I just have to share one of the photographs from my new project of Preston Bus Station, Lancashire. I will be launching it in September. So here is a sneak preview of one of the final photographs.

Well I am not one who likes to boast but I have had my busiest three months ever, I have also had clients with decent budgets and realistic time frames.

I think there is a realisation that to get good photography takes time and money. It is worth it (well I would say that). Give the photographer space and time to develop ideas and you will get much much better quality images. Expecting photography to be done as quick and therefore as cheap as possible is counter productive, we are not plumbers on an hourly rate. One thing I am now indicating to clients is that they are not buying my time but buying a license to commercially exploit the images I produce. There has to be a time element involved but that is worked into the fee along with usages and any expenses.

So long may this busy time continue. I hope mentioning it has not brought about it’s demise.

Bye!

PS Just had a job cancelled on me, damn!!

A few months ago I got an email form Chris Thomas of  Core Design group based in Liverpool. They where putting together a display and exhibition to celebrate the centenary of the Royal Liver building in Liverpool. One of the ideas was to have a reperesentation of the paneled boardroom in the exhibition. This required some very detailed photographs to capture the textures of the wooden panels.  I met with Chris a few weeks later to reccy the boardroom, I had been there before but had forgotten how massive and imposing it was. We decided to photograph one of the panels and one of the columns and Chris was to use them repeated to give an impression of the boardroom. The date was set and a decision was made to photograph the panels and column in section and stitch it together in photoshop. I like to keep as much photographic work in camera and avoid using photoshop too much, but this situation needed photoshop.

The shoot took a whole day and another half day in photoshop but the results where superb. Everyone involved was thrilled with the results. The exhibition looked so good that some people actual thought we had removed some of the boardroom panels and carpet and used them instead.

Here are the original shots and a couple of the exhibition with the representation of the boardroom.

I was recently in Coventry and had the opportunity to visit Coventry Cathedral.

As you may well know Coventry Cathedral was devastated during world war two. A decision was made to build a modern cathedral alongside the ruins of the old as a reminder. The new cathedral was designed by Basil Spence and the foundation stone was laid in 1956 and finally consecrated in 1962.

I have to say this cathedral is magnificent and on a par with the Metroploitan Cathedral of Christ the King in Liverpool (Liverpool Catholic Cathedral). It is a fine example of modern post war architecture and interestingly sandstone was used to unify the two buildings.

Anyway this is not a history lesson you can find more about the cathedral online. This is about the photographs I took. Whilst I was exploring the building the organist was rehearsing, so I had a dramatic sound track to my visit.

Here are some of the images from my visit.

The penultimate photograph in the 10people series is of Carlton Watt of CWWeddings.

I have know Carlton for around 15years and we have worked on projects together many times. Carlton is a photographer in his own right and runs the his succesful wedding photography business and produces personal work for his website Skin Storm.

The idea behind this shoot was to ‘balance’ his head in the bottom right hand corner of the frame. As you can see the only light source is window light from the right hand side. I already had planned that it was going to be in black and white.

When I first shot this I was not entirely happy with the result and set up another set of images which I was very pleased with, however I revisted this image and started to prefer it.

Often is the case that images can look better weeks after the shoot, at the time you can be too close to the image and not see it for what it is.

Here are the alternative rejected images