I'm working 16 hours a day at the moment (during the week at least) to try to keep up with my workload. Over the past couple of weeks since my last blog entry I've had 9 commissions including a night shoot at Selfridges in Oxford Street where the store was floodlit with beautiful colour change LED's, an event at The Ritz hotel in London (I had to wear a suit and tie - not cool!) two days working with models on a photo shoot for the NHBC and a night shoot at the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford.I've also photographed another couple of care homes for BUPA which is great work for me as everyone there is so nice to work with and the homes are always friendly and well run and I've also photographed a dual carriageway at night in Bristol!.


Sheldonian Theatre Oxford



The post shoot processing for all this takes me ages and when I finally manage to lease an office (hopefully within the next two months) I'll find someone to take over the post shoot processing which will mean I can have less stress and a bit of free time!.

I've just been commissioned to work on two new video productions too - one for a lighting project and another for a company that supply a teeth whitening kit to beauty salons. I did some stills photography for these guys a while ago and they've asked me to film and produce a short video clip for YouTube to promote their products further.Video is a great way to promote products and raise awareness of a brand etc and with iPads and iPhones being used so widely now it makes sense to have video content on your website as well as still pictures.



Selfridges Oxford Street



I'm very conscious of the fact that I've spent the past 8 years or so building up Redshift Photography as a company and hopefully as a brand but I've never had time to sit back and try to look at the way that we do things from an outsiders perspective. To remedy this I've asked a management consultant called David Tighe to take a look at the way my business is working and he's been with me for the past few days both out on photo shoots and visiting some of our best clients. It's been a real eye opener to get some feedback from someone neutral and it was great to introduce David to some of our top customers. We had some great feedback and identified some areas where we can offer extra services which can only be a good thing. If you need any business coaching or advice please let me know and I'll put you in touch with David.

The next couple of months are looking very busy and it's great to know that I've got lots of work already in the diary - that takes the pressure off no end and and means I can relax a bit and just focus on producing good work.The one thing I've learned above all else is that you're only as good as your last job and that standards have to be high at all times.



NHBC Lifestyle Shoot



I'm still feeling in Bank Holiday mode after the lovely long weekend we've just had. For anyone reading this from overseas British Bank Holiday's in April and May are traditionally wet and cold but at the moment we're having lovely sunny weather.

I missed the Royal Wedding as I had a shoot up in Sheffield at a new Marks and Spencer Simply Food store last Friday. The store is very green and utilises lots of sustainable wood panelling and features lots of glazing to increase the amount of natural light hence reducing the need to use high levels of artificial lighting. My client (LAPD Lighting Design - http://www.lapdconsultants.com/) have designed a highly efficient lighting scheme for both the store and back of house areas and every light fitting through-out uses LED's instead of traditional lamps. LED's are the future and they now provide a viable alternative to fluorescent lamps and low voltage spotlights etc. The store felt very well lit and the luminaires looked very cool and well designed. I'll post a couple of pictures in the next blog entry once I've processed them.

I started my photography career around 25 years ago when I began working for a good family friend called Roger Parker who is a top sports photographer and owner of an agency called Fotosports International (http://www.fotosports.com/). Being an Arsenal fan it was a great honour to be able to work on the touchline at Highbury and I learned a tremendous amount about photography at that time. In those days it was all black and white film and manual focus cameras and we'd develop the film in the darkroom after the game. Now pictures are sent from the touchline as the game is in progress so technology has changed sports photography more than most other types of work.

Roger called me on Friday and asked me if I'd cover the Northampton Saints v Perpignan Heineken Cup Semi Final at the MK Dons stadium which was played on Sunday. I'm not a huge rugby fan but I have to say I really enjoyed the game and the atmosphere was brilliant. I used my Canon EOS 5D MK2 with my 70-200L 2.8 IS lens for the action close in front of me and I used one of Fotosport's Nikon D2X's with a 300mm 2.8 lens for the action further down the field. I took far too many pictures and was way too snap happy but I did end up with some decent shots which you can see on the Fotospots site in the rugby section. I've posted a few action shots in the blog today along with a picture of a very cheeky cheerleader!(tough work but someone has to do it). I haven't photographed anything that moves quickly for years and it was good to try something different. I can confirm that even though autofocus lenses and digital cameras have made things a bit easier there is still a tremendous amount of skill involved in sports photography and I take my hat off to the guys at Fotosports who are very good at it.