Laurence J. Power

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22/01/2012

Well, as a counter to last wek, it's all happening now, and not I'm afraid for the best. Let me explain, Greg who hosts my website for me and my domain had a client leave him, this meant that he no longer needed a dedicated server, and it was better to rent space on another. I was told about this and that my stuff would migrate and that my email would have to be sorted out. Well Wednesday things were moved and I lost my email and site. Greg had told me the new settings but they did not work. I contacted him and was promised that things would be sorted ASAP. Thursday night I still had no email and even mail2web.com did not work. Friday things were still bad Saturday morning I finally got email, but there was a load missing, that finally arrived about 10:00. My site was also back, but with stuff that was 5 years out of date, having discussed the problem with Greg I agreed to upload everything again. Unfortunately 7 of my folders failed to work properly and so I had to find the images, create new folders within Lightroom then upload them again. I did get a 30 minute lunch break, but did not finish until 15:00, as you can imagine I was not best pleased.

When I was at the boat show I looked at Go-Pro video cameras, I confess I really did like them, especially the ability to link them  together for 3D imaging and also their indestructable qualities. I've just put out a forum message asking for comments from users, we will see what comes up.

06/01/2012

Well not much happening at the moment, I know that I'm down to 4 followers on Twitter, I guess that my life it just too exciting for them! I know that I see all these messages which I click on but they lead nowhere, even the Rohan entries don't exactly go anywhere that I can find. Facebook likewise appears to be a bit dead. The boat is nearly ready for polishing, with most of the crap now removed. I bought a polisher this week and once Rob has returned from his shoot in Fuerteventura, in a couple of weeks, we will put it to use.

Yesterday I want to the Boat Show, I took a camera of course, but there was nothing there to shoot, the boats look good, but will certainly look better in the water on a bright summers day. I did note that both Fairline and Princess had bigger stands that Sunseeker. But Sunseeker had this enormous boat on the water. I confess to telling a girl on the Princess stand that given the money I'd buy a Nordhaven, not that the prospect is very likely!

Today I finally got around to transferring the video cassette that I bought onto DVD. I borrowed a VHS recorder from my aunt and uncle, brought it home did that work then took it back and had coffee and biscuits, very pleasant.

I'd be interested to know just how far down people read, drop me a line and let me know, I don't want to delete anything of interest, but I can't let this page grow forever, it now goes back over 3 years.

31/12/2011

The last day of 2011. After a very pleasant Christmas with my nephew and nieces and their respective families, I got back home late on the 28th. I didn't do much on the 29th, but yesterday I drove to Gloucester to do a shoot with Krystal. The idea was to do lifestyle type portraits out and about. As I got there it started to rain and it got steadily worse during the remainder of my time. I did do some stuff indoors, and the D3 with it's enhanced iso. really came in handy since despite the house being mainly white, it was really dark inside due to the cloud cover, and I did not want to use flash, despite using iso 800, there are a number that I have deleted due to movement, and in addition I find that I will have to use Photoshop healing brush on her skin, which I dislike intensely.

This morning I was due to go down to the boat to start polishing, but the weather is again bad being damp underfoot and with light rain forecast, so I'm staying at home.

One potential good bit of news, I was out shopping for veg this morning and noticed this girl who I'd seen around up until the summer. she always looked very pretty in a quiet way, but seeing her today she appears to have grown about 15cms and is very elegant. I saw her go into a local hairdresser and I think that she works there, whether it be a Saturday job or full time I have no idea, the question is how do I approach her about shots, certainly she would be great for portraits and she's definitely closer than Gloucester.

Twitter news - I've now got 6 followers, does that really mean anything? not as far as I'm aware, certainly I'm not getting business from it and Facebook is the same.

16/12/2011

So the news so far. Thursday I went out and bought a D3, trading in a D2x, the depreciation on digital gear is savage - £200.00+ pa. I then had lunch with my brother and his family, I felt a real fool having forgotten that it was his youngest's birthday, not that she is a child, in fact she's on tour with Blood Brothers at the moment, but they are resting for the Christmas period whilst everyone is doing panto. Today I was due at a meeting in Town and seeing that snow was forecast and in fact it was snowing as I was about to leave, I decided to take a camera to take some snaps around London after the meeting. Picked up a D2X body, checked the battery, dead, swopped it for the spare only to find that the second one was flat as well. On that basis I decided to leave gear at home. (I know I could have used the D3 battery, but decided not to). Checked in Jessops to find out the price of replacements, £99.50 each and they are special order, as are their clones. I got home and put both on charge albeit knowing that they had both been charged in September and not used since. One charged quickly (but may well loose charge equally quickly), the other does not seem to be charging at all. Fortunately I found new original Nikon ones on Amazon for £83.95 inc postage. I also took the opportunity to order a few books that I'd put on my wish list earlier in the year.

I've now got two followers on Twitter, I did have a follower that is a site that monitors extremism on University Campus's, but since the word "shoot" refers to photo not gun, they've removed themselves, now I have a lingerie company and a girl from the US, why they are following I have no idea, we will have to see what develops.

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10/12/2011

Oh, I forgot to mention that my swimwear shoot, if it goes ahead, will have one hunk as well, just to please the girls.

08/12/2011

My casting was rejected by Mandy.com, their comment being that profit making companies were not allowed to advertise for unpaid crew. My point was that I would not pay them, but they would own the film to sell as they wished, keeping any profit that they made. I did reply to Mandy.com, but have not heard back so I guess they were not impressed. Not being into moving images as such I'm now at a loss to know where to go. One would thought that the prospect of filming scantily clad girls around a pool, walking out of the surf etc. would firstly be fun to shoot, and secondly sell very easily to say "Dave", and since there would be no actual nudity it could also go on mainstream TV easily. Having said no nudity, I should say firstly that the Lichfield Unipart Calendar films have nudity, and secondly, one shot I am considering would have a rear view of a full length figure walking away from camera.

You may remember that I said that I had one follower on Twitter, well, she turned out to be a professional girl that is to say a hooker! I was not impressed, I've now blocked her, so now I have no followers, I have now put a link on my home page so if you are reading this and fancy seeing what I'm up to then you are welcome to follow me on Twitter or even offer to become a friend on Facebook.

27/11/2011

I put out a casting today looking for crew to film the calendar / catalogue shoot if it comes off. The idea is to mimic the Lichfield in Cuba and Pirelli Calendar films which ended up on TV. It can only be done if the video crew buy in to the idea. My thought is that they would do the work free of charge, but at the end they would sell the finished product thus recouping their expenses. Suitably branded it would be great advertisement both for myself and the client. We will of course have to take care to avoid breaking the rules on advertising, but merely putting the guys and girls in the relevant garments and with the stills crew wearing branded T-shirts and/or baseball caps, I think we can get away with it.

A few weeks ago I decided to go back to a printed portfolio. I loaded all the images onto a memory stick and took them off to my local printer. Unfortunately I got the prices wrong and my estimate of a £100+ bill was way off, it came out at £270, ouch! But the stuff does look good and when I took it to a networking meeting that evening, everyone was saying how nice it was to handle real prints again. Later I thought that I'd lost the memory stick, not expensive, but a real pain, I got a friend to ask down at the marina since I thought I'd taken it down there. But all is well, I found it today in the pocket of a pair of trousers.

I've now joined Twitter, I am still undecided how good it is, but I do now have one follower, if you want to follow me you can @LaurenceJPower, let's see how many I can get over the next couple of months.

19/11/2011

I had not realised how long it had been since I last updated this page, you must all be bored looking at the same old stuff time after time. so what's happened? Not a lot I confess. The swimwear job has not materialised, in fact I've heard that some fool has offered to do it for a third of my price, I assume that he/she must be an amateur, uninsured, with no back up. How else could he/she afford to do it otherwise? Even my price was too low according to the guys at Teamwork, but I knew that the client was on a tight budget therefore going into four figures was most definitely out.

Tuesday I went to Photovision in London. The seminars were very good, the only downer being that the light levels were too high for the video projector to really demonstrate the full detail of the shots during the portrait seminar. The Graphistudio seminar was good allowing me to consider offering clients books of prints neatly bound for long term protection. The final seminar was on the use of social media, should I use Twitter or Facebook or both? We were told that Twitter only takes 5 minutes a day, but every day, and if one is asked a question, to not reply is like death, thus I can see my 5 minutes becoming far longer.

I've still not decided on what I am doing re medium format. I have however decided to replace a Nikon with a later model. A D2x goes to be replaced with a D3. The advantage will be that the D3 is full frame thus giving me a wider field of view with my new lenses, and better quality high iso results. I am hoping that the larger pixels will reduce the possibility of overloading, thus giving my more detail in the highlights. The disadvantage my long lenses will become shorter. I will therefore need at some time to replace the 100-300mm with something longer, that is assuming that I continue shooting polo, which based upon the returns this year is unlikely. I've now just got the wait for a mint condition body to come up for a reasonable price.

