I know that organising events like this takes a lot of work, so thank you to all those involved. The venue was great, if a little cold, and really got into the spirit of the event with a special menu for the day. The best part of the day for me? I got to have a new photograph taken with Louise Jameson.

I’ve even created a Facebook group to that effect which you can join if you think that I’m not totally talking out of my hat. http://www.facebook.com/groups/188805587884093/

Photo by National Media Museum on Flickr under Creative Commons by-nc-nd 2.0.

That was what I sent in an e-mail to Graham Binns before Christmas. The obvious subtext was “please make me seem likeable, co-ordinated and, if possible, a bit cooler than I am.” So what’s the first image I get to see from the shoot?

Yeah, thanks for that.

We got together for the shoot just before Christmas. Graham is always fun to be with and it was an enjoyable shoot. He was ably assisted by his awesome wife Sarah. I felt pretty relaxed posing and enjoyed a nice meal in a nearby pub afterwards to defrost! I can’t wait to see the photos where I am actually managing to stay upright and get it on the landing page…

• Setting up my photography business and actually starting to work photographing weddings!
• Attending “The Workshop” run by the awsomely-awesome Jasmine Star
• Having a great week in Cumbria, despite the rain
• Attending my first ever Grand Prix at Silverstone
• A full season of doing the Ubuntu Podcast live: the most fun season yet
• Flying to New York for Zoe and Stuart’s wedding and had a great time
• Meeting Colin Baker, John Leeson and David Gooderson
• The loss of both Nicholas Courtney and Elisabeth Sladen
• OggCamp 11: the biggest and best yet
• Attending Home Camp 4. Mmm, vietnamese food!
• Helen and Jeff’s 1920s themed wedding
• Seeing Chris in his first stage appearance in a long time
• Recording a LugRadio reunion
• The Box
• Doing very well at Puretech Racing
• Seeing Richard Herring live twice
• Visiting the Doctor Who Experience
• Completing a weekend of fun and adventure with Graham Binns to make some great images
• Getting Ubuntu membership
• Losing a couple of stone (and so far have kept it off!)
• Doing fun things with Neil and Amy: A canal boat trip, a murder mystery, a tour of Christmas lights
• Visiting and playing host to more family and friends than last year!

I’m pretty pleased with that. Getting my business up and running has taken a lot of time and meant not seeing as much of some friends as I’d have liked. I’ll work to redress that. I think 2012 will be even more eventful though. Especially as I start a new job in January…

I’m a big fan of Christmas. Not just because I take two weeks off work! I love preparing for the Christmas episode of the podcast (the version of A Christmas Carol in this year’s is getting rave reviews!), spending time at home as well as travelling through the dark to visit friends and family. This year we have added rather snazzy TARDIS and Dalek decorations to the tree. And the food! Those treats which never seem appropriate at any other time of the year are suddenly justifiable!

It’s also a time to catch up on little projects. This year I’m experimenting with a medium format camera. Even though I’ve only used a few exposures, it’s already had the effect of slowing down the process of making a photograph happen. I’m so used to the instant feedback of a digital SLR and working iteratively to get a shot right that using a camera with no review screen, no internal light meter and only a paltry twelve exposures on a roll of film has made me really make sure I get everything set up correctly before firing the shutter. Hopefully I’ll have some results to share in a few weeks.

Every year I make a Christmas donation to an open source software project or two which I’ve used in the preceding twelve months. This year I chose the OpenShot video editor. I’ve been using it to edit some video projects for the lovely Emma Lappin Flowers and I hope to be able to share them with you very soon. It’s a long way from being finished but hopefully the developers will deliver a stable, fast and feature-rich video editor for Linux.

Merry Christmas!

If anyone can identify what “The 4802″ might have actually been, please leave a comment.

Chris and Stuart

At the weekend I met up with some of my best friends from school. It’s almost twenty years since we all ended up in the same secondary, and geography, life and careers mean that we don’t see as much of each other as we would like. But it’s a lot of fun when we do and I’m grateful that we still get on!

Gareth

OK, this might get a little complex for casual readers. This box is one of a pair, specially commissioned for my brother and me by our antipodean Auntie Marjorie. We were presented with them at BBQ a couple of weeks ago. Each has our initials inlaid in the lid. What makes them even more special is that they were made by Hamish Low. Hamish is an expert cabinet maker, producing a range of extraordinary creations with Nicola. He specialises in Bog Oak, the correct drying and treatment of which is an art-form in itself. You can see more of their work amazing work on their website. The craftsmanship on the boxes is superb, with delicate marquetry in the lid and round the base.

