Wow what a week I've had - it's been tough but I've enjoyed it too.
Tuesday was spent with one of my PR clients and we first visited a manufacturing plant in Derby where I photographed their electrical lab and test facilities and some staff portraits along with some products as well. Then we moved on to a factory in Leicester where we took some shots of the factory for a PR story on energy efficient lighting.
Then I stayed overnight at the Premier Travel Inn at Luton Airport ahead of a trip to Switzerland to photograph the new HQ of the IUCN who are the authors of the endangered species red list and who campaign for the protection of wildlife across the globe. I had a 6.30am flight to Geneva and didn't get a wink of sleep for fear of missing the plane. I can remember the days when flying was fun and exciting but now it's just a complete hassle. You've got priority parking, priority security checking and priority boarding - all for extra money of course - what a bloody rip off!. What happens when everyone pays extra because the standard service is so crap (which it is)?.
Anyway the 2 day shoot went well and the first day was spent shooting stills and the second day shooting video clips and interviews on the 5D MK2. The video capability really opens up a new avenue and my client really liked the addition of the movie clips on the job. The new building is the first in the world to achieve a platinum rating for energy efficiency and sustainability so it was important to really show this is the photography and I focused on the materials and natural finishes within the space. I also photographed the Architect and recorded some video clips of him talking about the design of the building as well as photographing some of the senior members of the IUCN team.
We stayed in a hotel in Geneva opposite the railway station and we used the train to get to Gland (where the building is) as taxis in Switzerland are so expensive. I got a cab on the first day and a 20 mile journey was over £100!!! Add to this the fact that the driver got lost and I had to use Google Maps on my Blackberry to get us to the right place!!.
I was totally knackered by the time I got to Geneva airport for my 9.30pm flight home and was also feeling pretty ill after a dodgy Thai meal the previous night. Unfortunately the flight back was 2 hours late in leaving thanks to the French air traffic controllers being on strike so it was a long and very tiring haul back to Luton. I finally got back to the Luton Premier Travel Inn at around 1am and was too tired to drive home so I stayed over there again and managed to get a decent nights sleep at last.

This morning I had a meeting with a client based fairly close to Luton (which was handy!) then I drove up to Leicester for a shoot at the new Reiss menswear store at the new shopping mall in the centre of Leicester. This went well and I'm really happy with the shots I took despite feeling pretty jaded.

After a really long and tiring week it's great to finally sit down on the sofa with a glass of red and write down this blog entry.

I've attached a shot of the IUCN building showing the central stair core and some of my clients furniture on the ground floor.

After a relaxing weekend it was great to really crack on with the post processing work from last week's work. I've finished off the staff portrait shoot and the event photography from Thursday night and I'm currently working on the Sainsbury Thetford store pictures. The Sainsbury's pictures are shots of the back of house storage areas and the lighting used throughout are bare fluorescent tubes. These need to be visible in the pictures so I'm using a program called Photomatix to effectively layer together a well exposed shot and a very under exposed shot for each final picture. This allows me to show some detail in the fluorescent fittings and is a better solution than manually layering them together in Photoshop. The pictures still need further retouching after this to look natural but it's a useful program.

This week is very busy starting with two jobs tomorrow - one in Derby and a small shoot in Leicester in the afternoon, then I'm in Switzerland on Wednesday and Thursday photographing a new super green office building. Finally I've got another shoot in Leicester on Friday.

The next few weeks are pretty full now and I'm stepping up my marketing for the studio so hopefully I can keep things really bubbling away over the next few months.

I've attached another of the location portraits from last week's shoot.

I meant to write the blog yesterday but the job at Sainsbury's Thetford ran on until around 9pm and I didn't get home until 11ish. After a swift glass of red it was then off to bed.

The shoot went very well and I've got another shoot there in a couple of weeks.

Today I'm off to London to photograph a small reception area in Wandsworth where one of our regular clients has built a bespoke illuminated reception desk, then I'm photographing a new product launch party in Central London.

I've posted a picture from the shoot I did on Monday at a lighting manufacturers HQ. We did candid portraits of the staff in action for their new catalogue and web site and this is one of my favourite shots.

