"the following is a true story, only the names have been changed, to protect the guilty" - Bonn Scott, Ac/Dc
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shiny things, fancy gear, you know the stuff, the latest camera, the fastest lenses, the mega-uber-pixels, when I bought my current camera, Olympus E300, it was super-shiny, the second 4/3 camera from olympus, 8 mega-pixies, etc etc, gorgeous it was, I still have it and I still love it, it's a part of me now and it's a great tool.

I have considered upgrades and if I had the cash I'd buy an olympus E3, at around £1k, you can also buy nikon and canon cameras up around £6k, big money, too big for me.

Today I came across a special offer at a trade show, a camera with 25% off, could be mine for only £9k, yea, £9000, Nine Thousand Pounds (for you americans in the room, thats around $18,000).

how about 39 megapixels? damn.

Hasselblad boys and girls, forget pentax, olympus, sony, canon, nikon, these are minor when you start talking about a Hasselblad.

I was, for once, very fucking impressed.

When I make enough, when I win the lottery, when something happens to change my financial world in a big way, I want a 'blad. and one for my Lady too. cheers.

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Some of us are lucky, we are surrounded with the things we want to photograph, beautiful people, beautiful places, I've been reminded of this as I used to live in the countryside and am now in the city, I miss the greenery and the landscapes.

Let me introduce a dude, not in the prettiest of places, not surrounded with the prettiest of things, but his artistic eye and creativity have really impressed me lately -

- I just love these photos, his other photos show a good-eye but these really stand out to me, and thats why I've added him to my 'cool people' below someone put this man in a studio for a few days.

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Anyone interested in being in some of my photographs can hire me from £80ph
Anyone who'd like me to do some commercial work for them can hire me from £120ph
If anyone is shooting bondage and would like me to rig for them, from £50ph
Photos are available as prints, my books are available to buy, see my website.
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These people are cool:

"the following is a true story, only the names have been changed, to protect the guilty" - Bonn Scott, Ac/Dc
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Monitors -
I'm back on a twin monitor setup anyone who has a twin monitor setup for photo editing and then has one of them die knows what I've been dealing with for the last few weeks, especially as it was my main monitor that died leaving me with my secondary which is only 15 inches, now I have another main which is just great for photo editing, you can put photoshop and all the controls on the second monitor and edit a full-screen image on the main monitor, 19 inches in this case, makes life sooo much easier

Outages -
Alot of the work we do comes in via email and is delivered by FTP, all fine and dandy until thursday last week when a certain amber light went out, you know the one, accompanied by a dead phone line, follwed by a live phone line identifying as the wrong phone number. pain in the arse. to cut a long story short we are back online today, monday, 4 days of seperation and yea, we lost out on some work.
In the best tradition of english stiff-upper-lip-ness I shall be writing a strongly worded letter and then getting fobbed-off.

TheLaw -
An article here caught my eye - [link] - Here is a quote from the article -

The 9/11 terrorists didn't photograph anything. Nor did the London transport bombers, the Madrid bombers, or the liquid bombers arrested in 2006. Timothy McVeigh didn't photograph the Oklahoma City Federal Building. The Unabomber didn't photograph anything; neither did shoe-bomber Richard Reid. Photographs aren't being found amongst the papers of Palestinian suicide bombers. The IRA wasn't known for its photography. Even those manufactured terrorist plots that the US government likes to talk about -- the Ft. Dix terrorists, the JFK airport bombers, the Miami 7, the Lackawanna 6 -- no photography.

and while you are there download the UK pocket guide here - [link]

and one for the US - [link]

I've read about photographers being attacked by the public for taking photos, and in this paranoid world the threats to our wellbeing are being exagerated and used as an excuse to supress and control us, people you need to know what you can and can't do and don't roll-over and be prevented from doing something 100% legal.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Anyone interested in being in some of my photographs can hire me from £80ph
Anyone who'd like me to do some commercial work for them can hire me from £120ph
If anyone is shooting bondage and would like me to rig for them, from £50ph
Photos are available as prints, my books are available to buy, see my website.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
These people are cool:

"the following is a true story, only the names have been changed, to protect the guilty" - Bonn Scott, Ac/Dc
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1. You don't talk about photo club.
2. You don't talk about photo club.
3. When someone says stop, or fills a CF card, even if he's just faking it, the shoot is over.
4. Only two people to a shoot.
5. One shoot at a time.
6. They model without shirts or shoes.
7. The shoots go on as long as they have to.
8. If this is your first night at photo club, you have to shoot.

