Friday I'm photographing Liberty (the department store) in London on Friday. I love working in London so this is going to be a fun week.

I don't usually take family pictures but here's one from last week that I finished today.

It's been really great to have worked so close to home this week. Driving is so tiring and usually I'm up and down the Motorways all week so I do feel better for a bit of a break. Next week is back to normal again with a job in Coventry on Monday (weather permitting) and I've got some work in Cheltenham, Bristol and Plymouth to fit in.

I've got loads done today in the office and I'm pretty much up to date. I've post processed all the pictures from yesterday's job at the Land Rover dealer in Newport Pagnell and I've also changed the splash page on the studio website and updated the galleries.

Tonight I'm going to do a final edit on all the studio pictures from our "girls night" a couple of weeks ago. Because this was a bit of fun for Melanie and her friends I've left the processing until I had a break in my schedule as paid work has to come first.

Tomorrow I've got my first indoor league cricket match of the winter which I'm really looking forward to and on Sunday morning I'm playing in the band at the Stewkely remembrance service which I do every year as I think it's vital we all do a bit and remember the people who have died in service over the years.

I went though Lauren's portfolio shoot again today and picked out this shot which I ran through Lightroom and converted to the Faded Colour profile.

Yesterday was a fun day for me as I had an easy morning walking my dogs and visiting my favourite little cafe in Winslow called "Capos". They do lovely cappucino and fresh Danish Pastries which are to tempting by half.

Then I popped into the studio to collect some books and my Epson scanner as I need to scan an old 1940's brochure today for a client. From the studio I went over to Luton for my monthly radio phone-in show on photography with Lorna Milton. I don't get paid for this (not even expenses) but it's great fun to do. You can catch the broadcast on the BBC iPlayer if you really want to - look for the Lorna Milton afternoon show on BBC Three Counties Radio broadcast on 4th November.

I used the time last night to catch up on some post shoot processing and then watched the mighty Arsenal glide effortlessly into the last 16 of the Champions League.

This morning I finished off the processing for the Ropemaker Street shoot and I've attached another of the pictures from that shoot to today's blog.

I'm working in the Land rover dealership in Newport Pagnell this afternoon taking some photo's for a lamp manufacturer that have just supplied new low energy lamps to replace the existing ones. I'm hoping to catch some nice dusk and twilight shots from inside and outside so fingers crossed it doesn't pour with rain.

I've had a much more relaxing day today as I spent the morning post processing pictures from the City University shoot in London last week, then went over to the studio for a bit of a tidy up followed by a small photo shoot at Central Milton Keynes. I was commissioned to photograph before and after pictures of a car park that is about to be re-lit near Saxon Gate in the centre of Milton Keynes. These kind of jobs are great because it's local and I like to photograph areas before they're refurbished so I can go back and really make the "after" shots look impressive.

I've got a couple more jobs to post process tomorrow morning then I'm on BBC Three Counties Radio at 2.30pm for the photography "expert hour". Tomorrow we'll be discussing how to photograph fireworks (for obvious reasons) and hopefully get some callers on the telephone too.

I bought an adaptor on EBay last month that lets me fit my old Canon FD lenses to my new Panasonic G1 camera which I bought a couple of months ago for non work use. The adaptor was made in Hong Kong and I'd basically given up on it ever arriving due to post strikes etc when two of them popped through the letter box this morning!!. Not bad as I only ordered one but it's a long way to send it back so I'm keeping it!. Maybe if I get a job in Hong Kong I'll return the extra one they sent me.

I've attached a picture from yesterdays shoot in Ropemaker Street London as I really like the colours and interior details in the shot. The ceiling is made of custom built lighting panels and the entire building is very impressive.

Caught the 9.20am train to London from Leighton Buzzard today and photographed a very plush new building in Ropemaker Street just opposite the Barbican centre.

The reception area was amazing and I'll post some pictures up tomorrow once I've processed them. Because the reception area was very high - I'd guess it was around 20m high - most of the pictures were taken with my 24mm tilt and shift lens. This is basically a 24mm lens that enables me to shift the front element up to capture more of the ceiling detail without needing to tilt the camera backwards. Once you tilt a camera backwards the vertical lines of the building (ie the walls!) begin to lean inwards at the top causing the picture to look odd. In pre-digital times I'd have used my view camera but the Canon tilt and shift lenses work very well with the digital bodies so there's no need for a big heavy view camera any more.

I got home around 6pm and I've managed to catch up with a bit more post processing work and although I'm scheduled to have a shoot in Derby tomorrow I'm going to spend the day in the office to catch up properly. The Derby shoot is weather permitting anyway as it's an external job so the weather will make it a non starter anyway as it's forecast to rain.

I've attached a picture from last week's shoot at AOL London - the lights in the reception area look amazing!.

I've spent a great day with the family today and managed to avoid working until 5.30pm.

It's always good to keep up with the post processing work as much as possible and I'm nearly up to date although I'm off to London tomorrow to shoot a building in the city.

It's been a good weekend all round actually. The studio shoot went well yesterday with my friend Tim and his family and I also managed to finally take a new self portrait for the website and blog. It's no masterpiece by any means but I wanted to include my new classic camera in the shot and used a lovely soft lighting technique whereby I bounced a Bowens flash off the rear wall of the studio up into the ceiling. The light then falls very softly and looks something like daylight. It's a good technique for people like me with bags under their eyes!.

Next week's looking busy although I do have at least one day in the diary that relies upon a clear dry day so that might be a problem.

I'm on the radio again on Wednesday at 2.30pm (BBC Radio Three Counties) so tune in if you can!. You can get the show on the Internet so there's no excuse even if your living abroad!!.

I've attached the self portrait - hopefully it's better than the old one.