I had a great new band in the studio for a portfolio shoot today called Firelights. They’re based in Liverpool and are a genuinely great bunch of guys who produce some brilliant music. Check out the details for the band and listen to some of their music on the bands MySpace page www.myspace.com/firelightsmusic.
As they are a new band they were looking for some basic promotional photos for advertising and web sites and so we spent about 3 hours in the studio getting a few different setups and a good mix of group and individual shots. 
Today I was able to get backstage at the Brentwaters Rally Stages event in Bentwaters Airfield Suffolk. My wife knows one of the CoDrivers Lindsey Watson who very kindly invited me along and gave me a service car pass to get into the events main preparation area. I’m a massive car fanatic and so any forms of motorsport really interest me but I’d never been to a real life rally before and so I took Lindsey’s arm off for the invite! Her Driver was John Talyor and they were driving a Ford Escort MkI which for me is a fantastic car and one I’ve always loved. 
Back to Crondon Park Golf and Country Club for another of our wedding workshops run by myself and Mark. We were battling with the weather once again but this time it was a November day and so the weather was pretty typical of the time of year and needs to be factored into a wedding photographers plan. That said we were able to get a good hour outside with our brave models Gareth and Rio enduring the high winds and low temperatures before the rain came and forced us indoors for the later part of the training.
The setup was the same as always with the morning spent running through the events of a wedding day and how to plan it out as well as things to watch out for. Then the models arrive during a nice hot and cold buffet lunch and once everyone is fed we head out to take some pictures. This part of the day is fully hands on and we run through how to use the natural light for individual portraits up to full wedding guests group shots.
We then move on to the bride and groom portraits and show the delegates how to find great shots from almost any area of the venue. We then talk a lot more about posing and using the surrounding for the shots to give the delegates much more confidence to position people and see the shots before even setting them up.
On to Week 3 of the Love In Essex project and we have Tony and Coni from Pilgrims Hatch. Tony and Coni have been together for 22 years and been married for 19 of those. They’re also the Mum and Dad of Josh from last weeks Love In Essex shoot and have another teenage son.
This weeks shoot started in the beautiful grounds of Ingatestone Hall but this was closed for the winter and so we moved onto Mountnessing Windmill for the remainder of the shoot. The weather was on our side with a glorious sunny afternoon dispite some heavy rain showers in the morning.
Week 2 of my Love In Essex project introduced me to my youngest couple currently booked onto the project, Josh and Justine of Brentwood. Josh at 17 and Justine at 16 signed up to the project right at the beginning and helped to spread my age range from 16-90!
I had the very first couples location portrait shoot for my Love In Essex project today. My first couple was Dawn and Sean who came in the studio for a portrait photography shoot a few months ago and I think it was working with them that gave me the insiration for the project. Dawn and Sean actually live in South Weald Country Park in Brentwood as Sean manages the maintanance of the park as well as other country parks across Essex. Dawn also works for the council managing country parks and so they seemed a perfect start for a project showing the beauty of Essex!
This evening I shot portraits at a charity event at The Burstead Golf Club. 
My personal project “Love In Essex” launched this week with an article in the Brentwood Weekly News newspaper covering my plans. Little did I know that it was actually featured in the front page! As a result of this the uptake has been fantastic and I’m getting a great list of couples e-mailing me requesting to join the project.
So today was a big day for me, I had a wedding to shoot locally in Brentwood registry office for Joanne and Dan Green but I wasn’t needed for the afternoon and so we had a party of our own to celebrate my son Nathaniel turning One! The party was held in a church hall in Doddinghurst and lots of Family came along as well as lots of his little friends that we met through the NCT (National Childbirth Trust) AntiNatal classes. I tried to leave the camera alone and enjoy the party but with my portrait photography insticts and loads of available candid photgraphy to shoot, I took a few shots of the day and I’ve posted a couple on here for all to enjoy :O)
We had our first wedding workshop today in the beautiful setting of Crondon Park Golf Club and Wedding Venue (
We had to battle with light showers and strong winds but this just added to the realism of a wedding photographers job and we used it to our advantage with flowing veils and windswept fields. We finished the shooting indoors with some advice on creative flash techniques both on and off camera.
