Our email server went down today which was a real pain and it only came back on again at around 7pm. This seems to happen every few weeks and causes us a lot of pain as all our work tends to come in via email. I spent the morning continually checking the bloody email to see if had come on again and also finished off a few loose ends of processing work.

This afternoon the cafe at the business centre where my studio is based put on a communal Christmas party and we all had a chance to show the other companies in the centre what we do. I took along a couple of portfolio's and some cards and took a few pictures of the event. I was pleased that quite a few people where keen to book some studio sessions so it turned out to be a couple of hours well spent.

Then I went in to the studio to set up the lighting for tomorrow's shoot with Zoe. I'm really looking forward to photographing her tomorrow and we're planning to do a few different styles of shot in the studio (different lighting and backdrops) and also some location work too weather permitting. I'm hoping to get at least one more day with Zoe before Christmas as I think January is going to be very busy. I've already got a few days pencilled in for January so I need to make the most of the time before Christmas for personal work.

I never used to appreciate how important it is to do personal projects and always thought that photographers that banged on about it where daft but since I've had the studio I've changed my mind. It's just so refreshing to go into a shoot and be able to try anything you like in terms of lighting and poses etc without the pressure of pleasing a client. I feel this frees up my creativity no end and I actually learn so much by trying out some quite wacky ideas.

Speaking of wacky pictures I'm being seriously inspired at the moment by a book by Storm Thorgerson who designed and photographed almost all of Pink Floyd's album covers. His vision and creativity are truly inspiring and the text that describes each album cover is really informative and well written. The book is called Mind Over Matter - The Images of Pink Floyd. I'd recommend it to anyone into Floyd or photography! (or in my case both!).

I'm off to charge my batteries now (and the camera's) so it just leaves me to post a picture of the lovely Zoe from our previous shoot.