What a beautiful day we've had today - bright sunshine and a cool breeze..perfect unless your outside taking location shots of some lighting bollards!. It just goes to prove that photographers are a bit like gardeners when it comes to the weather - we're never satisfied!.

I spent the day at Horwood House shooting some brand new lighting bollards which we placed in situ around the gardens and pathways for a catalogue. The direct sunlight was very harsh so I used a 6ft x 4ft diffusing panel which I bought from Calumet a few weeks ago. The panel worked very well in softening the light especially with the chrome finish bollards.

Tomorrow I've got an interior shoot in Peterborough for a new client so I'll take two diffusing panels just in case I need to calm down any daylight spilling in through the windows. I'll also take a flash head or two in case I need to add some fill as I'm photographing hotel bedrooms and they can be very difficult to photograph with dark finishes and bright windows creating a really high contrast range of tones.

I've had a steady stream of new work coming in and we've taken on a few new clients in the past month which is really great news, but I get the feeling companies are still watching their pennies and the economy still has a long way to go before we get clear of this terrible recession. There is still work out there to be had but it's getting harder to find and anyone that sits back on their laurels and doesn't really push to get new clients will find the going very tough. I'm using things like Twitter, Linked In, Facebook, Flickr and this blog to keep my profile as high as possible just to keep things moving along. The radio show I do once a month on BBC Radio Three Counties should be helping too although I never get any work directly from it.

I've found an interesting site called Stumble which is free to join and it basically allows you to type in a topic - say photography - then stumble on new sites with a click of the mouse button. The more sites you rate and stumble upon the more powerful the site becomes - check it out and see for yourself - it's pretty cool. Here's the link http://www.stumbleupon.com/home/

Today's picture is from the shoot with Annalie that I did a couple of weeks ago.