18/09/2011

I normally sail on Saturdays, but yesterday my friend had a job for Veuve Clicquot, thus I was at a loose end. I decided to go into London to avail myself of the open houses that had been advertised. I decided to visit Handel's house in Brooke Street which incidentally is next door to that of Jimi Hendrix, now that is a contrast in music and I thought my tastes were eclectic. I then looked around the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, I had been warned that it was busy but I was surprised at the crowds, having said that I was able to get in quite freely. I found it bizarre that they were happy to let people use cameras, but mobile phones were a definite no no. It really is a beautiful building, reminiscent of a time when the UK really was a world power, rather than the 52nd state of the USA.

Having finished the tour and purchased sustenance in the form of a coffee and a lemon and poppy seed muffin (a strange mix but it tasted good), I was intending to go to the Custom House near London Bridge, but I was walking down Whitehall Place back to Charing Cross train station when I came across people queuing for a fashion show as part of London Fashion week, so I decided to hang around and see what shots I could pick up. I have to say that the models who turned up I was not impressed with, I'm sure they look good in the show, but they were too thin, size 8 and 5ft 10ins plus, and they were the fat ones! Also and here my age is showing I hate the latest shoe designs, 2 ins high platforms were never elegant back in the 70's, time has not improved the situation. Having covered that, I heard that things were moving to Somerset House, so I walked down, I got there just before the rain came down really heavily. I stayed at the back entrance, then having realised that nothing was happening moved to the front. It was very busy, I got a few shots which will go up on the site, so go take a look.

I've just come back from a shoot with a new model, this girl comes from an agency, we did casual wear, out in the country so in theory the rain should not have affected us, but it did I got there early just as it started raining and Amanda arrived soon after at which point it really came down for the next 20 minutes. It did ease and we walked through to the location to start work. Unfortunately the message sent to her was to bring stuff as "out shopping" not "a walk in the country", thus she did not bring exactly what was needed, we did as much as we could, dodging it and out of shelter to avoid the rain. Again the shots will go on the site soon. I have to say that her agent did appear to know what he was talking about which make a change (apart from the clothes), I was politely interrogated as to was she was to bring, how I worked, everything in great detail. I have to say that it made a real change to find someone who cared about the work.

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15/09/2011

Last week I had an enquiry about a swimwear shoot, 40 garments with the results needed third week of either September or October. I negotiated a good price and I thought things were going well, the director just wanted sign off before proceeding. I started sourcing models, two girls and a guy. Emailed the client with a list of suitable girls only to be told that he had put the job out to tender, so now I've got to inform the models that rather than merely competing against each other, they have to join me and compete with me for the job.

03/09/2011

Well I did have a shoot lined up for the bank holiday, but it was cancelled, the model seemed to think that 14C was too cold to model bikinis, personally I can't see what the problem was :-). I tried again with another girl for Friday, on Wednesday I thought it was on, Thursday it wasn't. I had contacted a few other girls none of whom responded, so no shoot. Krystal appears to have vanished, I sent text messages and voicemail but no response.

I'm at polo tomorrow down at Knepp Castle for the last tournament of the season, it's been fun going down there but financially a disaster, total takings for the year £35.00, not really good enough to live on, not enough to cover the mileage of one visit let alone 8.

21/08/2011

Things are NOT going well. Last weeks shoot was cancelled due to weather, I did think that I had booked Krystal for this weekend, but on Wednesday I found that was not the case, so I had to put out some castings, I had a few responses, the best girl being Roseanne Barrett from Swindon who is on Purestorm, Model Mayhem, and she is also signed to Edge Models in Reading. Unfortunately, despite have emailed each other this morning and agreed a time, she failed to turn up, accordingly an invoice for fuel (234 miles) and parking will be on it's way to her soon. Next weekend is the bank holiday so my guess is that most people will be away, thus I really do think that I will fail to get in a swimwear shoot this year. I really do despair of models, the other girl that I mentioned last week has not yet even looked at her email, thus logically did not know that I wanted her.

The assistant that I wanted, was unable to make it today

14/08/2011

Today's shoot was cancelled, the weather forecast was really bad, with temperatures around 18/19C, which might be fine for normal fashion, but bikinis on a beach; not really, nobody would guess we in the height of summer. Unfortunately I had bought the food, thus I had a salad today and will have another on Monday and again on Tuesday. We are trying to sort it out for next week, but unfortunately the tides are not good. I want to shoot at low tide so we have actually use a beach rather then just pebbles,  also I want to shoot with the sun low in the sky, but early enough to have some light get back at a reasonable hour. According to my chart high tide is at 14:00, thus although it is going down, it won't be low tide until 19:00.

One good thing about shooting next week, there is the possibility of having another girl to work with. Having two girls means that I can shoot one girl whist the other is changing, also of course they can work together, water fights/splashing each other, just talking together, there are great possibilities. I've not told either girl at the moment as I'm waiting for the second girl to come back to me. I've asked another guy Rob to be an assistant, I only just thought of him, so I don't know what the response will be. This will of course mean that I have to come home on Saturday after sailing rather than staying down in Portsmouth.

Back to my point about the weather this year, I normally sail each weekend, but this year there have been weekends where it's been so bad we can't go out, and when we have gone out, we have been forced to stay in the harbour, we want at least one trip to the Bembridge on the Isle of Wight, if nothing else we want to scrub the boat's bottom. We did try in Portsmouth harbour, but even there it was impossible.

08/08/2011

Well, my Spanish trip is over and done with. I regret to say that it was a complete disaster. No models turned up at all. I did have some help from a local guy Stan who sourced a model, who then failed to turn up despite having only said the night before that she was fine. I approached an English girl, but not only did I find her stupid, but her father gave me real grief, anybody would have thought I was asking her to do hard core pornography rather than swimwear, my guess is that he shared a brain cell with his daughter. I did see her again later and realised that she was not suitable being a bit tubby and with oversize (and possibly false) boobs. So nothing lost.

Stan did take time out to show me some great locations, so if I can get a suitable girl we can do swimwear, or evening wear easily next time I'm over

I am shooting this weekend down in Dorset, I'm using Krystal who I've been trying to use for some time, but circumstances have made it impossible. I will see what I can do on Sunday. I did have a guy offer to assist me, then he advised me he was unable to help, so it's just Krystal me and her mother (Krystal's driver). I will let you know how it goes. If nothing else I would like to redesign my card and include a swimwear shot rather than figure.

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05/06/2011

I see that it's not 8 weeks since my last update, but nearly 10 weeks. That shows what a lot is happening. Nothing. I'm still looking for girls for Spain, still shooting for the polo club, although the earnings are not exactly big (£35.00 to date), and that's it. I'll let you know if I find girls for Spain, in the meantime I've been trying to sort out shoots here in the UK without success, apart from anything else, the weather has been so bad here, that even if I found the girls, they would not want to work in the cold and today's rain.


25/03/2011

I realised that it's over 2 months since I last updated my blog hence I'm writing it up now. Well the mobile problem is solved, I upgraded to an HTC desire which I find great. The refund from Ocean Wave is still outstanding, but should be solved in a few days.

So what else has happened? I went to Focus on Imaging the photographic exhibition in Birmingham, that was disappointing. I suppose I was wanting to find something that I really wanted to buy, but I didn't. The new Pentax medium format digital is nice, certainly the body handles better than the Phase One (yes I've changed my mind, it does actually handle well), and it's a lot cheaper. One thing puzzles me, it's only 14 bit whilst both the Hasselblad and Phase One are 16 bit. I'm not sure how much difference there is in the final images which is what one has to check. I did load my own card into one to try, but unfortunately they set it to save jpeg's, not raw files so I could not play and find out. I cannot justify the expense, but it would be nice if Pentax loaned me one for a few weeks to try out hint hint!

So what else is there to mention. There's the debacle over Spain, back in January I was looking for girls. Three applied that I was interested in. One was based in Bristol here in the UK, she said she was happy to pay for her own transport, and when I told her that I was not paying for accommodation and jokingly suggested that she stayed at my apartment, to my surprise she agreed. Now some weeks later, she has decided that she cannot afford the flights, so that's one down, a Spanish girl has vanished, just leaving me one other Spanish to work with. She does look good, but I was hoping for some variety.

Knepp Castle Polo Club sent me a very nice email, they have now formed a proper private member's club and would like me to be the official photographer. I have of course agreed, but had to tell them that I'm in Spain for one of the tournaments. Matches start late April so I will be putting the miles on the car going down there most Sundays.

23/01/2011

I really am fed up with mobile phone companies, let me explain, December 2009 I had a wonderful Motorola V8 stolen, I say stolen I was at a top London hotel for lunch, it fell off my belt and disappeared. Orange said they would not replace it as their insurance only covered the latest phone I had been given, not the one I preferred to use. I went back to a V3,which was good , but not the same as a V8, then the V3 broke. I used another phone for a bit then decided to replace the V8. I purchased a "brand new" replacement through Ocean Wave Mobiles, then the fun started: -

Phone 1 - ate batteries, needed charging every 48 hours whether it had been used at all or not - a replacement battery did not solve the problem
Phone 2 - far too quiet, so quiet in fact that when on a bus I was unable to hear the ring tone when it was in my hand looking at it.
Phone 3 - not a Motorola V8, could not be charged using USB, rejected without being opened
Phone 4 - Another V8 again quiet, having given up on Ocean Wave customer services, I contacted Motorola direct, after a few emails I sent the unit to their service centre for repair under guarantee. Then I received the news, my phone was not guaranteed as it had been repaired (very badly) by a non approved repairer, in fact there were a few labels and a gasket missing and the keyboard wasn't even an original part. I have now returned the unit to Ocean Wave and await a refund.