I've been shooting allsorts lately, bondage, fine art figure & flowers, getting back to nature, which is where I started. I grew up in the countryside and started by photographing what surrounded me, nice to get back to it now and again.

all for now. out.

Boom! - [link] - Boom!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Anyone interested in being in some of my photographs can hire me from £80ph
Anyone who'd like me to do some commercial work for them can hire me from £120ph
If anyone is shooting bondage and would like me to rig for them, from £50ph
Photos are available as prints, my books are available to buy, see my website.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
These people are cool:

"the following is a true story, only the names have been changed, to protect the guilty" - Bonn Scott, Ac/Dc
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Q. Why do you only photograph skinny women?
A. I don't, most of my work is not shown as examples of my work, what I usually show is the most commercially / artistically desirable. I photograph men and women of all ages, shapes and sizes.

Q. If a photographer falls over at a shoot, and there are no models there to hear him, does he make any sound. And even more importantly - what shot does he catch on the way down?
A. Photographers never admit fuckingup without witnesses, nor do they ever take a bad photo on the way down, that diagonal blurring is 'art' dahlink

Q. When did you first take up photography?
A. 1991, when I was still at school I started taking photos for my GCSE art, it was a hobby for 8 years and then I started it professionally in 1999.

Q. Are you self taught or one of those posh people with a degree in shutterbugging?
A. Entirely self taught, I have spent a little time with various people over the years and there is something to learn from everyone but I've never really had any formal tuition.

Q. How many fingers am I holding up?
A. eleven.

Q. 3 characters from history - who would you want to shoot and why?
A. Hitler - in the head, twice.
Norma Jeane Mortenson - she quickly learned to love the camera and became a legend, you'd just not say no would you.
God - that'd be a scoop!.

Q. What advice can you give to aspiring models?
A. Remember 'modeling' is a job, a trade, it has skills to learn, treat it as such, and do it for the love of it first.

Q. What advice can you give to aspiring (me) photographers?
A. Never stop learning, have complete confidence in your abilities but always remember there are plenty people out there better than you, I have learnt things from people who first picked up a camera 6 months before. and do it for the love of it first.

Q.Funniest shoot story please!
A. How about the time we were chased off a shoot by horseflies, there was me, my assistant and a naked model running at full-tilt through a field back to the car being chased and bitten by horseflies, that was a bit funny.
Or there was the time in Highgate woods when we had a girl suspended naked from a tree, upside down, when some kids and a dog appeared out of nowhere...that was, interesting...
In addition to the usual backdrop-falling-on-me, model falling over, playing 'hide-the-string' at that time of the month, models on beams 8 feet in the air being chased by giant spiders of which she has a phobia... the usual things...

Q. What attracts you to your niche genre of photography? (and by that I mean all that rope shit...the mind boggles, looks painful!).
A. Bondage first caught my eye when I was about 15, I picked up a magazine which featured it heavily. It started being a part of my photography around 2005 when I was looking for something different for my nudes work and the lines and textural variations that rope bondage can bring were just what I was looking for. It's a significant personal interest so it's always going to appear in my photography fairly often.

Q. Where do you want to be in 10 years and what do you hope you will have achieved?
A. I want my work in more commercial galleries, books and peoples walls, I want to have achieved a deeper inner peace, I also want to have done alot more travelling in the next 10 years.

Q. Who or what is your biggest inspiration?
A. I am inspired by just about everything, ideas come from everywhere but I think to classify it I'd have to say 'nature', the home of true beauty.

Q. Why is a banana called a banana?
A. It's from an arabic word meaning finger, because a bunch of them resemble a hand.

Q. What equipment do you work with - and what piece of equipment (photography!!!) could you not live without?
A. My cameras and lenses are Olympus and I edit on a PC.
I remember in the army we used to say 'bullets and water' because when it comes right down to it thats all you need, as a photographer I'd say 'batteries and cards' because that will keep you going My camera has a portrait grip so it holds two batteries instead of one and I carry six (I have never had an assignment or shoot use four yet). I usually have around 10Gb of cards with me, never used that much but I never want to run out.

