In the last blog entry I mentioned a website of a really good photographer called Eliot Siegel, I guy that I've been lucky to work with a couple of times. Today I'd like to give a shout out to a really superb young fashion photographer called Emily Soto. She's based in LA and has already done some great work in the fashion industry and has been commissioned by some top clients in both the USA and Europe. Her web site address is http://www.emilysoto.com/ and her excellent blog is http://www.emilysotoblog.com/. Both are well worth a look and there are some great tips on the blog which I always think is a really unselfish thing to do as some photographer's are very guarded about their techniques to the point of being ultra secretive!.

Since my last posting I've done another shoot for BUPA, a shoot at the Manchester Arndale Centre and also a corporate portrait of a guy called Andy Gallacher from Whitecroft Lighting who has been appointed to write a new paper for CIBSE (Institute of Building Services Engineers) and he needed a cool picture for press releases etc. Yesterday I photographed a large warehouse in Birmingham for a lighting manufacturer so it's been a good few days.

February was shaping up to be very busy and some bookings have been firmed up but we're still waiting for final conformation on a few jobs so at the moment it's still pretty fluid!. A good February would really help the cash flow so I'm hoping all the work I've been promised does come in. At least we've paid the tax bill for this year so I guess we're already better off than we were this time last year when the Corporation Tax bill was pretty big and we had to pay it off in chunks throughout the year.

Anyone who reads the blog will know that I do a lot of commissioned work and keep really busy but I never pretend that I earn a fortune because I don't!. Photography in the UK has really taken a hit over the past three years and there are ever more photographers appearing all the time so it's a labour of love in some respects. Having said that I wouldn't change jobs with anyone and I wouldn't work in an office for £500K per year!. OK maybe that's not quite true but I love my job and if I could just smooth out the work load across the year without the peaks and troughs I guess life would be perfect.

I've got a quick gadget tip today too - I popped in to Jessops in Milton Keynes yesterday and they currently have an offer on a really neat little Kodak video recorder. It only shoots at VGA quality and has a tiny fixed focus lens but for taking footage for YouTube etc it's perfect. I'm going to shoot some clips tomorrow while I'm out on another shoot for BUPA and will post the results in the blog. Here's the best bit - it's reduced from £99 to £39 so it's a bit of a bargain!. Here's a link to their website in case you're interested - http://www.jessops.com/online.store/products/78706/show.html

I've posted a picture from the Angel Building shoot from December. A series of my pictures from the Angel Building has just appeared in the latest issue of Lux magazine - as per usual I didn't get a photo credit!.

Last night I had the biggest challenge of the new year thrown at me - my wife wanted me to take portrait of her!. Now that might not sound too daunting because I take a lot of portraits and have been taking pictures for years but when it's your own wife that's in front of the lens that does add to the pressure somewhat!!. I remember being on a photography work shop with a top photographer called Eliot Siegel (http://www.eliotsiegel.com/) and at the end of the two day workshop I asked him to take my picture for my website. He did a great job but I remember him telling me that taking a portrait of another photographer is a tricky assignment. Well this was a similar case with my good lady and thankfully I took a picture of her that she liked and I've posted it in today's blog. I took the shot with one 1000W Tungsten light with silver umbrella and a reflector held under her chin to bounce some light back into her face so it's a very simple setup and a good way to learn about portrait photography.

Earler in the week I had a shoot with BUPA at a care home in Birmingham for younger people who have severe disabilities. The home itself was really well run and the staff were clearly very dedicated to their work but it was quite a hard job to do as I feel so sorry for people that have such difficult illnesses to cope with. I found it very hard to stop thinking about the people I met there and it reminded again just how fragile we all are.

The annual Arc show was held this week at the Building Design Centre in Islington and this is a showcase for commercial lighting manufacturers to display their new products to architects and lighting designers etc. The show was very busy and I was there to photography an exhibition stand for a company called Occhio. Their products are beautiful and very high end and the stand looked great. I spent most of the day photographing both the stand and the reaction of their visitors and I also took some HD video clips for the guys at Occhio to put onto youtube. Their website is http://www.occhio.de/en/ and if you like beautiful lighting products it's well worth a look.

Yesterday I had a meeting with Philips Lighting to discuss their new photography guidelines and I hope to be getting some new work from them again soon. Last year I produced a couple of videos for them and I'll try to include a link to the latest one featuring the Natural History Museum in the blog sometime next week. They make some superb colour change LED floodlights that are seriously powerful and the Natural History Museum facade has been re lit with these LED projectors and the video shows the lighting changing colour.

Today I've been catching up on some post production and processing work and making a few calls to customers. The diary is filling up pretty quickly and I have a really positive feeling about the year ahead!.

Next week is now fully booked except Friday so January is off to a good start. I love being a photographer and I will hopefully never have to be anything else but it's always a real worry when the diary is full of holes as it was during a couple of months last year. Two or three bad months a year causes a real cash flow problem so my aim this year is to be more consistent and have good months every month rather than spectacular turnover one month and nothing the next. All I need to do is work out how to achieve this!. If anyone has the answer out there please let me know.

My other goals for this year are to take on an assistant, lease a small office, gain some more architects as clients and do some more fashion and portrait work. These goals are now set in stone and I'll keep you all up to date with my progress. The fashion industry is a very tough nut to crack but I will give it a real go and hopefully I'll make some progress.

I checked out the Apple ipad prices today and I must admit they are more expensive than I thought. It looks like an investment of around £700 to get a good spec one with wifi so that will have to wait until next month at the earliest. It's a shame as I can see the great potential in having one to use as a portfolio but as usual cash flow dictates that I need to wait. As I've become totally disillusioned with banks (greedy gits in my opinion) I don't intend to borrow money ever again unless I really have to so until I get the funds in the bank no ipad!.

I'm working at the Arc show next week photographing a stand for a company called Occhio so if anyone is reading this and will be at Arc on Wednesday let me know and I'll buy you a coffee. That might not sound very generous but coffee at the Building Design Centre in Islington is mega expensive so feel free to take me up on my offer.

I was looking through my Flickr gallery today and noticed that a couple of my favourite shots were missing so I went through the archive and dug them out. I've posted them in today's blog and you might think I've gone mad but I love industrial minimalist architecture and the staircase in the pictures is one of my favourites. I took the pictures for Whitecroft Lighting a couple of years ago at Lincoln University and I love the concrete and steel finishes.

It's been a lovely Christmas and New Year break but I'm glad to be back at work!. It was my first day back today and spent my time catching up on little jobs that I kept avoiding last year. I uploaded the latest firmware to the 5D MK2 and put up a new wall planner and prepared the new diary so I'm off to a good organised start to 2011.


I spent Christmas day snapping the family with my old Canon F1 and 35mm FD lens and I'm looking forward to getting the pictures processed and looking through the prints. As much as I love digital photography and understand the benefits of it, I still get excited about picking up my prints from the lab after shooting a few rolls of film.


We headed out to Ireland for the new year and spent six lovely days with my brother in law and his family in Ballina at the bottom of Loch Derg. The scenery there is stunning and I took along the trusty F1 and some lenses as well as my Panasonic G1. I took loads of pictures on both cameras and had a lovely time photographing everything from kids to horses!.


Now though I'm back in the office and planning for the year ahead. I intend to do more marketing this year and to get out and see more prospective clients with my portfolio. At the moment I've got an A3 printed portfolio in a large clip binder but I am going to invest in an iPad to give my presentation a more high tech look. Also I'll be able to show clients my video work too which is an added bonus. I'm not a technology freak by any standards but I think it pays to keep up with the latest trends and iPad portfolios are becoming the norm. I've found a company that produce custom made leather covers for the iPad that make it look like a bound portfolio book and I'll get one of those on order too (as soon as we've paid the Corporation Tax bill that is!).


I'm also going to go on a course to learn how to maximise Twitter and Facebook etc as the social media thing is really starting to pay off for me. I love Twitter (find me on there as redshiftphoto) and I can see that these networks really do provide a great way to remind clients that you're still around. It's been a real learning curve over the past year or so with the blog and Twitter etc but I'm really glad I made the time to get stuck in and now I'm determined to maximise everything to the full.


January is looking pretty busy now too which is great. I've got a couple of jobs for BUPA which is great as they are lovely guys to work for and I've got three days booked with a new client called Perry Scott Nash who are also really fun to work with and I'll be working on some pictures for their new corporate brochure. I've got another radio show on BBC Three Counties in the diary for late Jan and a client meeting with Philips to discuss this years photography. There are a few other jobs pencilled in awaiting the final go ahead so it's a pretty good start to the year which is always a good thing!.

I'd like to wish you all a happy, healthy and prosperous new year and please keep reading the blog!!.

Here's a couple of pictures from the Angel Building in London - one of my favourite shoots from 2010.