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When entering the Wimbledon Tennis show ground you are not allowed to take a lens longer than 300mm. As the security guards examined my camera bag my heart sank as I thought that my lens was a 400mm. Luckily for me it wasn't and I was able to keep it and to use it as it was only 300mm.

We were able to get hold of two court two tickets and the tennis was amazing and inspiring. The best match being between Stephanos Tsitsipas and Christopher Eubanks. Tsitsipas was seeded 5 and Eubanks unseeded. I felt for Tsitsipas whose mother had a lot to say on the matter - I wouldnt want to be her son after that match!

I hope that my picture here captures the happiness and graciousness of Eubanks. He will now go on to play Daniil Medvedev seeded number 3 in the quarter finals.

Getting your family together for a photoshoot is not always as easy as it sounds. The Participants have to be willing! But it is in fact quite enjoyable and for once you have an excuse to pose AND its worth it, as you will have captured a moment in your lives that will soon pass. Little ones grow up and adults get more wrinkles.

If you are interested Summer is a great time of year, children are bare foot and bronzed and adults more relaxed. I am here for most of the Summer so please do just ask. Prices start from only £250! Have a look at my website under vouchers or just email me.

Summer is here and we are lining up for a super hot weekend at Glastonbury this year. Music is everywhere, there is hardly a day that goes by without some kind of music being played whether it is on the radio, television or even your mobile phone ringtone.

The artist here is actually Louis Cardozo, having just won the 1st round to the Pilton Stage competition with his band (Harry Collis, Joel, Todd and Declan) if he wins this he gets to play in front of 8,000 people at the Pilton Party in September. Then maybe Glastonbury in the future!

Watch out for my next sale item posters of Louis and his band.

Photography has many uses, letting the world know about whats going on for example like photojournalism. As an art, taking pictures that are aesthetically pleasing, pictures that are amusing, interesting or beautiful.

Today it is about marketing, about taking an image that will sell your product. It needs to be factual, your audience wants to see it in different environments, close up, in action, in the studio.

Here is a leather motorbike  jacket, or rather part of it, that shows you the quality of the jacket and how you too could look if you bought one!

Every product needs a photograph, maybe many photographs from different angles, using it in different ways as lifestyle shots or studio shots.

Let me know if you need studio shots for your product and I will give it a go.

I actually took this shot with the car facing to the left, but I felt that it would be a more positive picture if I flipped it and made it seem as though it was going forward...... This is a great teeny weeny little car. A conversion from fuel powered to battery powered by Silents Classics Ltd in Dorset.

As I said in my last blog. this is a great time of year to photograph......

May and June are the MOST glorious months. One has ideas to do all sorts of things. As a photographer I pass a beautiful view and think 'I must get up at 4am very soon to catch the light and photograph that view'. But alas do I? Yes but never enough. 

Children grow so fast; in the moment you think as a parent that there is never a free moment and that you will never have 'me' time and then in the blink of an eye they all big and have left home. At this point there is a lot of 'me' time.

I love capturing those moments during childhood or at any stage in life. Then looking back and remembering those wonderful full summer days in May and June.

I have been doing a personal project, taking one hundred photographic portraits of people who live/work in our local town Mere. It has been fascinating meeting one hundred random people! So many different lives, jobs, interests going on in one town. I love it when my subject makes an effort and poses well for me, it isn't always easy to get them to do so! General David Leakey, Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod 2010-2018 was extremely game. Thank you David.

So this has taken me almost eighteen months - I will be part of our local Wylye Valley Art Trail exhibiting a selection of portraits as well as other photographs. There will also be a book of all the portraits that for anyone who is interested can purchase.  (hardback 12" x 12")

This project has been a massive learning curve on lots of levels. I cant wait to show it off.

There are particular times of the year when root vegetables are at their best, right now in England we are crawling to the end of the season as a new sowing and planting season is about to begin.

I have chosen these vegetables for their rawness, their character and their earthiness. They say that an interesting portrait has to be of a face with character. The same goes for these root vegetables. I imagine these in a kitchen, perhaps in a gold frame. This is one of a trio.

 

I have had the wonderful opportunity to visit a children's home in Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. These children have nothing except donations and charity kindness. Life isn't easy for these children they come from broken homes. Having a ballet class once a week is the highlight and they love it. Here I found the wall to the dancing/living/sleeping/eating room and they gladly posed for me. Of course I will have to give them a copy as I have with others and it will decorate the walls in the future. I could have happily made this a B&W image but I love the luminescence of the green tutus.

It is not the image that I like here, rather the content of the image . It is so french, it is where you order a cafe with a croissant whilst smoking a Gauloise cigarette. Not me personally but some poor romantic young writer.......... And that is what I like about the photograph you can loose yourself in it, imagining the characters that frequent La Favorite. Not every photograph has to be a stunning image, but they have to be interesting. This restaurant/cafe one day will be a memory and this photo will jog our memory as to what Paris was like.

 

It would be a sin not to have taken your camera out yesterday morning as a photographer. The sun was shinning, the ground was as hard as stone and the trees were twinkling with tiny hard white crystals of frost.

In this shot, I used my wide angle lens with a polaroid filter, the filter brought out the skies and added a drama to this image. 

To see a hard frost and sunshine like this is southern England is not a common thing, we have about ten - or less - mornings like this a year. It's all about getting out of bed and taking the opportunities. I must get out of bed earlier more often!

I remember my father was working on Christmas Eve, so had to be in London, not coming home to the countryside until Christmas morning. He woke up, left his flat in his slipper and dressing gown to go to the local shop to buy himself some milk. Upon his return to the flat he found that he had locked himself out completely. 

If you know London you know that on Christmas day it can be pretty ghostly, no one was around and he was beginning to get a little chilly. In those days mobile phones were the size of bricks so people didn't carry them around in their pockets. He saw that the old peoples home lights were on, he decided to knock on their door. Some kind nurse let him in and he was given a hot cuppa, a slice of toast and a phone call to my mother. He sat in the dining hall, the old people looking on at this stranger with interest. He began to talk with them, he amused them and they amused him. He was invited to join them for  Christmas lunch, still in his slippers what else could he do? 

When my mother arrived to pick him up he was merry on wine as were all his new friends. I like to think that he made a difference to them on that Christmas day, it was definitely a wonderful story for him to tell us when he got home as he tucked into his second Christmas lunch with his family. 

I am not sure how much of his story is true as I was just a child, so pups please forgive me if I have got it wrong. But it was an inspiration to me that you were able to have a wonderful day with a group of strangers and accept that not every Christmas Day goes to plan.