A if for Alphabet Weekly

So I’ve been struggling lately to find a creative reason to pick up my camera. Many of you will know how this feels…work, family and other projects and other jobs are all very important but sometimes they get in the way of creating something purely for the joy of creating rather than because you’re getting paid to do it.

Life is much busier than when I took part in the 365 days project and I’d be staring down the barrel of a divorce and a straight jacket if I tried doing that again. I also want to do something that doesn’t have to involve my ugly mug. 100 strangers is good but quite organic in the way of timescales (i.e it’s gonna take me forever to complete! lol). I wanted to give myself quite a rigid timeline to force me to create rather than allow me to get lazy and let other things get in the way…..thus Alphabet Weekly was born. I’m going to take and post a shot every week for the next 26 weeks which will relate to the letters of the alphabet (in order). I’m sure there are probably groups on flickr for this type of thing (it’s hardly original) but I haven’t looked yet. I may even start my own group if other people want to get involved. let me know in the comments if you do wanna join me….it could be fun!

edit: you can now join the flickr group here

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.

no 3 of 100

This is Craig, he takes the no.3 spot in my very slow building 100 strangers project. Craig and his Partner happened to wander past a bench we were using for a photo shoot on Sunday morning. It turns out the bench we were using was actually placed in memory of his Grandparents who had passed away a few years before. He was visiting all the way from Australia and wanted to come and visit it. I stepped in to get a picture of them sat on the bench and then cheekily asked If I could get a shot of him for my project. It was a touching story so happy for it to be included in my project.

I’ve also included a picture of the plaque that is on the bench below, If Craig you do end up reading this and want a copy of either picture at print quality just drop me an email and I’ll happily send you some copies.

In Loving Memory

wet and not so wild?

Well SAP is finally live and kicking (in some fashion) at work and as expected with it’s launch my workload has risen ten-fold. The week leading up to go-live was manic and I worked a stupid amount of hours both in the office and from home. Things don’t seem much better yet but I’m now at a point where I’m just doing as much as I can in the working day and resisting the urge to work from home unless it’s a last resort. Everyone needs downtime and I don’t like seeing Robyn and Chloe struggle on without me about so I’m trying to get things back into balance. This issue of balance is something I also need to re-dress as far as my photography  is concerned. I’ve been so busy with everything else my camera has really been neglected over the last few weeks. Tonight I decided I’d try and fix that by recreating a self portrait I took back in January 2008. You can go and see the original here if you want to compare them. They are by no means identical and were shot with very different equipment and in many ways I think I prefer the older shot but it was still fun to shoot and blow the cobwebs off the camera. Anyhoo that’s about it for the moment…..I’m still alive and kicking and hopefully I’ll be around a little bit more as we get closer to Christmas. JINGLE BELLS!!

oooh p.s. Robyn totally ROCKED her School production last night. She landed lead role of Babushka and was an absolute star. #very proud parents#