Q. Who is your favourite smurf?
A. Smurfette, she'd look good in rope, pink rope of course.

Q. What type of extra lighting do you use in the studio if any, what would you recommend as a barebones set up for someone starting out?
A. I have some portable mains-powered flashes and about 8 or so hotshoe flashguns that provide my extra light (mostly used on locations with no mains power), for someone starting out there are 'home studio kits' and suchlike available that typically include a pair of mains flashes, stands and some kind of diffusion, they are a great place to start for any style of photography, I personally really like portaflash 336VM's.

Q.Do you have a wishlist of people you would like to photograph- if so, who?
A. Kinda, There are a few photographers doing cool work that I'd like to photograph at-work and portrait. I'd also love to photograph Gwen Stefani.

Q. What gets you off the most!? In detail! ;o)
A. Who asked this one?! ok, Art. creating the kind of image that I would be proud to display on any wall is a major buzz.

Q. whom made this not so famous photographic quote?
"Photography is a backward process, first you visualize the image in your mind, then you work in reverse until that images hits the paper."
A. I have no idea but it's often how I work

Q. What is your motivation behind your photography generally?
A. Beauty, in a word. My life has shown me the world at it's most ugly and people at their most ugly, there is alot of bad, evil, damaging negativity out there in the world and I have run-in to more than my fair share of it. My primary motivation in my life is beauty, that which I deem to be Beautiful is what I fill my world with, in an attempt to dilute my life experiences and get ass far away from the ugliness I have seen as I can.

Q. Does my bum look big in this?
A. Not as big as mine would...

More questions welcome for as long as I'm in the mood / have the time.

Rant

An update on my great muse hunt, I had another meeting/interview booked on Monday this week, a glamour model looking to do something different, which was promising as she ought to have the skills of a model and know how to handle herself, however... I finally got a message from her about 20 minutes after the scheduled meeting time blaming tube holdups (how often does the tube make you 20 minutes late? really?) saying she could still get there in another 20 minutes (so the tube hold up effectively made her 40 minutes late? I don't think so) so as I was there anyway I said ok. 20 minutes came and went, 3 times, yes I gave her an hour to get there from 20 minutes away (where the hell was she really? at home in bed in hertfordshire?), as you might expect I then sent a text implying I was no longer there.

Planning your travel and routes is not hard, know where you have to be know how long it is going to take to get there, if you fuckup, admit it and fix it, don't lie about it, ever.

Rant over... think happy thoughts.... happy thoughts..... happy......

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Anyone interested in being in some of my photographs can hire me from £80ph
Anyone who'd like me to do some commercial work for them can hire me from £120ph
If anyone is shooting bondage and would like me to rig for them, from £50ph
Photos are available as prints, my books are available to buy, see my website.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
These people are cool:

"the following is a true story, only the names have been changed, to protect the guilty" - Bonn Scott, Ac/Dc
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Ask Me Random Questions:

Lets see if this theme catches on, there are enough people watching my activity here, if most of them eventually read my blogs then you have to take part in this, ask me a question and I'll compile them into a list and post them on my next blog, or ask a few questions, hell someone better ask me something or I'm gonna look a fool, send me a note or something and lets see if we can get this going, questions can be about me, my work, whatever.

Now for an update;
been busy with this and that, went to St Albans last weekend and got sunburnt, been avoiding the sun ever since, stupid white boy.

Second 'muse hunt' test shoot was today and got a couple of interviews for it next week, so far I seem to have some cool models to choose from. Uploads from todays test shoot coming very soon.

In other news, I've had a cold for a week, a cold, it's been like 30c out there! I didn't get so much as a sniffle all winter and now I have a cold, go figure.

Questions people!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Anyone interested in being in some of my photographs can hire me from £80ph
Anyone who'd like me to do some commercial work for them can hire me from £120ph
If anyone is shooting bondage and would like me to rig for them, from £50ph
Photos are available as prints, my books are available to buy, see my website.
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These people are cool: