Soo the cold I was trying to fight off developed into a full-on chest infection and really knocked me out for count. Annoyingly it meant that I had to reschedule consultations and a maternity shoot, which has now been moved a week further, which is making me feel a bit nervous and I'm really hoping that the baby doesn't decide to arrive a bit earlier than expected. Fingers crossed we're still good to go on the shoot next week!

Just to add insult to injury I (of course!) got ill on press week, and so I had to drag myself to the office on Friday, even though I lasted just for half a day. Still, that certainly wasn't fun. I did get antibiotics and they started kicking in by yesterday, and today I'm starting to feel like a different person already, so phew. Next week is going to be pretty hectic so I'm very relieved to be feeling better.

I did make it through Claire & Hywel's wedding last Saturday before the illness really hit me, and I'm glad I did as it was one of the nicest weddings I've ever had the pleasure to attend. Pictures are now up on the wedding photography blog.

Labels: my life, photography, wedding photography

Oh my where does the time go.

I'm currently trying desperately to fight off a sore throat and a cold that's trying to sneak up on me. If I can hold it at bay at least long enough to get through tomorrow's wedding I'll be happy...

Last night I went out for some cocktails with a few fabulous ladies. Me, Sooz, Kat, Chanelle, Liz, Ly and Rhiannon, among others, headed to the Cellar Door and took full advantage of their happy hour. Lots of fun was had and useful contacts created. I'm feeling really good about getting a bit of a network of like-minded photographers/wedding people going. Who ever says Twitter is useless just has no idea. Of anything. End of.

After my painful computer meltdown I fell so behind in all sorts things that I decided to admit defeat with my 365 Bokeh project. No matter how much I love doing it, when something becomes a chore it's not really beneficial to try to desperately to fit it in... Perhaps I'll pick it up again in the autumn when my calendar calms down a bit.

Oh and Maesha & Pete's wedding is now up on the wedding photography blog. What a long, but fun, day that was!

Labels: my life, photography, wedding photography

Too right! Found this via Kai.

Labels: comic, dreams, my life, photography, social networking

Yay finally a new addition to my Duality Project (see the rest in the gallery). This is Kat from Rock 'n Roll Bride, and she is number 14 in this series that I've been working on for what seems like forever now. My goal is to photograph 50 women in all... sooo at this rate I'll probably be about 60 years old by the time I finish it. :D Anyways, if you want to see some more photos I took of Kat on the day, head over to MTP blog.

Labels: photoblog, photography, rock n' roll bride

This week... let's not even go there. It's like everything that could go wrong in your worst nightmares has gone wrong, and then some.

I'd rather talk about seeing Antony & the Johnsons at Hammersmith Apollo last night. I went with Sooz (the ticket was her birthday present as she missed seeing Antony at the Barbican last October), but we had to leave Stu at home to try to sort out a serious computer crisis, which sucked a bit. After seeing Antony at Kulttuuritalo in Helsinki in 2007, and then at the Barbican last year, I was a bit worried about how a venue like the Apollo would work. And, as it turned out, I had a reason to be worried.

I have waxed lyrical about the out-of-this-world quality of Antony Hegarty's voice, and the life-altering effect of experiencing his live performance, plenty of times before. And yes, those things were present yesterday. There's no other voice I have ever heard that can instantly move me to tears when it flows through me, and in that respect, I wasn't disappointed.

What I was disappointed, no, disgusted with, was the audience. Well, not everyone obviously. I'd say about 80 per cent of the people were there to actually listen, but the other 20 per cent did do their darnest to try to ruin the whole experience for everyone else. Seriously, if all you care about is running back and forth getting more beer, not giving a shit how much noise you are making or how it might be affecting the artist on stage, why not just go to a pub? Surely that would be a lot cheaper night out as well. I just cannot comprehend it. When something larger than life is happening right before your eyes and ears, and when the artist is clearly dragging out the start of the song waiting for people to quiet down, how can anyone in the same space not notice this and stop breathing, instead of carrying on with banging and running around? It's such an insult to the artist, and in this case, to everything that is good about the whole friggin humanity. At some point Antony clearly got annoyed and pulled back emotionally. The voice was still there, but it was clear he didn't want to give anything more to the audience. He did come back for two encores, one of which was the always amazing Cripple and the Starfish. To be honest, if it was me, I wouldn't have come back. But it was lovely that he did want to do that for the people that were there for him. I think everyone did try to make up for it by the huge standing ovation.

I am glad I went, even if it was a mix of elation and pure anger, and I'm sure I will in the future try to see him live when ever I get the chance. My overwhelming feeling throughout last night was put into words by someone commenting on a youtube video with 'The world doesn't deserve him'.

Oh and the picture from the concert is by Marc Broussely, who funnily enough is one of my clients (whom I've yet to meet), who's wedding I'm photographing in August. I had no idea he'd worked the gig until I saw his blog today! Funny coincidence. :D

Here's a clip of River of Sorrow from the Barbican in October 08.

Labels: Antony and the Johnsons, gig, Hammersmith Apollo, music, video

A little round-up of end-of-week happenings. Did manage to get the new magazine to press ok, so yay for that. Had two wedding consultations, and the couples were lovely. Friday night I headed off to the Photographer's Gallery with few of my fellow Timeliners to check out The Photographic Object exhibition, which, to be perfectly honest, didn't really do very much for me. I guess I'm just an old fogie but I just don't get the whole 'gimmicky idea=art' concept.

Yesterday I got a craving for some sea so we headed off on a little road trip in search of some seaside. We ended up somewhere close to Worthing, in a little place where evidently people only go to die. But still, I got to breath some sea air, which was nice. The trip was hampered somewhat by a headache that wouldn't leave me alone all day.

Today I had an engagement shoot in Regent's Park, and boy was it hot! It seriously made me rethink any dreams I had of shooting destination weddings on tropical islands. :D Jeez. I think I should consider specialising in winter weddings, much less sweating involved. Anyhoo, I'm about to edit some of today's shoot now, before collapsing into bed. So it's over and out from here.

Labels: 3mobilebuzz, my life, photoblog, Photographer's Gallery, Timelines, worthing

How can it be press week again?? Time is a perplexing thing. So far this week has been super knackering for a lot of reasons, keeping my fingers crossed I'll make it through to the other side. It's Bank Holiday weekend coming up, and I only have one engagement shoot so should hopefully have some time to just chill as well. Having multiple blogs is getting slightly confusing and I'm not quite sure what I've told where. But yeah, if in doubt, you can always check out the other blog as well. :P

But now I've got to go tidy as, unusually, I have a consultation at home tomorrow evening. (Meeting at a pub involves a lot less cleaning! :D)

Labels: my life, photoblog

Arriving home from work today I had a little box waiting for me by the doorstep. From it emerged a paper beaky, reminiscent of the ones we used to make in school back in the day.

Turns out it was part of campaign material for Terminate the Rate, which launched today. Basically, what's happening is that BT, 3, moneysupermarket.com, NUS, FSB, GMB and Carers UK announced their stand against high mobile termination rates (those pesky additional charges made every time you call a mobile cross-network or from a landline), and launched a campaign to get them lowered to a more reasonable level.

If you want to know more, keep an eye on the Terminate the Rate blog. Oh and if you want to make your own little beaky, you can print out the template from here.

Labels: 3, 3 network, 3Network, MTR, technology, terminate the rate

Labels: photoblog

Thank crunchie it's Friday!

Labels: photoblog

Labels: photoblog