It's been a really busy week with some early starts and late nights so I'm pretty worn out right now!. The week began with a night shoot up in Chester at a new Comet store - I left home around 2pm after a busy morning in the office and got back home at around 1.30am. The following day was spent post processing the Comet pictures and catching up on some other bits of post shoot processing. Then I was up at 5.30am on Wednesday for an 8am start on a shoot in Epsom where I've been photographing the ongoing refurbishment of some classrooms with new state of the art lighting. To celebrate the opening of the new classrooms Philips Lighting organised a special activity day at the school in conjunction with Esher Rugby Club and John Inverdale came along to host the morning assembly. I took pictures through out the day and finished at around 4pm. I also videoed some interviews with some of the kids and their teachers.

I had another long day on Thursday as I was up in Sheffield to photograph the Marks and Spencer store in the city centre and today I had two jobs in London - one a new school near Kennington and the other a dealer room in an investment bank over in Upper Thames Street.

I've been home since 8pm and have been post shoot processing pictures since I got in and will probably finish at midnight so another long day.

It's always been really hard to balance my workload because working freelance you have to take the work when it comes in. I never let my customers down and work long hours to keep them happy and hit my deadlines. Last week I had no work and this week it's been bonkers - that's just the way it is!.

I've attached a picture from the shoot at Comet Chester - I used the 24mm Tilt and Shift lens to keep the vertical lines straight in the shot.

There's loads of great things about having your own business - especially being a photographer. Things like doing a job you love, seeing new places, every day being different etc etc. The only downside is the fact that if you're not working you're not earning!. This week was supposed to be pretty busy but the two day event photography booking for Monday and Tuesday was cancelled (the Chairman of the company wanted to fly his own photographer to London!) and the hospital shoot has been put back to next week. That means that this week is now pretty quiet (OK very quiet!) but it has given me a chance to get right up to date with the usual load of post shoot processing and also given me time to call a few clients to chase up some outstanding work.

I spent Monday in the office all day working in DXO and Lightroom running through RAW files and yesterday I went over to see Pete at Goldmoor TV to work on the final edit of a video I've filmed for one of my clients so that was time well spent.

Today I've post processed all the BUPA work from last week and updated my Flickr page with the shots I took of Kimberley the weekend before last.

The radio show is still on for Friday though so please tune in if you can - I'm on at 2.40pm on BBC Radio Three Counties which is broadcast across Herts Beds and Bucks on FM 103.8 and 104.5 and also on the Internet all over the world. It wo

uld be great to get a call from a blog reader!.

Once again thanks to everyone who's made comments in the blog. I try to post comments back but I'm not too sure if any sees the replies as I don't actually know how the blog works in that respect but please keep them coming. You can find me on Twitter too as redshiftphoto.

Here's another picture of Kimberley - this time one from the short studio session we did before we headed out on location.

It's been almost two weeks since my last post which is unusual for me as I love blogging but I have been really busy and the time has slipped past really quickly.

Since the last entry I've taken pictures at a large staff interaction day at Philips Electronics down in Guildford, photographed two more BUPA homes, taken some shots in the new extension at the NHBC building in Milton Keynes, photographed a model called Kimberley for her portfolio and finished off shooting a video for a manufacturing company here in Milton Keynes. In fact It's been really good to work locally for a change as I spend hours driving up and down the country between jobs (although I catch the train whenever possible) and I must admit I don't feel as tired at the end of the week as I usually do.

Next week I'm doing a shoot in Manchester at a newly refurbished hospital ward (that's probably going to be a thing of the past under the new Government!) and I'm back on the Beeb for my monthly radio slot on BBC Three Counties Radio.

I've had some new enquiries in this week too so we're still doing well at the moment although you never know how long that's going to last!.

I'm judging the annual photography competition at Mursley Show again this year (surprisingly they keep asking me back!) and although I actually hate passing any kind of judgement on peoples' photographs I do enjoy the day and there are usually a few really good entries. My opinion on photography is that a good picture is one that you like - or even better that other people like - so the old camera club competitions really don't appeal to me. All the traditional rules regarding composition and such do have a place but the bottom line for me is that pictures should make you feel good when you look at them!. I don't get this compulsive urge that many photographers have to photograph people looking miserable or folks living in terrible places looking down and out. Real life is bad enough without continually taking pictures of the crappy bits of our world.

I love recommending other photographers in the blog and today I want to give a big up to a photographer called Edward Burtynsky who takes photographs of industrial landscapes but makes them look beautiful - a very real art form in my opinion.This guy is one of my all time favourite photographers and I draw a lot of inspiration from looking at his work - here's the link to his site http://www.edwardburtynsky.com/index.html

I've attached a picture from the model portfolio shoot I did with Kimberley last weekend.