Yesterday was a mega busy day as I spent the day at one of my customers HQ photographing all their staff for web use and for their new catalogue. It was a really fast moving day as we visited all the departments in the company and tried to capture unique shots of each team and individual which were supposed to give a feel for the job that they do.
I took loads of gear with me including four flash heads and reflectors, softboxes and reflectors and cloth backdrops etc but we ended up shooting many of the shots in available light and the rest with one softbox and a Gemini flash head running off of a travel pack to speed up the process and to keep kit to a minimum. I ended up shooting hundreds of pictures and now I'm about to start editing them.
Today was more relaxed as I worked from home finishing off the post processing from last Fridays two jobs. I also came up with an idea for this months newsletter and sent that along with some relevant pictures over to Maureen my PR lady.
Tomorrow I'm photographing a Sainsbury's store at Thetford and on Thursday I'm photographing an event in London which will be good fun.
We had some lovely feedback on the Olympic Marketing Suite photographs from the architect (my client showed them the pictures) who now wants a set of the pictures for their website etc and they've put us on their approved photographers list so fingers crossed we'll get some work from them directly.

I've attached a picture from Fridays shoot at Norton Canes Library near Birmingham.

I've been working since 9am this morning and I think I'm about half way through the last of the post shoot processing from last week (it's now 11.45am!). Another 3-4 hours should get me up to date.

We've become very busy again and March is looking pretty busy now too so I really hope that confidence is coming back in the economy.

The shoot at the new school on Friday went very well even though we started at 7am. This was a job for a new client which always adds a bit of pressure as like to build good relationships with clients and our goal is to get repeat business whenever possible. The school itself was clean and tidy even though the kids where there from 8am onwards and I'm confident that I took some good shots. The post shoot processing on this one will take around 2-3 hours as I've got to blend the detail back into the light fittings in the classroom using layers in Photoshop which takes ages.

I'm off early again tomorrow as I'm doing some portraits for a client at their offices just north of Derby and I need to be there by 8.30am to get everything set up.

I've attached a picture from Thursday's second shoot at the Harvey Jones Kitchen Showroom in Oxford.

I've driven 300 miles today and I'm writing this from a Travel Lodge in Birmingham.
I started out at a recycling plant in Thetford which specialises in reclaiming all the raw materials from fluorescent lamps. The shoot went very well and I tried to build a story board of pictures of the process from the delivery of the lamps to the separated materials. Then I drove on to Bury St Edmunds where I was supposed to photograph a hair salon but unfortunately that shoot didn't happen due to a mix up with the owners of the salon. I did however find a really old fashioned shoe shop (160 years old according to the owner) and ended up buying a pair of Loake boots that I've been after for ages so it wasn't a wasted trip!.
I'm here in the Travel Lodge in Birmingham now because I've got a 7am start tomorrow at a new school in Birmingham where I'm shooting the classrooms for a lighting manufacturer.
The next few weeks are really busy and in two weeks time I'm off to Switzerland for two days to photograph the interior of a new ultra green building for a top furniture company which I'm really looking forward to. Working abroad is always exciting and adds to the fun of the job.
I'm going to have to work most of the weekend to catch up but I'm not going to complain as I've been looking forward to things getting back to usual again after a slow December.
I've attached a picture from yesterday's shoot at Le Manoir.

I didn't get time to write an entry for yesterday as I got back home at around 9pm and basically crashed out on the sofa - it was a pretty tiring day. I had a meeting with a client in the morning to discuss some upcoming work, then headed off to London at lunchtime where I visited another client very briefly. Then it was on to the Olympic site where I photographed the marketing suite for a regular client. The suite looked great and my favourite shot was taken looking out onto the balcony with the construction site of the new stadium in the background.

The train trip home was a pain as there had been a broken down train on the line at Watford so everything was very delayed. My train was 45 minutes late leaving and was totally heaving with folks standing up everywhere. We then got an announcement to say that although we now had the train full and ready to go we didn't have a driver - great!. Eventually the guard came on the tannoy to inform us the driver was coming along the platform and we were nearly ready to go - wow the excitement!. Sure enough the driver walked past with a cup of tea in hand and we were ready to go.

