I used to really enjoy photography, both as a hobby and as a second income.
Lately, I’ve really lost some enthusiasm for it. To save what was once a fun hobby, I’ve decided to have a little break from the paid side of it.
I’ll complete any arrangements already made (got several weddings booked up), but other than that, I’ll only be doing projects I chose instead of seeing what google chucks at me!
I’m currently borrowing a Canon G12 to carry about with me, instead of lugging a rucksack full of camera gear everywhere! Expect a review soon 
After owning my trusty Audi A3 diesel (1.9 Quattro Sport Diesel to be pedantic) for over 3 years, and covering over 40k miles (which is a record for me!) I decided I could take the derv no more!.
I originally set out to get an Impreza, blow some of the cobwebs away and stick with a AWD car, but after looking at a couple of dogs and missing out on all the others that seemed to be on sale I thought I’d broaden my options, on the drive home from a very unsucessful mission to look at and test drive some cars, I stopped of at Mastercars in Hitchin.
Having originally been drawn to stop by a convertible BMW on display, I was quickly disappointed, firstly it was an auto, and secondly it just didn’t look all that special up close…. and then I spotted it, the beast! Dark blue (Mystic Blue), mint condition black leather, xenons etc… even though out of the price range I’d planned on spending, I had to know how it drove… I can tell you, it felt good! 3 ltr straight six with such smooth power delivery! Very strange to drive at first, very torquey but doesn’t feel that quick until you drop a gear and give it some revs!
A part exchange was done, and I collected the car on the 4th of May 2011.
So far, I’ve replaced the headunit with a Kenwood unit to control my iPod (including fitting a central centre column) and had the two wishbones and eye bushes at the front replaced under warranty. I do my daily commute in the car, and with a journey every other day of 70 mixed miles I’m getting 30mpg or slightly above! Can’t complain about that.
Anyway, some pictures.
Myself and Nikki got married in the Kings Hotel in Stokenchurch on the 26th March 2011.
The whole day was perfect, we decided to keep it a fairly small wedding (I’m too tight to be paying out £50+ per head for the meals etc.. for 2nd cousins and the like..) so had approx 26 people for the ceremony section, and about 50 odd for the evening reception.
The weather held out, the venue was amazing, Nikki looked fantastic and the food throughout the day was superb. The evening will celebrated with some great friends and family and I was suitably hungover the next day
The photos were taken by Phil Moran, you can see a video on YouTube with a selection of them in below.
Back in January this year I did the second shoot with my friend and musician of Audio Justice fame, Dan Furr. I didn’t really promote the work at the time as the previous website wasn’t really setup for blogging or anything else, so here we are with a backdated bit of information about the shoot and a few sample pictures.
The first photo shoot we did was done with proper studio lighting, back drops, props and even a stuffed polecat (although the jury is out on that one, both myself and Dan maintain it’s a ferret), for some information and some photos, checkout the entry on audiojustice.com: Picture Show – Audio Justice
Whereas the first shoot was very heavily themed around the album title (House of cards) the second shoot was to be a bit more subtle and shot outside of a studio environment. Myself and Dan talked about a few ideas we had for the shoot (and decided on Cambridge), mainly about the kind of locations we should try and use and a few different posed ideas. In the end though due to lack of time on both of our parts we decided to mainly wing it! Dan bought a boot load of props he’d grabbed on the way out of the door and we set about trying to find some of the locations we’d briefly discussed and to go out and get some extra props in the form of magazines (a copy of the Beano, Chap and some Kung Fu magazine).
We wandered around the streets and parks looking for interesting spots, this ranged from logs, bridges, textured walls and doors. We found various stone walls, nicely worn wooden doors and even a stepped down doorway, all perfect some moodily lit shots!
Ater finishing the walking around part of the day, we returned to the car park where we wanted to do the most ‘posed’ shots of the day with a load of props, unfortunately we’d rather underestimated how busy the car park would be on a Sunday and were forced to use the roof of the car park, dodging the Vectramundanoes we hogged two spaces in the car park, and setup the strobist style lighting I’d bought with me, laid out the props and got snapping. Dan did well posing for the shots given the amount of FREEZING wind that was whipping around the roof, even managing a costume change (having cold hands didn’t seem too bad after that).
Mid way through a security guard turned up to advise us that taking photos in the car park or in the shopping centre wasn’t legal, but we might as well finish up! (for this, we didn’t mention him smoking whilst on duty )
That was that! We got a bunch of very different images to use, for Dan’s verdict on the shoot check out the page on audiojustice.com: Postcard from Cambridge – Audio Justice
Here’s 4 images taken on the day:
For more information about Audio Justice:
