July 2010

I have been out  of the office most of the week, away in the land of rain, rain, rain, little sun then rain, rain…….lucky I was there with the ‘little sun!’  Processing next week and hopefully my 1st HD film up on the blog as well, just like lots of snappers, when asked are you doing anything with HDLSR vid?   No no, liar, liar pants on fire…we have been beavering away with text books, watching training vids and shooting as much as we can. I think with the advent of digital book readers/iPads coming on the market and people publishing mags that have video embedded in them there is going to be a lot of demand for the moving image and besides all that it’s new toys for the boys and girls obviously.

I am starting to believe that there is nothing this Canon camera can’t do, I was listening to a science programme on radio 4 this Thursday and they were talking about these clouds that formed very high in the atmosphere and can only be seen at night, so Friday night I was out to see them and thought I’ll take the camera, as you do. Well not much sign of the Mystery clouds but did take a few images. I was standing in the field next to our house and its 23.30, I need a torch to see the markings on my lens, so its dark…right, no not if you are a Canon…see below.

We have been dealing with my mums house lately, mostly going through things and making decisions wheather  to throw things away or not, I’ve been having real trouble throwing anything away, it all reminds me of my many happy days with mum, but slowly and with Angie’s patient help we have got through most of it. I am still doing things like watering her garden, thinking that mum would not want the flowers to die…blood hell its been hard since she has gone, I have been seeing a lovely lady at the hospice about bereavement just chating really over a cup of tea and whats coming out is all my anger about the way my mum was treated badly by our hospital for her cancer. I know all you guys should not have to hear all this but it does help me, so thanks you. It is her internment next week, luckly it is at a small graveyard very close to where we live, that feels nice and I hope I will be able to get some closhure on the last 9 months or so. Thank you for listening and if you have lost someone close to you, my thoughts are with you. ray

Well you know everyone thinks that photographers are either on planes or sipping Martinis, well that’s not true and quite a few do cash flow jobs as well as their big block buster byline shoots and if I say it myself some are very interesting work too. Greenwich Uni asked me to take some shots of a site that they just about to build a new architectural centre on and had got permission to go up the scaffolding around St.Alfege Church while it spire is cleaned, the result was unique composition of the Greenwich landscape and Church spire.

Just like London buses, haven’t shot many gardens for a while and then I shoot about 6 in a row, I am not complaining, I love shooting them and meeting the gardeners behind them, its just they way the cookie crumbles sometimes. Just about to shoot one east of Edinburgh a garden set around a Lutyens house, so looking forward to that but the interim we a just processing another garden shot on spec, a lovely cottage garden owned by Albert Wier. it was a pleasure to meet and shoot Albert’s garden, so keep lookout for some RM bylines in those gardening sections.

A good friends birthday this weekend in Northumberland, we love coming up here, just get away from it all and do those important things like walking and taking with good friends, preparing food around a kitchen table, eating drinking well and falling asleep with the weekend papers on top of you in a comfy seat. Fresh eggs from the queen of chickens in the morning and off for a walk, we sertaitainly need it after eating all this.

I think we will move here one day….

Not what you thought, but on a shoot, to capture a property at twilight, this has been a lovley job, great clients and the oweners were very accomadating, just thought I would like to show you a couple of shots.

A great day out, good sunny day, in the English countryside and two Jaguars heading for a walled garden to meet up with 200 others, what more could a simple photographer wont…maybe a 1965 Aston Martin no… no…. My uncle Reg has a 66 mk10 and I told him about the great day me and mum had last year at this event, so he came up for a couple of days, one of which was spend at Luton Hoos walled garden, which was billed as mid summer evening in a walled garden full of cars and petrol heads, very good it was to.