All this has taken so long that in two weeks time I am due an upgrade from Orange, so I'm off to the shops today to look at what is available. I'm not sure whether to go with an Android or Windows Phone 7, phone and replace my iPAQ palmtop computer, or just go with something simple, decisions decisions.

17/01/2011

It appears that I'm NOT shooting at Studland in April after all, let me explain. A friend of the owner gets a group of people together to hire the place for a day, we each bring our own model/models and work with them, but sharing the cost of the venue makes it viable. The April shoot was massively oversubscribed, and I am out. I've emailed the girls who wanted to come and let them know. Shame!

14/01/2011

Well I've now booked my summer holiday and as with last year, I am trying to organise a swimwear shoot whilst I'm there, bikinis work best on a beach or by a pool, there's nothing quite like seeing a pretty girl looking good to sell a product. I checked my stock of clothes (all these shoots are all self funded) and I've got plenty of stock in sizes 6 - 10 UK. Now all I need is the girls, I've had a few contact me from PureStorm, some want money, others are happy to work for images. I'm still waiting for more to get in contact before I make a final decision, in any event I've got until July to close the deal.

I'm also shooting at Studland Bay again, this time I've had more success at getting girls, from memory I've got a choice of 5 of which I will take 2, This time the shoot is in April, so I've less time to get stock. The shot above (as at today) comes from the October shoot there, it's a good location and, if the weather is good, there is always the beach and grounds to work in. I MAY be brave and use the Gandolfi again I'm not sure, we will have to check on the quality of the girls.

Yesterday I went to the Boat Show at the ExCel in Docklands,  I assume it is the recession, but it did appear to be a lot smaller than that in 2009. Sunseeker were there complete with the biggest boat every shown in the hall (80ft) as were Fairline and Princess, but many of the smaller boats were missing, and the number of sailing boats seemed to have reduced considerably. I was not looking for a boat, the Viva 600 owned by my friend suits me perfectly, but I was looking for a wetsuit for use in his inflatable kayak, nothing doing; dry suits at £200.00, but no wetsuits. Somehow I managed to get in free rather than pay £18.00, I didn't try to get in cheap, I just walked in, thinking that I get to a pay desk soon, but never found it, (I did see it on the way out, but I'd walked past it without realising on the way in). I'm glad I didn't pay as it was not worth it. I took some kit to change into since I knew that there were a number of things you could try, but I didn't bother in the end, instead I carried everything around on my back for 5 hours.

Today I went to The Societies annual conference, I did not pay to go to the Masterclasses but merely went to the trade show, I'm afraid that I'm going to appear very sad, but like the Boat Show, it was not good, it was not very wonderful, the only good bit was that I got to handle the new Pentax medium format digital camera, having handled the film version I was really hopeful, unfortunately my hopes were dashed, the grip is really too big for my hands thus making it uncomfortable to hold, it's better than the PhaseOne/Mamiya, but not as good as the Blad, I think that there are others in agreement with me, certainly in respect of the Phase One/Mamiya because I've seen mint condition Phase One bodies going for less than £1K whilst elderly H1's still fetch £1.2-1.3K, it must be remembered that an H1 is at least 5 years old, whereas a Phase One will be less than 2, thus the difference is price is considerable, add to that the massive difference in the price of lenses (which people tell me are of similar quality) then the Phase One body appears at least, to have a big problem.

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04/12/2010

It is so cold, I'm sitting here in front of my computer shivering. I did not leave the house at all today, I just sat and read then watched TV whilst shivering. I confess that when it's this cold I tend to shut down and do nothing. I've got Christmas puddings to make and presents to pack, but they will have to wait a few days.

Thursday I went to the dentist, I was due at Guy's Hospital in London at 09:30, so I got up early and caught the bus to Surbiton, then the train to Waterloo, at Waterloo I found that there were no trains to London Bridge so I walked all the way, I was just inside the grounds of the hospital when the mobile rang, "I'm sorry Mr Power but your clinician is unable to make it today, your appointment is postponed" not good! I walked back to Charing Cross then over Hungerford Bridge back to Waterloo, by then the trains were a real mess, but I did make it back via Surbiton again.

04/11/2010

On Monday last I saw this great girl on the bus, long blonde hair, pretty face with a turned up nose, perfect for beauty work. I realised that she was very young and gave her a card suggesting that she got her parents to call me, she didn't, shame.

17/10/2010

Yesterday did a fashion shoot down in Dorset, A few guys and girls had got together and hired a large private house as a location, the shoot was designed to last from 09:00 until 19:00. My original idea was to drive down the night before and stay in a B&B, then drive the few miles to the location. This plan was changed due to a leaving party being held on Friday night, I therefore drove down first thing Saturday morning.

A friend had challenged me to work on 5 x 4 so having got some old film in the fridge I agreed and took the Gandolfi. It certainly is a different way of working. I confess I chickened out and doubled up on digital, which I edited today. I had booked two models for the day, one form the other side of Oxford, the other Exeter, the Exeter model decided not to turn up, fortunately the Oxford one did. Krystal was her usual pretty self and worked hard all day. It was a real shame that we were one down as I was intending to have two girls talking together, having a laugh etc. I had bought clothes for two girls much of which can't be returned. I did also take some swimwear, but it was certainly NOT swimwear weather. The film will be going off to the processors tomorrow, I'll upload the results when available.

23/09/2010

The last entry was almost a month ago so I thought I'd better add some stuff. No swimwear shoots it's been too cold and no action on the camera front. But I am looking at changing my car. A word to the wise, Comparethemarket .com - put your details on there and despite opting out I received emails from 4 insurers. I do not want to be contacted, I looked at the site and have decided to contact some insurers direct and for a decent set of quotes I'll go to a broker, somebody who actually know what they are talking about.

28/08/2010

I've now uploaded a set of images of Karcia and also changed my front page, let's see if the hit rate goes up.

21/08/2010

I'm currently skiving off retouching 700+ images from a shoot earlier today. The shoot was a group shoot which I altered somewhat. Instead of shooting a number of different models I took my own girl who I worked with on two separate shoots. One was a Cadbury's flake copy, soft focus dreamy stuff shot in the lake, the other a high fashion swimwear shoot. Karcia was my model, she's a Polish girl currently living in Brighton. I must say that if I had know that she had a tattoo she would not have been working for me, but I failed to ask, so having got down there I was kind of stuck. Karcia is a very good model, and with her face done by the on site makeup artist for the first shoot and both face and hair done for the second, the results are good. Once I've finished editing, I'll upload a few.

Apart from photography, polo is my other interest and having been replaced at Ham, I've now changed my allegiance to Knepp Castle Polo Club down in Sussex, they are a very friendly bunch and seem very interested in my shots. Emily the polo manager has put a link from their site to mine which has resulted in my hit rate going sky high, now all I need to do is convert the hits into money.

25/07/10

I'm finally uploading the stuff of Alex that I shot in Spain. Unfortunately her skin is far from perfect and it shows.  Before I change my front page I will need to work on one or two of the shots really hard to clean up the skin. I was due to shoot Emma down on the west country today but unfortunately things went a bit wrong thus it was cancelled. I booked another girl on Friday night to shoot Sunday, but on Saturday evening she too cancelled. But, based on the weather, I'm not sure it wasn't a good thing. Emma get really shirty with me over my suggestion that she sunbathe nude or topless, the problem is that swimwear reveals tan lines and they look crap. You can check out Alex, if you don't believe me, www.powerimage.co.uk/Alex. In Spain the local girls and those from outside the UK were nearly all sunbathing topless on the beach, and in many cases nude. I understand that in Spain one has a constitutional right to undress anywhere, and some people do. In the UK we seem to be following the US (home of the porn industry) and consider revealing flesh to be rude. Getting drunk and throwing up is fine, or having fights in the street, likewise sleeping with a different guy every week, but revealing a boob, that's close to being a hooker!



16/07/10

I'm sitting here waiting for the washing machine man to arrive, so I thought I'd update this page. Sunday 04/07, I went up to Redditch to attend my nephew's christening. As usual I took a load of shots and the jpegs are currently being burned onto a DVD.

I came back from Spain on Tuesday, this was partly holiday and partly a speculative swimwear shoot. The model that I booked from the UK turned out to be a nightmare, having no transport, then getting her drunken father to call me at 01:00 to give me the third degree on what I was doing. I did agree to the shoot, but I later found another girl so I phoned Carly and cancelled. The new girl had a piercing which I hate, but turned out to be a very good model, I've been working on the shots for the last few nights and they should be up very soon.

I was due to shoot some more swimwear with KrystalCole on Sunday, but I had a call from her mother yesterday, it's not cancelled rather it's weather dependant. I've also got a shoot booked for the following weekend with a new girl Emma, I've just checked her profile and I must say I'm a bit worried that my stuff may not be up to standard.

