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.