Today I'm working in Oxford where I'm photographing a kitchen showroom first then I'm photographing some hotel rooms at Raymond Blanc's Le Manoir hotel and restaurant.

I've attached a dusk shot of the new Olympic stadium.

It's been a mad day today and I'm still going at 10pm!. I started off with a shoot in Worcester where I photographed the interior of an Apple iPod and Mac store for one of my best clients. The shoot went really well and I'm really pleased with the pictures. The store was very clean and had lovely bright white counters and vivid artwork on the walls with one part of the store being black and full of shelving so it was a challenge technically but great fun.

Then I drove from there across to Luton for my monthly radio show on BBC Three Counties Radio with presenter Lorna Milton. I always love doing the radio show and today we had some really good questions in via text and email and the show went very quickly. Lorna makes it easy to be honest because she's such a good presenter and she's always got so much energy in the studio which is very infectious.

Today's been great for new work and we've had five new commissions in today which will take us in to March which is just brilliant. Lets hope it continues and that we all have a busy year.

I've still got a good couple of hours work to do tonight on the post processing side of things so I'm going to crack on. I've attached a couple of snaps taken today of me and Lorna in the studio during a break in the show by Amy (thanks Amy and thanks for modelling on Saturday - you were great!).

We had some fun today shooting my ace model and colleague Amy in a wedding dress at Horwood House in a shoot for a Limo hire company called Top Marque Limos based near my studio in Bletchley. They provide a top quality Limo service and their car is very cool and unusual. The shoot was put together at the very last minute on a tight budget - in fact on no budget!. Rick the owner of the Limo asked me on Thursday if I'd do some basic pictures of the car for a wedding fayre next week. I said I'd do it as a favour then that afternoon I spotted a lovely wedding dress in the charity shop in Winslow for £30 (see low budget but fun!). I bought the dress and by some miracle it fitted Amy almost perfectly - we just used a studio clamp at the back to pull it in a bit.

The idea I had was to do the shoot at Horwood House then pop along to the old station at Swanbourne and basically wreck the dress for some runaway bride style shots. The problem was that Amy loved the dress and has ended up keeping it!. In fact she kept it on after the shoot and I dropped her at Asda in Milton Keynes to meet her folks wearing the dress!.

Sometimes the really low key shoots are the most fun.

I've attached one of the pictures to the blog.

After some more post processing work this morning I headed into London for the Arc exhibition at Earls Court. This is an exhibition for commercial lighting manufacturers and as I already work for quite a few of these guys photographing their finished installations and products I figured I'd have a nose around and try to find some new clients. The exhibition was pretty small but I met some interesting people and I'm pretty sure I'll get some new work from the contacts I made. I also met up with some old colleagues and clients so it was a trip worth making.

The gits that run the trains to London from Leighton Buzzard have changed the fares since 1st of Jan and now if you buy a cheap day return and leave after 9.30am you can't travel back on any peak time train from London (between 4.30pm and 6.30pm). When the lady at the ticket office told me this I nearly took the chance (I knew I'd be on a peak rate train coming back) and normally I'd think bugger it and buy the cheap ticket - today luckily I didn't. Also at Leighton Buzzard there's never ever anyone checking tickets when you get back in the afternoon......except for today!. When I got off the train it was like a scene from Colditz - there were several security guards on each platform stopping people from hopping over the fence and at least 15 ticket inspectors (no exaggeration), one bloke with an ID badge and clipboard and one policeman stopping everyone. They were fining people who had travelled on off peak cheap day return tickets. Talk about a great way to alienate your customers. And why is a policeman paid by us the taxpayer to protect our public property on duty helping a private company to hassle rail passengers?. What a bloody farce!.

Next time I get on a train and some pisshead with an iPod turned up to 500 and a load of hooligans get on and cause mayhem (ever travelled home from Euston on the last train on a Friday?) I can safely bet these uniformed heroes won't be anywhere in sight!.

Anyway I'm just glad I bought the right ticket.

I've calmed down enough now to attached a picture from my shoot last week at Manchester Hospital.

