It's been a difficult few weeks on a personal level as my Father In Law has been very ill and sadly passed away last week. The cremation took place on Wednesday so I took Monday Tuesday and Wednesday off to help out with everything. I know some people take photographs at funerals as a way of recording the day and I can see how this might be seen as a way of documenting the last phase of a friend or relatives life but I think I would find it impossible to do as I would feel that every shot taken was imposing on someones grief.

I know that the famous portrait and celebrity photographer Anni Leibovitz photographed her own Fathers illness and death as a documentary type project and maybe that helped her to come to terms with it but I still think this is a strange thing to do.

On the work front I had a long day yesterday shooting both stills and video at a garden centre in Sevenoaks for a case study and Internet based film clip to show the delivery and installation of some high class Swedish furniture. My client is a leading furniture manufacturer and they offer a complete service for companies from space planning and design through to delivery and installation of the goods. I shot hours of footage and hundreds of stills although the final video will only be around two minutes long. Here's a link to the last video I did for them along the same lines as this one will be - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmZyvxeSuj0

This time I used three cameras - the 5D MK2 on a tripod for video, my Panasonic G1 for hand held stills and my 5D on a tripod with an intervalometer fitted to enable the camera to take a picture every thirty seconds automatically.I'll use the pictures (600 plus of them!) from the 5D to create a time lapse video showing the empty office right through to the completion of the furniture installation.

Next week I'm pretty busy with meeting on Monday with two clients, a shoot in Cheshire on Tuesday and another shoot at All Star Lanes in Brick Lane on Wednesday (I photographed the venue a couple of years ago but they've recently completed a refurb!). Also on Wednesday night I've got an event in London to photograph so a pretty busy day all round.

I'm back on the radio again on Friday for my monthly photography "expert hour" (OK it's not that funny) and I'm sad to say that after 4 years on BBC Three Counties Radio I think my expert hour slot might be coming to an end but that's not been confirmed yet - I hope it doesn't happen but I'll know more in a few weeks time.

I've attached a picture in today's blog of Ray my Father In Law - I took this last year in my studio and I'll miss him dearly - he was a really really good bloke!.

Another week has flown past and there's only 65 days to go until Christmas (I've just counted them on my wall planner but I've had a glass of red wine or two so I could be out by the odd day!). To really bring this home I popped in to Dobbies garden centre in Fenny Stratford last week and they had the full Christmas display up already including motorised Polar Bears - madness!.

In just doesn't feel like a year (almost) since I put up the new Sasco wall planner for 2010 - time has certainly flown past. I guess this is a good thing as it's been the hardest year I've had since I first started Redshift Photography back in 2003. Our turnover has been pretty good all things considered but it's been really hard work keeping the jobs coming in and I'm ready for a Christmas break!.

I'm hoping and praying that the severe cuts the ConDem alliance announced yesterday don't wipe out all the recovery we've felt these past few months. I'm still photographing new schools and MOD buildings but these are obviously a thing of the past now so I'm hoping we'll get some new office fit outs to photograph and new products to shoot in the studio but I guess I'm not going to hold my breath. I know we needed to tighten up on public spending but so many of my clients (big manufacturing companies) rely on supplying products to new build schools and hospitals etc that I'm really concerned that we're about to dip back into the R word - lets hope I'm wrong!.

On a positive note I'm still busy and in the past week since the last blog entry I've photographed another BUPA care home - this one a lovely home in East London with some really friendly staff, some high tech lighting control gear (product shots) and four projects up in Leeds. We've had a few jobs in for November already which is great news and I've got a few more jobs promised for November that will hopefully come off.

I've seen some of the pictures I took at the Havells Sylvania showroom launch event last week in the lighting press already - in particular in the edition of Light magazine that arrived today - so that was a boost as I really worked hard to get those out in double quick time. It's always great to see your work in print in a magazine.

I took some simple pack shot pictures for Venture Lamps last week as mentioned above and I've posted one of the shots in today's blog. It's a simple studio pack shot but I tried to choose a backdrop that showed the product clearly but that also had a similar colour to the control gear in the shot and that had a feeling of lighting and light about it. I lit the product with one flash head bounced off the ceiling for flat even lighting and I think it looks OK when put onto the cool blue backdrop.

On Monday I was commissioned to cover the launch of a new European HQ and showroom for a large electrical and lighting manufacturer in London just down the road from the Barbican. I spent the day taking a mix of candid and formal portraits of key members of staff, snapping the customers and press people that attended and also taking some interior shots of the new showroom. It was a great job for me because I love photographing people and the day had a real buzz about it. The showroom photography was a bit more complex because of the many lighting products on display (all lit up of course) so I had to take several exposures for each finished shot and blend them together subtly using HDR software (Photomatix in this case). I always get a buzz from working in London too so I really enjoyed the whole day - I even like travelling on the tube!.

