Last week I received a phone call from a student called Marin who was looking to do some work experience with a professional photographer over the Easter break. She is studying photography at the University of Gloucestershire and would like to get into fashion and portrait photography. After Marin spent the day with me I asked her to write a quick blog for me about her experience – so here it is: (more…)

Three-time Olympic gold medal-winning sailor Ben Ainslie and England spinner Monty Panesar were 2 of my subjects these past couple of weeks. I photographed Ben with his mum at the Royal Lymington Yacht Club and Monty at a Travel Lodge hotel in Luton. One location had terrific potential (but awful weather) and the other was a rather bland hotel on quite a nice day. In this job though you just have to make the most of it. And that’s where experience counts…..
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Had a busy week marketing and networking as well as a few photography commissions. When networking it’s vital that you follow up on good leads. I always write details on any business cards I receive, such as where we met and a couple of notes on what we talked about, whether it be a business portrait, website photography interest or when to contact them if they’re not in the market right now.

I always follow up leads with an email or phone call. If it’s a potential alliance segment then I try to arrange a “one to one” to have a longer chat. This is great because often other ideas will come out that you hadn’t even thought about such as “have you thought of….” This then plants another idea “seed” in your mind. And from small seeds grow large forests……
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This week I discovered that the endless list of jobs I had going around in my head actually wasn’t as long as I’d previously thought. Lots of us say “Oh I’ve got so much to do, there’s just not enough hours in the day”. Well, this week I discovered a way of writing a to do list that really helped me to get on top of things. Sometimes I can be easily distracted when I’m sitting down in my office in front of the computer screen. I can a start a job and then something will trigger me in to starting another job before I forget it. The problem is I don’t necessarily go back to what I was working on in the first place, so that doesn’t get finished. And so on and so forth and before long I’m trying to work on several jobs at once, not getting anywhere with any of them and in my mind that never ending list is getting even longer.
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Tuesday did a business portrait shoot with Peter & Julie Morris of Pinewood Asset Finance

Attended a Marketing Strategy Workshop on Wednesday run by “marketing guru” Nigel Temple. It was a very valuable day for both me and 10 other members of The Marketing Compass. I came away with some great “low cost” marketing ideas and a much clearer picture of my marketing plan. It was great listening to other members of The Marketing Compass and my photo business cards were a big hit – I even think I may actually be getting to grips with this whole “Marketing” thing!!
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This week started with a “one to one” shoot for The Times at Woburn Golf Club with Ian Poulter who was launching the Autumn/Winter collection of his leisureware range. These events are typical of quite a lot of work I do for the paper. You usually go along with a journalist and get an hour to do both words and pictures, usually a 45/15 minute split, but often ends up with the snapper getting. 5-10 mins for pics.
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