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27/06/10

Well I've just finished uploading some images from Knepp Castle polo earlier today. I've not yet completed the editing from the Halfords cycle race which was in Woking on Thursday, but I'm less worried as I don't see myself selling too many images of cycling.

I have been hoping to do some location swimwear but I am having real problems finding suitable models. they are either too fat or are covered in tattoos. I was due to do a group shoot near Hastings in August, but due to a lack of suitable models I've handed my place to another photographer.

I'm off to Spain in just over a week, again there's been a lack of models, I have found one and I will email her tomorrow to discuss how and when we meet up.

15/06/10

The last few weeks have been busy, 04/06/10 I went to the World Polo Association Polo in the Park, I had been asking them about a press pass since April but only heard that I had one on the 1st June. The polo was good albeit the teams were more than a little fixed Jack Kidd (brother of Jodie) playing for Moscow! Unfortunately because they were so late letting me know about my pass I had organised something for Sunday and when I heard that the finals were to be on Sunday I decided that it was not worth going on Saturday for the semi's. I uploaded the stuff that I had done and got a nice email from the organisers asking to use it, it went very quiet when I talked about NUJ rates for usage. Saturday I went sailing.

Sunday I was on a group shoot near Oxford, it was well organised although there was not really enough time. Over lunch I booked a girl for 14:00 who decided not to turn up, the girl I did end up shooting was pleasant but not brilliant. I then did some stuff with Krystal, they girl has really improved since our shoot in January 2009. Unfortunately I'm not very happy with the shots, there's nothing wrong with them, but they are not right, thus although they are on my site they are not indexed. One thing I did find out, my new reflector is really good, I got parents to hold it for me, getting the girls to tell them when it was brightest, the light off it is great, warm but not too red and plenty of it. I'm hoping to set something up for this weekend, and trying to get the girl to bring a chaperone - or should I say free assistant!

18/05/10

Had a really busy weekend. I was invited to a wedding on Saturday, not as a photographer, but as a guest, naturally I took a camera and took loads of candids. The weather was good before the service, but after got a bit cold ad at one point there was rain, but overall a good time was had by all. The previous evening I'd been out on a really exciting job, photographing a fence and a ditch, the idea was to prove the boundary for a new fence to be erected, not exactly exciting, but it does help pay the bills.

Sunday I was out shooting swimwear, The model was very new and absolutely tiny, I thought that an 8 would fit her but even 6's were not exactly straining. I had hoped that she was going to bring a chaperone that I could use as an assistant, but she didn't, it didn't matter as I tried to use a reflector on a stand and found that it was impossible due to the wind, nobody could have held a decent reflector for more than a few seconds, I'm beginning to think that it might have been a waste of money and it was most definitely not cheap. The images will go up soon, possibly in a special directory, we will see.

Yesterday I had some bad news, a friend who I originally knew as a photographer and who went on the design websites has now found himself with no work. The client who had kept him busy for at least two years has now been bought by another company and his services are no longer required. This is a tale that I'm also hearing from other colleagues. Officially the recession is over, unofficially I think we've got at least another 6 to 9 months of cutbacks. I do wonder what happened to the money, yes we bailed out the banks, but we the people now own them, the banks are now making money therefore we should firstly be getting a return on our investment and secondly, we should be able to realise our investment by selling the shares, then all we need to do is get our troops out of the Afghanistan and Iraq and the books should be balanced, well that's the simple economics of a photographer!

03/05/10

I'm sitting here really frustrated, I went up to London 01/05/10 to shoot the start of the Gumball Rally, got back with loads of shots, but can't upload them, even this blog is likely to be delayed. I've been trying to load the stuff for 36 hours, but no joy and Greg, who operates my ISP, does not seem to be available.

The Gumball Rally is a real environmentalist's nightmare, Ferraris and Lamborghinis were two a penny, One Lamborghini even had a roof box fitted. There were a few Aston Martins, and Bentley Continentals, two new Morgans and a Rolls Royce - the really ugly BMW version. One car that did kind of steal the show - a Bugatti Veyron. Without a press pass my access was limited and there were huge crowds, but I did get some reasonable shots of the cars as they came up St James's. The cars were of course covered in sponsor's logos, one wonders just how much money the organisers are making when one realises that it cost £30K+ to enter. One downer, I had a t-shirt stolen, it was thrown to me, but I dropped it, I bent down to pick it up, but this woman grabbed it, I did suggest politely that she hand it over, but the response was not good.

28/04/10

The London Marathon is over and I've already told my friend that this was the last marathon that I'm working. I had no press accreditation therefore I got stuck behind people and couldn't move. I worked my butt off and am unlikely even to get thanks. The one good thing, it appears that they might not do it next year, instead they might be doing one of the independent marathons. It appears that they had a few calls from runners asking just how much of the sponsors' money was going into David Bedford's pocket.

With the weather improving I've attempted to organise a shoot for the weekend, unfortunately NetModel is down at the moment so I've no idea whether the girls have even seen the email let alone answered. I've still not heard from any of the girls in Spain that I contacted and none of the UK girls will be out there at the right time so I might just have to relax.

20/04/10

Well we've got the London Marathon coming up, the past few years I worked for a charity taking shots that they use for promotion. This year the Marathon has a new sponsor and a new inexperienced press office, this is bad news, I've not got a press pass therefore life will be virtually impossible. What is even more annoying they've sent me two emails about press conferences, ones that I can't attend because they've not given me accreditation! You would think that with the bad publicity (Dispatches programme on Channel 4) over the enormous fees charged to charities for their spaces (between £300 and £8000) compared to less than £40 for a normal entrant, they would want the publicity, I really wish I could persuade the charity to try the Brighton Marathon, I understand that charities were actually being given places free of charge.

I'm going to Spain in July and I decided to try and fit in a few shoots whilst I'm there, I advertised stating that pay would be in swimwear and no travel would be paid, what do I get? "How much are you paying" - "read the advert!" "I'd love to be involved" said a girl based in the Midlands, I asked her where she was staying and once she had actually read the post, she went away. What I need are some nice local Spanish girls wanting some UK exposure, I did email a few from an online site, but I've had no response.

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05/04/10

Bank Holiday Monday, not a lot happening and it's FAR too cold to shoot swimwear, instead I went to Ardingly and shot the Harness Horse Parade, the last time I did this was 1988/9. In those days it was in Regents Park, now it's down in the South of England Show Ground. I got there early and drove around for a bit, eventually going in about 10:00. I'm afraid that the move from London has not done it any good, the show was a lot smaller with the brewer's drays being the most visible sign, back in Regent's park it was four or even six horses, now it's just two or in some cases one. I did shoot a lot and the results will be uploaded in a few minutes.

21/03/10

Well, I put last weekend behind me, fortunately the hire company were able to repair the printer without any spare parts, therefore I merely just lost £100.00 hire plus £26.00 transport costs, but my deposit is intact. So what else has happened? Today I visited Cliveden and had a pleasant day walking around the grounds. I was thinking about the Perfumo affair and everything that went on. I may be wrong but I do think that a number of people were treated very unfairly. Christine Keeler, what did she do? She slept with a government minister and an Russian military attaché, as far as I am aware she did not know any secrets to pass on, let alone actually pass them over. All she did was sleep with two different guys, maybe not a nice girl to know, but a criminal, I think not. Stephen Ward, knew Christine, slept with her and introduced her to his friends, a normal thing to do one would have thought, living off immoral earnings? I don't think. John Perfumo, in my opinion the only villain but all he did was sleep with a girl to whom he was not married, thus his crime was to commit adultery. Did he tell Christine any secrets? Will we ever know? So Christine ended up in prison for perjury, Stephen committed suicide and John resigned and having spent many years living off his inheritance, gained a CBE for charitable works. Do they deserve an apology? I think so. Will they get it, just like the Iraqi people invaded and many killed because of weapons which did not exist, I think not. Please understand I do not wish British troops any harm, I want them all back home in one piece, but I do not believe they should be there and I think that Tony and George should be prosecuted for war crimes, they sent our guys and girls on a mission that can only end in tragedy for all.

15/03/10

I had a really disastrous weekend, let me explain, As a way of boosting my income I used to do dinner dance photography, the system was that I turned up at the venue took a load of shots then went off to a lab got the films processed and printed, then went back to the venue and sold them. Last month an old customer called me asking whether I could cover function based in Bournemouth, yes I replied, then came the problems. None of the labs I contacted were prepared to stay open in the evening. So I bit the bullet and hired a dye sublimination printer for the evening. It was delivered and I tested it, worked fine. On the night, having taken a load of shots I set up the computer and printer, an hour later I gave up as the printer just would not work. As you can guess I have a very unhappy client. This has cost me about £200.00 in lost income and expenses of hire.

Last weekend I went to Focus on Imaging, an photographic exhibition in Birmingham, I'm afraid there was nothing really new to be seen although I did discover one thing, the Mamiya camera does not fit my hands. The handgrip is just too big, I'm sure it is great on a tripod, but holding it is a real strain on the hands. This means that if I want to go medium format digital I'm now stuck with the Blad and the horrendous price tag that goes with it.