I spent Tuesday in the office editing down the 500 or so pictures that I took at the launch and managed to process and retouch around 50 finished pictures and send them off to the client. I normally use Yousendit.com to send batches of pictures but they seem to be having loads of problems as the pictures almost go then fail at the lat moment. My PC nearly flew out of the window a number of times over the weekend due to this and if they don't get things sorted out I'll cancel my account and set up my own FTP site.

Yesterday I had a meeting with a PR client and collected a couple of electrical components that I need to photograph for one of their clients which I'm hoping to shoot later today. These are small blue boxes which power up industrial lamps so they're not the most photogenic things around and I'm determined to make them look interesting and artistic.

To round off a pretty good week I'm hoping to photograph another BUPA care home - this one in East London. I'm sure this will be the last one of the year and I'm looking forward to working with the BUPA guys again next year as they've been a superb client in every way.

As any regular readers of my blog will know I've been doing a lot of video work too shooting with my 5D MK2. This has opened up a lot of new opportunites for me and also given me loads of new things to learn - from video lighting and sound to editing. Here's a link to the king of video production using DSLR cameras like the 5D MK2. His name is Vincent Laforet and the link is to his blog which has loads of useful tips and facts on film making with these really useful cameras - http://blog.vincentlaforet.com/ The tip on how to re-create a dolly or crane shot halfway down the page (it's a video link) is really cool!.

I've attached a picture of Mark the MD of Wieland Electronics that I took last week at their offices. Although it's only a very basic portrait I've posted it because it was taken with a very simple lighting technique. I just bounced one flash head off of a white wall to the right of the camera to create a daylight feel to the lighting but at the same time giving some gentle shadow across Mark's face. I used a very wide aperture of f5.6 to throw the picture behind Mark out of focus and it made a nice backdrop with electrical components setting the portrait into context.

The end of another week and I must admit it's great to sit here with a glass of red wine and write up my blog entry with that great feeling you get after a busy and productive few days.

The week began with a big MOD building in Corsham near Bath. I was commissioned by the light fitting manufacturer who supplied all of the lights into the building and it turned out to be a really interesting shoot. The building is still unfinished so we had to work around the contractors completing their fit out but we still managed to get some good usable shots for a press release and new catalogue.

I had a portrait shoot in Guildford on Tuesday and the brief was to photograph a group of 26 people then smaller groups and finally a portrait of the MD. The building was quite small and I was a bit worried about where to take the big group shot but I emptied the reception area of all the furniture and managed to fit everyone in (just). I used a Bowens flash head bounced off the wall behind me to give a nice soft diffused light and the picture came out really well.

Wednesday was a catch up day in the office before a shoot for BUPA on Thursday and finally a portrait shoot in Bletchley today - all in all a pretty good week.

The BUPA work has been brilliant and they've been a fantastic client. The ladies that run the marketing team are all lovely and the care homes have all been really pleasant places to photograph with very friendly and helpful staff and happy residents. Unfortunately I think the shoot this week was probably the last one for the year as they are only really scheduled in for the summer months. I hope that I'm going to get a chance to work with the guys there again next year.

Next week is looking busy with a shoot in London on Monday and a possible two day video and stills shoot in Leeds on Thursday and Friday. Also there's a possible video interview for me to shoot on Wednesday for a TV company in Melton Mowbray (pork pie country!) so fingers crossed everything comes off as planned.

I've attached another picture of the lovely Maya in today's blog.

I can't believe another week has gone since my last posting - that's crazy!.
Last week was a real tough one as I had a very busy schedule and ended up working long hours to keep up - but I'm not complaining as it is great to be busy!.
Monday's job was to photograph the Moto services at Wooley Edge on the M1 just north of Sheffield. My client is basically stripping out every light fitting and replacing them with new up to date energy efficient luminaires and they want before and after pictures. I spent the day photographing every room both front and back of house (so to speak) on both sides of the motorway capturing the old lighting. I'm back there again in a few weeks to photograph the new lighting installation and it should look a lot brighter!.
On Tuesday I had a BUPA care home to photograph but the weather beat us and we had to postpone until next week so I spent the day post shoot processing.
I did the last day of photography at Epsom and Ewell School on Wednesday where Philips Lighting my client have installed (free of charge!) a state of the art new lighting system whereby the light changes colour and intensity during the day to help to stimulate the kids and encourage them to be more alert. I have been a few times to photograph the various stages of the refurb and I've now finished as the new lighting is in place and working. The kids have responded very well to the new lighting and it looks like Philips were right when they said that the pupils would work harder under these clever new lights!.
I spent a very pleasant day at the LAPD (lighting designers) office near Welwyn on Thursday photographing informal portraits of their staff for their website. I did the existing headshots on their site a few years ago but they were a bit formal and these will look much more natural - hopefully!. We're converting them to black and white for a more artistic effect.
Friday was a very long day indeed - a 15 hour photoshop session post processing all the weeks work and getting the pictures issued out on CD.
A few weeks ago I was very luck to photograph two beautiful ladies in one session - Annalie and Maya. In today's blog I've posted a picture of Maya who is a full time actress and very natural model.