I made some quick changes here on the blog last night after pinching an idea from Mr Pollock. It’s not a new idea in the world of blogging but one I hadn’t thought about in a while until I saw it on Simons blog over the weekend. The basic idea is that I’ve now provided an easy way for people to give me a little caffiene love.

So If I’ve helped you out with some advice, tweaked your website, done you a favour, written something you’ve enjoyed or found useful, taken a picture that has inspired or interested you, shared something useful on twitter etc well you now have a nice easy (and relatively cheap) method to re-pay that favour and spread good karma. All you have to do is hit the ‘buy me a coffee’ button now on most of my blog pages (down in the sidebar–>) and you will taken through to a nice secure paypal page where you can donate enough money to buy me a great big steamy hot COFFEE! mmm slurpy caffiene goodness. Yay! Obviously there is no obligation on this- I help people out all the time and don’t expect much in return (unless I send you an invoice…lol) and I will continue to do so but if you feel like treating me then now you have the ability at the click of a button.

Some obsessions are good, some are bad…this one….well it’s different .

I think I’ll make it a new years resolution not to take more padlock pictures.  Maybe I could take them but not post them. Maybe I just shouldn’t worry about resolutions, I’m four days late starting already…..oh well…bring on the padlocks!

J. Scmid is M.Parr and Vice Versa

I’m posting this a lot later than hoped as I’ve tried to spend my time off over Christmas having a complete break from all things work and internet related. I’ve been picking things back up though over the last couple of days and by the end of this week will be firing on cylinders again. This post relates to an enquiry I received a few months ago from Martin Parr (well his assistant) to use one of my images in a book project he was undertaking with a fellow photographer (Joachim Schmid). I have always loved Martin Parr’s work so was VERY excited about the fact that Martin and his friend Joachim Schmid had chosen one of my images for their joint project. I then didn’t hear anything further for a few months and after not receiving any replies to my emails I just assumed the whole thing had been shelved….booo….that was until a few days before Christmas when my signed copy arrived. Woohooo! I’m very pleased, I doubt it will ever be a best seller but it’s quite cool to be involved in a project with someone who’s work I really like and it’s always nice to have an image published. If you want to find out more about the idea behind the book then hop along to blurb where you can find out more details about the project, preview the book and if you so desire buy a copy.

If being in the book isn’t cool enough then I’m even happier and honoured to note that the photo on the opposite page to mine is shot by the flickr legend lomokev (aka Kevin Meredith) and author of the amazing hot shots book (which Is one of the few books I’ve read cover to cover). You can read Kevin’s blog post on the book here on his blog.