28/02/10

As I am sure you can guess, on the basis that this has note been updated for nearly three weeks not a lot is happening. So what's first? Well it's the swimwear shoot, it's been cancelled, I'm not sure whether they got frightened by the cost or just decided it was not worth while, but cancelled it is. They told me that the US manufacturer had now supplied decent images, well the images might be better but they would be better still if they came out correctly on screen, the proportions are all wrong, I know one can slim a person down by altering the perspective by 10% but do it by 25% and the girls look decidedly odd.

I tried out the Mamiya comparing it against the Hasselblad, the AFDII is certainly better than the AFD, but against the H1 there is no comparison. I had Warren from Hasselblad on the phone this week telling me that his demo H3D 39 would be up for sale soon at about £6 500.00, that may be a bargain, but it's way outside my budget. I'm at Focus next week and will check out the AFDIII

Years ago I used to do banquet photography, taking shot on the night vanishing off to a printing lab then bringing them back to sell. I've not done a job like that for over 2 years but last week I got asked if I was available, I agreed thinking it would be easy, then I find that none of the labs in Bournemouth will do the work, I'm now bidding on a couple of printers so that I can do it myself, this does mean that I can stay around all the time also I will not print anything that hasn't sold thus wastage will be low, but it is a bind. and capital expense that I could do without, and of course I really need to take a computer with me.

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09/02/10

I've just been working on the shots of Alyona from the weekend before last. The shoot went well apart from the cold, she was good, her skin was not as perfect as her images had led me to believe, but it was not too bad, but the cold! Eventually I had to end it because I was unable to hold the camera still. Once I'm happy with the work, I'll upload a few images.

I'm still very undecided about medium format, one week I decide that Hasselblad is the way to go, it's the big name, the gear holds it's value, and in one albeit somewhat brief test, it fitted my hands well. But Hasselblad is a closed system, the latest bodies will only accept digital and only Hasselblad digital backs at that and no upgrades are possible, it's a new body and back if one wants up go forward. The next week I'm thinking Mamiya, it's a lot cheaper, lenses are easily available for less than half the price of the Hasselblad, and current gear can swop between digital and film. The body it an open format so whatever back I got it would fit the body (apart of course from Hasselblad). Phase One are linked to Mamiya, and have launched two new bodies with their name on, but these bodies will also accept Leaf or other backs. Then I think about Nikon, and all my current medium format film gear, am I getting the very best digital images out of the Nikon? Is my dissatisfaction down to my own failings? Would I be wasting my money? Decisions, decisions.

28/01/10

Well I finally managed to speak to the client a week or so ago. The tight deadline that I had has completely vanished, instead of wanting a shoot in January/February, they are concentrating on a rebranding exercise, once that is complete they will think again about the shoot. This is both good news and bad, good news because the later in the season that we are, the better the weather and the closer to home we can work. The bad news is of course that the buying window when girls actually think about what they will wear on holiday may be over, I would hate to be blamed for bad images killing sales when in fact it is merely that decisions have already been made by girls.

I've booked a summer holiday for the first time in years, I'm going to Spain in July, renting a studio apartment. I've never been self catering before, this is mainly because villas/apartments are normally so expensive it's not worth it. This time it's on. I will of course take a camera and may take a few bikinis/swimsuits with me to see if there are any potential models out there, one thing about swimwear, it doesn't take up much room in a suitcase.

This coming weekend I've got a casual shoot with a new model Alyona who is based in Oxford, I'm driving up there in the morning and shooting with her for an hour or two mid afternoon, as usual with me she is short at 5ft 6ins, but is in proportion and has a great face. Hopefully the shots will be up here by Tuesday possibly sooner it depends how it goes.

10/01/10

Found two local model agencies on Tenerife, I was able to contact one and am awaiting a response from the other. Unfortunately the one that I contacted is not really living in the real world. €800 for a day is just not on. I can get UK girls for £200, The exchange rate is around £0.8 to €1, so the comparison is not good. Even flying UK girls out and paying for all their food and accommodation, the client will still be saving money. I'm still waiting to talk to the client, I did manage to phone them late one day last week and was asked to call back, since then I've not been able to get through, this does not bode well, as time is rapidly disappearing if we are going to organise flights and accommodation, do castings/fittings, and for some, possibly get passports (I did check, mine's valid until 2014).

Looking at my tracker  I noticed that a number of people came from Google having checked out "brunette on beach" so I've added a "blonde in bikini" to increase the number of hits. My ruse failed miserably yesterday, total unique hits? 1; one solitary person looked at my site, this is just not good enough. I don't want to put a shot on with tits outs, showing everything to the world, what I've got is fine, yes, she is topless, and no, you can't see anything.

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03/01/10

Well, Christmas is over and done with and we are now into another year. The last few weeks have be pretty uneventful albeit more than a little cold. So projects in the offing. Only one really, let me explain, I was looking around at bikini sites looking for some interesting stuff and found that boyshorts look really good. I found a few on US sites, but importing them was going to be expensive, so  I looked on a UK site that I know, they had a garment that sounded interesting, one could click on a link and see a close-up image, but it didn't work, so I emailed the company to ask, in return, they came back that they might be interested in doing a location shoot in January/February. So I've been looking around for models and makeup artists, also suitable locations: -
 My first thought was South of France - too cold - 18C in a bikini, I don't think the girls would be too happy.
Somebody suggested Tunisia - too restricted in public - risk of arrest
Cyprus, I did find a local model agency, but the bikinis might be too brief for them, I've also been advised that the weather can close in at this time of year with continuous rain
Tenerife (or other Canary Island) - No local model agencies, good locations
UK Warehouse - cold, but space heaters are possible, very low travel costs

I've emailed my thoughts to the client and we will see what happens, certainly they do not appear to have opened my email after a few days, I might possibly phone them on Tuesday to see what they think. I have tried to look at reducing costs by using villas instead of hotels and sourcing models myself rather than using agency girls but I am sure that the costs are a lot higher than they will have anticipated. Anybody fancy being a hard working unpaid assistant on this shoot if it actually goes ahead? If so, please get in contact, but please remember that this will be work, with very little chance of any play.

Finally, and I 'm not too sure how this will work out, I've got a friend to agree to video a shoot for me which can be uploaded onto YouTube or similar, the idea is to increase my profile. I'm looking at it as being similar to the Lichfield in Cuba and Sports Illustrated Swimwear DVD's, nothing technical, just brief interviews with models whilst in makeup, discussion with client over locations and look. inserts of stills from the shoot. If we could do this as the "Tenerife Bikini Shoot" that would be great. Sponsors would be most welcome, please join the queue!

22/11/09

Despite my efforts phoning Orange on both Wednesday and Friday, I am still without a mobile. Hopefully this will be resolved tomorrow. I had great idea for a shoot today, I need to find a body painter who can recreate a tattoo on a model's arm, once I've found them it will be time to sort out a model, I'm thinking of using Krystalcole. My reason for Krystal over DaniD is that Krystal's arms are bigger (Dani seems to be really skinny at the moment). It might not work with a blonde, but that will be for the body painter to decide.

20/11/09

What's been happening, well not a lot really, working backwards, on Monday I spent part of the day with Hasselblad checking out digital backs for the "V" series, I did like them and indeed the 16Mp back that I tried, gave me stunning results. I won't upload any images since it is impossible to show the full results on screen unless one zooms close into an image which is pointless in terms of trying to sell a product. But there is a problem  - apart of course than the money. Let me explain: -

Hasselblad "V" series - 6 x 6 series cameras built for film, still being made, but the series is being run down and looks like ending in the not too distant future. Redeeming feature, large quantities of second-hand kit available at reasonable prices, problem, repairs and servicing.

Hasselblad "H" series - 645 format. The H1 and H2 were built as dual format digital/film, both bodies are now defunct. The new series 3 and 4 are a closed series, only Hasselblad backs will fit, and the H3f is designed for film only - no links to a digital back. Lenses are expensive even second-hand, £800-900 minimum each and I really need three.

Mamiya 645AFDII - The old version of the current body, everything fits and digi backs from Phase One, and Leaf can be obtained on the second-hand market. AFDIII is the more recent body, still current, but partly superseded by the Phase One body. Lenses are really cheap less than £800 buys an immaculate condition zoom lens and 80mm lenses go for around £300. I really need to try out these bodies before making a decision.

One thing I should mention, both Mamiya and Hasselblad do adapters such that old "V" series lenses will fit on the latest bodies. Assuming I did change systems I then have to find a market for a reasonable size "V" series kit. Unless I decided to get rid of the body and use my current lenses, fine in the short term, but "V" series lenses are depreciating at a rapid rate.

Last Thursday was a bad day, I was out to lunch at the Intercontinental Hotel in London, I was the guest of Aviva the insurance company, whilst there my mobile was stolen, I say stolen because it went in a 2 hour period whilst I was seated at my table, and it was switched off soon after. I did tell Orange whilst I was there and got it blocked from sending calls. The hotel were very good in their attempts to find it but with no result. I waited until Monday to tell Orange that it had actually vanished, unfortunately they are taking their time in sending me a new sim card, I don't need a phone as I will go back to using my old one, but it's a pain being without any way of contacting me.

01/11/09

Today I went down south to photograph the RAC London to Brighton Veteran car run, I left home in the dry, but within yards it started to rain. The M25 was so bad that at times I was unable to see properly, and to add to my problems I was very low on fuel. Every petrol station that I came to was closed, eventually I got some at a Tescos by Gatwick Airport. I don't know what has happened, but petrol is very expensive again, I paid 108.90p per litre. I eventually found the place I wanted to shoot, I'd been there a few years ago, it's manned by the Lotus 7 Club, they're a friendly bunch. but it was all marred by the rain which got very heavy. Despite having a long Driza-Bone coat, I got soaked, the coat was fine, but the water just ran to the bottom and onto my trousers. I left there and drove around, almost getting to Brighton in my efforts to find a better location where I could shoot from the car. Eventually I came back to my original spot, and spent the next couple of hours shooting. I've uploaded the stuff onto the website, lets see if there are any takers.

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28/10/09

I'm live! I had to call Orange and really bitch at them, originally they told me that my router would be delivered 05/11/09. I therefore asked for my MAC code, they then changed their minds and told me a router would be with me by 18:00 tonight or possibly tomorrow. I really did not believe that I would get it today since I was only talking to them about 13:00. BUT I got home and there it was. I had to phone Orange to get online, but it worked. About 21:00 I found that I was not able to send email, receiving was perfect, but outgoing was stuck, I called my SMTP provider and went through everything to no avail. I then called Orange about 22:40, the helpline was closed despite claims that it was 24 hours. I searched on Google and found that Orange only allow outgoing email to use their server. I found the code and it works. Overall this has NOT been a good experience, certainly not one that I want to repeat in a hurry, albeit if service is not good, I will do it again.

27/10/09

Not a good day, let me explain. Last week I decided to change my Internet Service Provider from Tiscali to Orange, Orange had contacted me some time ago saying how as a contract mobile phone customer I would get FREE broadband, so I signed up. I checked on the downtime "about 1.5 hours" I was told and since it's during the day you are unlikely to notice WRONG! Today 16:31 I received a text message stating that I had moved and all I needed to do was follow the sign up procedures. I got home to find no new router and no letter explaining the signup. I phoned Orange at 18:30, got stuck in the queue waiting to talk to a human, eventually I do so, "You need to wait another 3 to 5 days" I'm sorry but I need to upload files I explain, there is nothing I can do they tell me. I complain and eventually I am promised a call back. 2.75 hours later I call them again, this time the queue is shorter, they promise me a call before 11:00 tomorrow. I ask if I can use the MAC code that I gave them, "I'm sorry sir but you need a new one" Well tomorrow they will most likely lose both a broadband and mobile customer, one who has been with them since 1994.

Going back over the last few days I am sure that you will appreciate my frustration. On Sunday I photographed the Great South Run down in Southsea. I met up with some cheerleaders who want to have some images - I'll let them buy some, they are not getting them for free. But I need to upload them. Adobe Lightroom is my normal program for making web galleries and then I upload them using Ipswitch WS_FTP. The first upload crashed then I found that Lightroom had also crashed. The Lightroom crash I tried to correct by repairing the program, no good so eventually I removed Lightroom completely then reloaded and upgraded it. I prepared a web gallery at 07:30 this morning and left the house thinking that I would up load it tonight. I got home tonight to find the mess described above, not sure when this will go up.

18/10/09

Well my other business prevented me from going to Paris, but when I looked at the news I was glad - ferries were prevented from docking on Friday due to industrial action thus I might have wasted a load of money looking at a grey sea. Despite having purchased a digital storage unit on Ebay, I did not get to take any shots over the weekend. Instead I drove around on Saturday ending up visiting an museum at Farnborough home of the airshow. Today I spent indoors watched the Grand Prix and have just started updating the metatags on my website. Lightroom puts a whole load of tags on each page relating to Adobe, Photoshop, and Lightroom, nothing from the keywords relating to the images. No wonder my hit rate went down.

12/10/09

Brightona the Sussex Heart Foundation bike meeting was on yesterday so I went down to take a look, it was COLD! Because of the weather the numbers were down on last year and people did not stay around. I did manage to get a few shots and I'm about to upload them onto the website. I'm currently debating whether to go over to Paris for the Paris Salon, I worked there on a stand way back in 1992. Just imagine Focus on Imaging but 3-4 times the size. The problem is of course money, hotels in the area are not cheap, and one has to add both food and travel, but it would be the only break I've had this year, so it might be worth it.

07/10/09

I've had a polo club member approach me for prints, you know some people REALLY bug me. The woman asks the price for 11 prints and I give her three prices depending upon size, she revises her request and asks for the price, I reduce my original prices and give her a total. She then has the nerve to ask if I will reduce it. It was already half what the normal photographer would have charged. (it was noticeable, that although he appeared, his camera did not, does this mean that he has been asked to lower prices to unreasonable levels?) I replied saying that my original offer had been a good one, she has now accepted, but I'm sorely tempted to state that since she queried my price, under contract law it means that my original offer became null and void thus I can increase the prices. This woman is a director of Conde Nast and must be earning a six figure salary and she is questioning a bill of £59.25.

30/09/09

I've done a few shoots in the last couple of weeks. I did swimwear and topless again on Studland beach with a local girl Hannah. Hannah did agree to do topless, but when it came to the crunch covered herself with her hands. There is one good shot from the day, but I really must learn the a D cup is too big, stick to a maximum of C. Again there were a few images that were soft and have been deleted.

Last week I went back to Ham Polo club for the last match of the season, it was quite fun being back amongst the whole crowd again. The polo was as usual of a fairly low standard, part of the fun was a fancy dress chukka and I managed to get a whole load of shots which I uploaded on Monday morning. I did get one request for prints to which I responded with prices. I pitched them lower than Ham's normal photographer but have heard no more so I guess that might be a no.

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13/09/09

Well, last weeks shoot went well, got plenty of shots although I was a bit disappointed that some were a bit soft. I've not had that problem before although I was working with my lenses right open in order to minimise the depth of field. I edited it down to about 350 shots and downloaded them onto DVDs. Although Helen does have Photoshop, she cannot open RAW files or even DNG, so to ensure that I sent her the very best quality, I sent TIF files, they are BIG files and I needed 8 DVD's to get them all on. Unfortunately I forgot to post them Monday, so they went out Tuesday first class, the post took until Friday to get there. Helen appears to be happy, she has picked her favourites, all 100 of them. I sincerely hope she isn't going to upload all of them onto her site!

Yesterday I went sailing, I was cold initially and I was really dreading having to strip off in order to clean the boats bottom, when I did so it was great, really very warm since we were out of the wind. The boat was very dirty, we got most of it off, but will need to do it again in a couple of weeks.

Not sure what to do today, there's a bike event in Brighton which I could go to or there's always polo at Cowdray Park, if I was desperate I could go to Ham. Finally of course I could stay at home and watch the grand prix from Monza.

05/09/09

I have just got home having spent the day out shooting general stuff in the Southampton area. The day was marred by somebody stealing the badge off the back of my car. More money wasted trying to keep things looking reasonable. Tomorrow I am shooting my niece Helen Power, she is an actress who has appeared in the West End. She needs some lifestyle shots, so tomorrow we are doing sportswear, and casual clothes. I wanted to go to her place, but she booked a makeup artist from Kent, thus it's been moved here. We will see how it all goes.

03/09/09

Today I helped a friend shoot an opening party for the Penta Hotel in Reading, a big money affair. Unfortunately they booked Lee Ryan as a celebrity guest. He did arrive, one hour forty minutes late, most of the guests had gone home. If Lee is trying to have a career in showbusiness, and here I must add that one cannot really revive a career since being in "Blue" is hardly much to talk about, he is not going about it the right way. Most of the people at the party did not know who he was and the other photographers had to ask what he looked like, that's the sign of a real star (I don't think)! There was one celebrity there, John Madejski, chairman of Reading Football club. He earned his money in publishing, then sold out for £174M, currently worth about £250M. He is Chancellor of Reading University and Deputy Lieutenant of Berkshire, he is a benefactor of the arts academia and education, and, having spoken to him a really nice guy, maybe not nice to do business with, but he was nice to me and everybody else that I saw him talking to. I got home about midnight having passed my memory cards over for the work to be downloaded.

31/08/09

Well it's the bank holiday, not that I'm doing much, I suppose I could go to the Notting Hill Carnival, but at this stage I'm unlikely to get a press pass so I'll be behind the crowds, not good. I also have to "process" the images from yesterday.

Sunday's shoot was good, I discovered a Lithuanian girl Skirmante Savilionyte on Purestorm, she came all the way from Dagenham to Eastbourne for the shoot and was a real star, we started late in the day to avoid the crowds and hopefully get the nice evening light, well the light was not to be, but since it was not warm, the crowds were absent too. We had met up at the station and walked via the car to the beach to work Skirmante, stripped off into an ASOS bikini with a bandeau top, we removed the strap and it did look good. Skirmante is only 5ft 5ins, but being a size 6 is a good shape. We did a few changes and her chaperone also ended up modelling for me. We finished after about 90 minutes and after getting a model release form signed, we walked back to the station. I then returned to the car and drove home. The traffic was much better than last week and albeit the journey was shorter, despite economising by following lorries, I was home in about 90 minutes.

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24/08/09

Had another busy weekend, sailing on Saturday, unfortunately it was cold again and there was a fair bit of wind, we had decided to clean the bottom of the boat by dropping an anchor by an island on Portsmouth harbour, then jumping off with a brush and running it underneath, but by the time we got ther the wind was up and it would have been too difficult to hold the boat. Instead we picked up a swing mooring and had lunch. Whilst this was on a model from Purestorm phoned about a possible shoot on Sunday, yesa she could do it, she had arranged a chaperone, so we agreed to meet at 16:00 at Sandbanks beach car park to start work at 17:00

I left home early on Sunday aiming to get to Sandbanks and look around and possibly relax on the beach before starting work. The journey was fine, but I did have to wait 30 minutes to park. Sandbanks is a renowned beach, but why I have no idea, it's long, sandy and shallow shelving all good. But yesterday the beach was full of fat Brits, I swear that I have never seen so many overweight people in one place, if one could melt all their fat I'm sure that the oil shortage would be solved. Having checked out the beach, I moved the shoot to Studland. Samantha turned up with Jess another model who was acting as her chaperone.

Samantha is/was wonderful, she is young 18, pretty, short, 5ft 5 ins, and beautifully proportioned at size 6, she has no tattoos and only her ears are pierced. The weather was not perfect for swimwear there being a cold wind, but Sam was up for anything that I suggested, going in the sea and getting very cold. I too had to get wet going in up to my thighs in order to get the stuff that I wanted.  I'm still working on the shots and will upload a few by the end of the week. After the shoot we went to the cafe and had a coffee, Sam even insisted upon paying.

10/08/09

Had a busy weekend, sailing on Saturday, which was great, I haven't been out for weeks and although the wind was against us both ways, it was good to be out on the water. Sunday I went down to Cowdray Park to cover the polo. I knew it would be busy as it was the Pony Club Championships, little did I know, as I arrived there was a parade of 218 riders. That over, there was a match and finally the prize giving. Prize giving lasted forever, I decided against shooting every winner since there were 9 trophies, with prizes down to 5th place for some. I uploaded the stuff first thing this morning and emailed one of the hunts which supports one of the teams. i don't know whether it will bring in any business we will have to see.

Krystal is moving house as her father is being posted. It won't happen for a bit but I'm trying to sort out some shoots urgently as I've got a load of swimwear in specially for her.

01/08/09

I realised I forgot to mention the bed and breakfast where I stayed. Heath View House just outside Wareham. very nice, nice people, reasonably priced, what more can you ask for? Tea/coffee making facilities in the bedroom would be good!

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31/07/09

Came back from Dorset today, I went down there with the view to doing three shoots. The third shoot was a bit of a long shot, I left Esher with everything still in the air, the hope was that by the time I got down there I might have a shoot lined up for that evening. Unfortunately that was not to be. My bad luck continued as my second model Kimmy22 texted me that same evening to say that had gone down with swine flu, so that meant that Thursday morning was a no show. I decided to go to Studland beach early on Thursday, I could hopefully catch up with Krystal and do a fitting ready for that afternoon and the next morning as I knew that her family were trying to spend a time on the beach. As I was walking up the beach I received a phone call from Nicky, Krystalcole's mother. Krystal had gone down with tonsillitis, they were going to the beach, but she was staying in bed. We met up a an hour later and relaxed on the beach until the rain came down. We sheltered from the rain and went and had a coffee, I then showed them where I had been intending to work with Krystal, and found to my horror that the beach was exceedingly crowded. I had intended to start early and by now it was now 13:30, but that is was worrying. I took them back to the ferry and bid them farewell.

Whilst in the ferry car park I phoned DaniD, Marianne answered and told me that Dani was out but when she returned she would ask her. I went back to the cafe and noticed a girl who I approached, her name was Laura and I suggested that she get her mother to call me. I then left and went into Swanage. I had an idea and texted Megan  Bravington a girl who I have been trying to work with, she lives in Bournemouth, she had been one of the options for Wednesday afternoon, but had been unable to make it, yes she could do Friday morning, great, I later heard she was not available until 14:30, Marianne texted me about DaniD, she was busy, unhappy at the prospect of coming down to Dorset Thursday and staying overnight. Oh well I thought, I do have a shoot for Friday afternoon I thought. That evening texts between Megan and myself went back and forth since we were shooting later in the day I had decided that Studland was out, instead I asked Megan if she knew of a suitable location, she did and on that note I went out for a meal. Friday morning I checked out of my bed and breakfast since the location suggested by Megan was a fair way away and on the way home. 11:15 another text from Megan, not available until 18:00, I came home, a fruitless trip wasting both time and money.

Were there any good elements of the trip? Yes. meeting Laura, she hasn't contacted me yet but she might, and my meal Thursday night in Wareham, the food was good but one of the waitresses was better, a really great body and since she was wearing leggings, there was a fair amount to be seen. but, I did nothing. possibly she will read this blog, most likely not.

15/07/09

Did the swimwear shoot today, only two models turned up. CandyTume had emailed me over the weekend to tell me that she was going up north because her mother was ill. Another email yesterday advised me that she had died, I might not have believed her, but she has put up an out of office note stating she will be back by 01/09/09, 7 weeks mourning is serious!

The shoot was not a real success, mostly my own fault, the models were not the best, Flowerfairy11 has plenty of experience, but is more suited to figure. NicoleLouise is very new, the initial shots showed her inexperience and are useless, the later shots are better, if DaniD had been with me she could have guided them, but she had other work so that was not to be. Nicole brought her own makeup artist Jade, I had been very suspect of this girl as Nicole had been unable to tell me where she trained, but Jade proved her worth, albeit she travelled extremely light (and I really hate tattoos and tongue piercings :-) ). I've been working on the results, far too many are being binned - stomach problems, but I think I've got a couple that are worth keeping. I did lose one bikini today, it was taken to be tried on, but not returned, shame, but it's not worth trying to get it back.

In return for using the pool, I've agreed to do a shoot for the manager, I've decided that I will try and do a virtual tour, a friend has the relevant software, all I have to do is provide the shots. I did try and do the back garden on Sunday and use Adobe Elements 7 to put it together, it was not a success, apart from the time it took to combine 75 shots I ended up with two houses not one. hopefully Howard's software will get it right.

On the way back from Guildford I saw this gorgeous young girl, I stopped and spoke to her, gave her a card and am hoping she will phone, she's had a few hours and not called yet so I may well be out of luck, but we live in hope.

The Polo shoot on the 19th has now been cancelled, so it looks like I'm at a loose end over the weekend, I've not got ticket to the Gold Cup and people tell me the place will be overrun with photographers and that the organiser restrict everyone's movements too much to make it worthwhile going. If the girl that I met today calls I will try and sort something out with her, what I have no idea, as being very new I can't do anything in public, as she would probably freeze up on me.

12/07/09

Well, things are finally coming together. I have 3 possibly 4 blondes all turning up on Wednesday for a swimwear shoot. One is bringing her own makeup artist, but I'm not sure how good she will be. Models are Flowerfairy11, CandyTume both from Purestorm and NicoleLouise from Netmodel. As previously mentioned, I offered the job to loads of girls thus the possibility of another girl; many did not reply, and number have yet to open their email, and one has blocked me. Flowerfairy11 has lots of experience and I think is going to carry the shoot, but we will see how it goes on the day. I did ask DaniD to assist, it would have been really useful to have a gofer, but she has a paid shoot in the middle of the day and could not get back in time, so it looks like I'm on my own. All I've got to do now is pray for good weather!

The south coast shoot seems to be on the cards as well. KrystalCole is there on holiday, I'm shooting her both Thursday evening and Friday morning and on Thursday morning I'm shooting Kimmy22, who is really keen. I have to collect her from a local station, but that's not too much of a problem.

I did have one concern setting this up, finding a cattery to look after my little girl, she is so soppy, and being left alone for 3 days could prove too much for her. My normal place was full, but fortunately I found another fairly close, so she goes in Wednesday 29th and gets collected Saturday 1st. Knowing her once I return I will be sat on to prevent me going away again.

It's Gold Cup quarter finals today so I think Cowdray Park beckons, I could go to the Brighton Carnival, but I do have a polo shoot coming up on the 19th so I've got to keep sharp, thus polo it is.

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27/06909

I really wish models would obey requests, you ask them to call you, but instead they send an email. The call would have been answered immediately, the email was not answered for 8 hours and the shoot that I was trying organise for this weekend is still not coming together. Yesterday was REALLY busy, I left home at 05:45 to catch the train to Bristol for a meeting, unfortunately I had the time wrong, I was an hour early, never mind, overall it was successful. left there at 13:30 having spent the last hour in the pub having a drink. Got home 16:30, changed then went up to the Toast festival on Clapham Common. Toast is a festival of antipodean culture (read alcohol and food), with music and polo thrown in. The polo was not that wonderful. The first artist on stage was very good, but Goldfish 2009, I was not impressed with, perhaps it's my age, but sampling other people's work and adding a sax and electric bass are not exactly creative. I did get tickets for today and Sunday but I'm not sure it's worth the effort. The shots are up as are the ones from the high goal match at Cowdray Park last week.