After a good trip up to Scotland and a busy couple of days I took things easier today and spent a couple of hours in the office phoning around a few clients and booking up a couple of photo shoots. I then ran the first two projects from Scotland through DXO (the RAW image conversion software I use for architectural work) and that was about it. The rest of the day was spent dog walking and looking after Harry (my little boy). I did spot a really stylish wedding dress in the charity shop in Winslow which I bought for £30. This might sound odd but I'm going to do a shoot on Saturday with one of my regular models Amy for a Limo hire company at Horwood House and she'll look great in it in the back of the Limo. When were finished we're going to head down to the old disused railway line at Swanbourne station. I think we'll get some stylish shots with an unusual twist using the wedding dress and we'll end up ripping it up or throwing paint on it or something. I'll post some pictures when I get them finished.

In terms of commissioned work things are really getting busy now and the rest of February is pretty much fully booked which is great news - we haven't been booked up this far in advance for a while so I'm sure the economy is on the up again - hooray!!.

I've got quite a few models asking me to photograph them in the studio which is a good sign that our studio work is getting noticed. We've launched a competition in the local Style magazine this month with a 4 hour photo shoot as the prize and this should also help to spread the word. If I can get some more product work too that would be superb and I'm hoping that a new flick book style brochure that we're about to print and send out will help in this respect.

Being a successful photographer is about marketing yourself as much as possible and I can't stress this enough to anyone looking to start a career in photography. I've been too lazy in the past few months in terms of marketing so now I'm really putting in some extra effort to address this. Now we're busy again time is tight but I've learned that marketing is so vital that I've just got to make time to do it.

I've attached a picture from one of the reception areas I photographed on Monday in Glasgow. This was quite a challenge to photograph due to half the area being bright reflective white and the other half black.

Thanks to the miracle of the broadband dongle I'm writing this entry from my standard class seat (poor show!) on a Virgin Pendolino just coming in to Warrington Bank Quay.
This morning's shoot at a health centre just outside Glasgow went well although the job was quite small - basically one lecture theatre with no furniture in it. The second job though was great and consisted of a development of three office blocks in Edinburgh. The interior finishes were very high quality and I'm sure I've got a few portfolio shots in there which is great news.
I took a new enquiry today on the mobile for a commercial shoot for a lighting manufacturer that I've never worked with before and that is always good as it gives me a chance to expand our client base.
Tomorrow I'm post processing all of today's and yesterday's work in the office and on Thursday I'm hoping to visit the Arc show in London where some of my clients will be exhibiting which will give me a chance to catch up and take a look at their new products.
Hopefully I've got the Natwest Bank photography in London to do on Friday but we're still waiting for the final go ahead from the client.
I've just taken a snap on the webcam built in to my netbook and attached it to the blog. Unfortunately there's no self timer on the webcam so I needed to press the button hence the wine glass in my mouth!. I must say though that the Hardys Cabernet Shiraz on board is pretty good stuff!.

I travelled up to Glasgow today on the train from Milton Keynes and arrived here at around 3.30pm after a 5 hour trip. It sounds bad but actually I love the train journey as it gives me time to think and to work on my business plan which is ongoing. Apart from some irritating little twat sitting behind me with his ipod blaring out at 150 odd decibels it was a pretty good trip.

The first shoot I did when I got here was a plush reception area just down the road from Glasgow Central Station. It was a small but very tricky job as the area was small but very high and I needed to feature the ceiling lights in the shots. I used my trusty 24mm tilt and shift lens and also my much used 17-40mm zoom. For close up detail shots I used the Canon 70-200 2.8 L IS lens which is probably the best lens Canon make as the images are so sharp and contrasty.

The second job was also very tricky as is was another reception area but with half the room black and the other half pure white with bright spotlights throughout - an exposure nightmare!.I also took a dusk external shot of the whole office block and that meant my customer had to run along each floor to get the lights to switch on as the building is brand new and not occupied.

I'm now in my room in the Premier Travel Inn in George Street Glasgow feeling very bloated after putting away a bowl of soup, steak and chips and apple pie - so much for the diet!.

It's going to be a long day tomorrow as we've got a hospital to photograph in the morning followed by three office buildings in the afternoon - that's why I had the steak and chips.

I can't upload any of today's shots as I haven't processed any of them so here's one from the archive - it's 111 Buckingham Palace Gate in London.