No Posts...

... for such a long time... perhaps because I am busy with so many things that are more important! I have been working hard on getting the studio tidied and functioning well, which is now paying dividends as I am getting regular bookings for portraits and family shots, and now have started to receive wedding bookings for 2011!

I an addition, I have completed my manuscript and photography for the Winter's Tale book due out in the Autumn, publishded by Halsgrove again. Oh - and just in case I get a bit of time on my hands I am on the committee to celebrate the Lymphoma Association's 25th Anniversary next year! What is that old saying about if you want something doing give it to a busy person!!!? It's been a life long habit for me though - the old Rudyard Kipling line from If ... "if you can fill the unforgiving minute, with sixty seconds of distance run", resonates very strongly with me. Life is short and sweet (sometimes) and sitting prevaricating and procrastinating is a waste of our most precious resource - life itself!

So now... what am I going to do on my life journey next? A busy day at the studio beckons, then a visit to Venice tomorrow for a few days of good food and photography, before coming back to shoot a 16th birthday party which I am looking forward to greatly.Oh yes... and the continuing news and magazine wotk with JR which is always fun and challenging!

Volcanic sunset...

...tempted by the tales of spectacular sunsets due to the high flying Icelandic ash, I was out over near Polebrook tonight waiting for sunset...today has been really warm with clear skies, so I knew that there would be no problems with cloud, but in the event I think that one or two wispy strands of cirrus would have helped....

The sun went down in a fiery ball that was blinding to the eyes, until it was almost on the horizon where it travelled through the haze ... this pic shows the effect, but I still think that some clouds would have improved matters!

The Lymphoma Association...

....is planning to celebrate 25 years of helping people with various lymphatic cancers and I have been asked to work on the committee to mark this milestone. The LA is based in Aylesbury and was formed by Felicity and Tim Hilder after Tim was diagnosed with the disease.
Now it has a helpline, chatroom and publishes several helpful guides on coping with the various forms that lymphatic cancer can take
I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 1998, after being unwell for several months, and the support and help that was freely given was a tremendous gift at the most difficult time. I described it as being given a light to help me find my way through the dark cave that cancer was for me. Sadly after diagnosis, most consultants can offer little more than platitudes about how I "may" be lucky as NHL can be managed quite well (usually!)
In the event I was referred to an absolutely brilliant NHS based haemotologist who has given me wonderful care for the last 12 years, and it would be no over statemtn to say that I owe him my life.
Anyway, the LA will be 25 years old in 2011, and needs more money, support, awareness etc to continue to offer the wonderful help that the members provide to people like me - a sobering thought is that lymphoma is the most common cause of cancer in under 30 year olds, and that someone is diagnosed with lymphoma EVERY 7 MINUTES.....there is no "type" of person that can become ill with lymphoma - it is not a disease that is even fully understood yet. Often very healthy active people, like sportsmen and show business celebrities become ill. I had never been really ill in my life until my diagnosis - the first tim that I went into a hospital bed was when I was having a biopsy in 1998 - you can imagine the sheer shock of being told that you have cancer... when you feel only mildly "under the weather". That is the problem with lymphomas, they "lurk" and by the time the avrage patient is diagnosed it has taken a hold.... I was at stage 4 of 4!!! The images show me getting a new type of radioactive treatment a few years ago... this gave me two years of remission! Please note I DID not take the shaky pix... it was the photographer was was nervous, not me !!!
Please check out the Lymphoma Association's website and think about what you can do to help. Please?

Misconceptions and Prejudices...

... are terrible bedfellows, and I was subject to both of them this week. Two commercial jobs with JR took us to photograph some newly installed playground equipment in Stevenage and Cambridge. The equipment is very high quality and the developments have been landscaped to blen into and enhance the environment. All well and good... so the manufacturers and local authorities involved wanted good imaginative photographs to show what had been created. This clearly means shooting the equipment in use with CHILDREN playing on it.... do you see where this is heading?
The shoot at Cambridge was all going well, with all parents happily agreeing to sign releases for their children to be photographed, when I spotted a young lad terrorising an elderly overweight cat, with a stick, whilst yelling obscenities at the poor creature. I intervened and made him put down the stick and leave... cue a tirade of further abuse from his slightly older pals. I also spoke to them and explained why I had told the youngster to leave the cat alone (aren't I patient!!!)... and then to take the "heat" out of the situation took photos of them all on climbing equipment. Cue intervention from "concerned citizen"... who told me in firm tones that I was "not allowed to take children's photographs without the permission of their parents", and asked who I was and why I was there with my "obtrusive camera" ! I carefully (and politely) explained that whilst I actually did NOT need permission, as the park was a public place, in the event I was acting for on behalf of the council and manufacturers and was also wearing an identity badge to that effect.
I also explained about the boys and why I had taken them... she conceded that she had heard them giving me "a hard time" verbally, but pointed out that as she was a teacher she was concerned that this was "illegal".... after a while she left but half an hour or more returned to virtually accuse me of lying! She had "thought" about my comments and was concerned that even though I may be ok, this was how "grooming" started and it was "wrong"...I gave her the local authority contact phone number, my business card and the manufacturers contact details and still she was not satisfied....
I feel it is terrible how the frenzy and paranoia about perfectly innocent men with cameras has now reached the stage where uninformed people (no matter how well meaning) feel that they must intervene and state "the law". These days it seems that if you carry a camera you are either suspected of being either a terrorist or a paedophile - what has created this climate of fear amongst people? There is now a whole industry engaged in training people to spot and identify "stranger danger" and ultimately this leads to a break down of human communications, where a male adult is almost prohibited from chatting to children, or even in the case of a misbehaving child, offering some guidance and instruction in better behaviour.
Isn't it ironic that some of the worst abusers convicted in recent years have been women, in positions of authority at schools, play groups and domestic situations etc....

Instow Beach...

... was a glorious place to be yesterday evening, a slight nip in the air still, but a wonderful golden light from the setting sun, gave everything a magical glow... the sands here are clean and soft, with just the right amount of "give" to make walking on them a pleasure. I was (naturally!) taking photographs of various marine subjects, when a little way off I saw a woman dressed in red, with what looked like three white rough haired labradors...

They dogs were in fact Maremma sheep dogs, and their charming owner, Penny, told me all about them. They are not used for herding or controlling sheep as in the UK, but for guarding them against wolves in the hills of Tuscany. These dogs form a bond with the sheep that they guard and work without a human interfering! They live withe sheep in the hills and are intelligent enough to know when things are getting dangerous for their flock, apparently. Despite their docile appearance and sweet nature, clearly these dogs are bred for bravery... My pic today shows them posing for me on the beach!

There I was...

... enjoying a quiet bit of pro active photography in the countryside, when I got a call from my colleague, John Robertson, aka JR. "Can you get me to Sywell aerodrome and wait for an hour?", he asked....well of course I could but why would I want to wait when there was a chance of a flight in a Cessna 4 seater!!!?

So less than an hour later, I found myself strapped into the rear seat, snugly sandwiched between my camera bag and the window, en route for Bedfordshire.... a 20 minute flight! Much better than the 3 hours I endured sitting in a jam on the A14 only last week. I can't talk about the reason we were flying around for a while, but it provided me with some great opportunities for unusual views of familiar places. These will all end on my Alamy stock library I hope!

Today's picture shows us about to land back at Sywell, on their new all weather concrete runway - brilliant!

Later I managed to capture the fun pic of the stick man and the balloon - pure luck that I saw the situation developing as the ballon was being blown along the ground towards the painted figure on the ground... a little patience and the shot was made!

Oops...

... nearly forgot to say happy St Patrick's Day!