Just checked the upload and found a spelling error, I'll have to go back in and correct it.


15/06/09

So what happened at the weekend? Well not a lot, the forecast was rubbish I therefore decided against organising any stuff on location instead I spent Saturday morning scanning some negs for a relative of mine then taking them over Richmond to be printed. I must say that the staff in Richmond have changed a lot since I was last there, but the two girls who were there were rather good looking. I spent the rest of the day going through my stuff to update my NetModel profile and other modelling sites, I've not changed anything yet. Sunday I went over to collect the prints, I had told them I needed it "tomorrow" I did not think that they would take me at my word and assume a 24 hour service, I arrived at 10:55 to find some of it still waiting. I had to go back in an hour, this seriously messed up my day as even 11:00 was a bit late to drive to Gloucester for a shoot. Instead I emailed a girl to work later that day, no response so I assume she was not interested. I did also email a girl in Nottingham about a shoot, we had corresponded earlier in the year, but have been waiting for better weather, she has now looked at the email but not responded.

07/06/09

Friday and Saturday I covered the World Polo Association matches at Hurlingham Park in London. The rules changes introduced are a definite improvement, a "D" in front of the goal extra points if the goal is scored from outside, that encourages players to really hit the ball. The sin bin will I think work although it was mainly a demonstration rather than real polo. Images are already up on my site ready for sale and I've emailed two magazines with a link. I was due to do another swimwear shoot today but the weather forecast was bad so I've postponed it. Instead I went down to Cowdray and covered the Polo, they had a high goal match that was really good to watch. I've uploaded images from all three days onto my site.

25/05/09

So what to do today? It's the Surrey County Show which I've not been to for at least 20 years, thinking about it, I last went by car and that was in a Mini that I sold in 1984! I remember finding a really good spot for parking which was free, and I got entry using a really bad mock-up of a press card; a piece of paper in a plastic folder with the word "PRESS" on it, why anybody gave it and me any credence, I've no idea, but I got in and shot a load of stuff. None of it got published of course.

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24/05/09

So far this weekend has been a bit of a disaster, I was supposed to be shooting swimwear early Sunday morning, having found a replacement model on Friday, she vanished not responding to text messages, I'm going to leave a bad reference for her. In the afternoon I went down to Cowdray and shot Polo, bumped into Clive while I was there, he seems to be doing alright. In the morning before going to Cowdray I'd found another model on NetModel, I emailed her on the of chance that she might be available Bank Holiday Monday, when I  got home I found an email from her saying that I should have contacted her earlier, well if she'd phoned me instead of using email we might have been able to sort it out, why do people not use the phone, text and email are fine, but if you need to sort something out the voice is so much easier and quicker.

20/05/09

Contacted the press office for the London Polo Championships at Horse Guards Parade, it seems that it is about to be postponed, no reason was given but I assume that at the back of it all will be the recession, either people not buying tickets or sponsors running out of money, shame. Can't get hold of the press office for the Hurlingham games, could it be the same problem, the deadline is very tight?

Still not decided about Newquay, although I have been trying to sort something out a bit closer to home, not having much luck with models, one who did response looked like she had appalling tan lines, not good, it's not that I was intending to do topless, more that the garments she will be wearing will reveal white bits.

18/05/09

For the last two weekends I've been covering polo. I'm a member of Ham Polo Club although that may change, since although I've been supplying the Club photos free of charge for the last 10 years of more they've suddenly decided to get in some new guys. Last year I did visit a few other clubs, Cowdray Park in Sussex and also Epsom in Surrey. Cowdray is of course the home of the Gold Cup which is quite a prestigious tournament. The standard of play at Cowdray is much higher than Ham, think first division compared to third division. Clive, the photographer at Cowdray is a nice guy and I'm not looking to take business away from him, so we will see what happens. The people at Epsom are nice but this is really a school rather than an actual club so the quality of play is low albeit very enthusiastic. I've applied for press passes for the two tournament being held in London this year, one at the Hurlingham Club in Fulham, the original home of polo, the other is at Horse Guards Parade, the latter is area polo, three as opposed to four people per team and a larger soft ball. I've not received a response from either of the organisers so I don't know what will happen. If you go to my index page you can find a link to a separate polo index showing each event covered so far this season, with a few images from 2008.

May being upon us, I do need to set up the swimwear shoots I've been working on. I've got a few girls lined up for shoots, but of course the weather needs to be good, apart from the model being uncomfortable in the cold, a nice blue sky with possibly a few cotton wool clouds just looks so good. I could shoot this coming weekend, as a girl that I want to work with is down in Newquay for a few days. I'm going to hold off any decision until I have a better idea of the weather.

07/05/09

Have confirmed the swimwear shoot with Krystalcole. Although the main beach at Studland does have a naturist part, we will be shooting swimwear.

04/05/09

Have just come back from Dorset, Studland South Beach to be accurate, where I had the pleasure of shooting KerryJade, we arranged the shoot early Friday evening to take place Sunday morning, Kerry is only 17 so she needed to have an adult present. In fact she, her father, mother, and boyfriend all came down, they stayed in a hotel in Poole, then caught the ferry over. Initially I was hoping to start at dawn but since ferries do not start until 07:00 it was decided that we would start as soon as possible after. Unfortunately I missed the fact that the car parks do not open until 09:00, and one is not allowed to park on the roads, we therefore waited outside the car park, fortunately they took pity on us and opened it at 08:00, thus we could start early.

Kerry was an excellent model, she does not have much experience, and is really lacking in confidence, but she looks good and tries hard. We even got her boyfriend in on a few shots,- a romantic couple walking on the beach. I did have trouble when I got back, one card did not want to be downloaded, but after 2 hours work I got the images off it, I'm really pleased that I've limited my card size to 2Gb, if I'd failed with a larger card that would have been serious. I've loaded three images onto my web site and have another complete web gallery available for viewing on request. I'm sending Kerry a DVD of the best images.

26/04/09

Have had a model no-show on me. Annabella Bottali, she initially asked for the shoot to be delayed an hour, then 30 minutes after it was due to start cancelled by text, said she would call when she was "out of hospital", well, she's logged into NetModel a few times since then, and most likely seen the negative reference that I left, but no response.

25/04/09

Have agreed with the pool manager that I can use the pool for a shoot later in the summer. I will pay them in images that they can use for a brochure.

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15/03/09

Did another beauty shoot today, DaniD did the makeup. Samanth666 was the girl, she has images on both Purestorm and Netmodel, when we picked her up at the station we did not recognise her, and the images are not good, it's not so much that she had bags under her eyes, more like suitcases. She was not interested in the work, I should have sent her a DVD of images but I've not bothered and she has not reminded me. I took the opportunity of using the Blad, I'll sent the stuff off to Gemini in Wandsworth for processing.

14/02/09

I see the Krystalcole has put five of my images up on her NetModel profile. She had put six up, but one was rejected on the basis that her nipples were erect (the studio was cold). On that basis I contacted her about doing a swimwear shoot when she is on holiday. I guess her mother responded, so the week beginning 27/07/09 I will most likely be in Bournemouth shooting swimwear.

08/02/09

After far too long a break I did a shoot with Krystalcole a young girl from Wolverhampton. DaniD was the makeup artist again. Overall the shoot went very well , you can see two of the images on my site, and main one being on the index page.

11/01/09

I've now found another makeup artist from Purestorm and am attempting both to book her and the adult model from Purestorm. The shoot if it goes ahead, is likely to be the last weekend in January or first weekend in February. Hopefully the weather will be warmer because the studio is extremely cold at the moment.

04/01/09

Having not had any response from NetModel, I checked another person's thread and contacted a girl from the midlands, she has agreed to do it, I also found another girl on New Year's eve. Both girls are quite young, but will start me back into beauty work again.

26/12/08

I've still not heard anything from NetModel, I got one response from Purestorm, but she did not want to negotiate on price, in fact she just disappeared when I offered to negotiate.

21/12/08

I've not heard anything from NetModel so I've been through my favourites on Purestorm, deleted a load and emailed a few, we will see what happens.

19/12/08

Have decided to resurrect the calendar shoot that I worked out a few years ago. I have put out a forum message on NetModel to see if any girls are interested, since this is a personal project I can't afford to pay them, but the images will be unique and since I'm paying for both travel and makeup I hope I can get it off the ground.

I'm also trying to do some more beauty, this is based on the results of the 14th. I put out feelers on Netmodel, no pay is being offered, but we will see if anybody good wants to work with me.

14/12/08

Did a beauty shoot with Jade_91 from NetModel. Overall communication prior to the shoot was great, her stepfather phoned me a lot to confirm details and ask questions as to location and clothes to bring. DaniD also from NetModel acted as makeup artist, she is enthusiastic if lacking a bit in experience. I have checked through the shots using Lightroom, it is amazing just how many shots I took compared to when I used the Blad. I do finally believe that the D2x is able to give me the results that I obtained from the Blad using Velvia. I did soften the images slightly using a filter, but I do not intend to apply any skin smoothing. A couple of the images have been reduced in size and uploaded. I am checking through the others to see if there is anything else worth uploading.