It gets even more personal though. Hamish has been a friend of my family for years. His Mum was my Godmother. When my brother and I were growing up, Hamish’s sister would baby sit for us. My Dad apparently forced Hamish to the pub on his 18th birthday. Hamish still uses the same tools that my grandfather, also a wood worker, did when he was alive. So they have a great story behind them as well as being generous gifts! Thanks Marjorie, Hamish and Nicola!

On Wednesday I attended a workshop in London run by Jasmine Star, a hugely successful wedding photographer from California. Why? Well, I photographed a wedding in June and really enjoyed the experience. I learnt a lot and was pleased with the results. Happily other people seemed very pleased with them too and I had some enquiries about photographing other weddings in the future. So I’ve been working on setting up a business doing just that. Having learnt a lot from Jasmine’s Creative Live classes, attending the workshop seemed like an ideal opportunity to ask lots more questions, learn about the business side of wedding photography and meet some people who I hoped (and hope!) could become my peers.

I won’t beat about the bush: It was an expensive event to book on. When I first heard about it, I had dismissed the idea of going out-of-hand due to the combined cost of the day itself, travel and accommodation. I spent the next couple of days mooching around, feeling that I was going to miss out on a great opportunity to learn. “If you’re still thinking about it two days later, you should go,” Laura told me. “We’ll find the money.” So I did. And I’m glad that I did.

The workshop was at One Marylebone, a light and spacious de-consecrated church. The food, furniture and flowers were all provided for the day by other weddings vendors. Jasmine was exactly as I expected her to be; smiling, laughing and loud. The morning focussed primarily on branding and lots of the practicalities of working with clients. By the end of it, I was even more impressed with Jasmine’s laser-like focus on knowing her clientèle and how to attract them than I was before. It was an informal affair: The small group size meant that everyone was able to ask plenty of questions. Happily there were a couple of other photographers from Hampshire there too, Sam and Carrie. Also on hand was Jasmine’s husband and full-time second shooter, JD, to provide support and water and whatever else Jasmine asked for!

The morning passed in a blur. I was nervous. Buttock-clenchingly, voice-shakingly, glass-droppingly, clumsiness-inducingly nervous. More nervous than I had been on any photo session, conference or when I’m podcasting to thousands of people. I made the mistake of looking through the websites of the other class members not long before the workshop and it really unsettled me. If these established photographers felt they had something to learn from the day, what was I, a website-less, logo-less, three-words-to-describe-your-style-less starter-uperer doing there? Everyone else had spent the last couple of months getting to know each other through Facebook (I’d not been added to the group and forgot to chase it up) so I felt even more out of it. Not that everyone wasn’t absolutely welcoming and friendly; they all were! It was just hard. I was nervous. Did I mention that?

The latter part of the afternoon was taken up with a photo shoot with a real couple, Rachel and Dan. Jasmine led the way and everyone had the opportunity to pose them if they wanted. I struggled a bit as the only lens I had suitable for indoor use with natural light was the 50mm f1.2L. Shooting in a pack of other photographers is hard enough normally and even harder with only a 50mm! I worry about how to differentiate what I shoot from everyone else, especially when you’re physically that close together. It got a bit easier to shoot when we moved outdoors but I still didn’t really have an image in my head that I wanted to create.

As we moved back inside for a final few photos, I spotted the bouquet and shot it on top of the lovely iron radiators in front of the windows. JD came over and shot it too. We ended up chatting for a few minutes about the business, life-styles and all sorts of things. JD is an astonishingly easy-going guy. He’s warm and friendly and talking to him really calmed me down. I think I developed a bit of a man crush on him!

After the shoot we went off for a meal at a nearby restaurant, Villandry. I got into some in-depth discussions, particularly with Peter and Delia as well as JD. By the end of the meal I was relaxing nicely and wished, along with several other people, that there was a second day of the workshop to which to look forward. But there wasn’t so we went to the bar to try and persuade the grumpy waitresses to serve us even though it was all of half past ten.

Twenty-four hours later, lying in bed with my eyes closed and still trying to process everything I’d learnt, I suddenly could see the pose I would have used during the photo shoot. And I think it is beautiful.

Credits

Thanks to Jasmine and JD for being awesome, all my fellow attendees and everyone involved in running the workshop:

Venue: Alicia at One Marylebone
Flowers: Pollen Nation
Cakes: Restoration Cake (mini cakes) and Janet Mohapi-Banks (large ‘rose’ cake)
Furniture: Great Hire
Caterers: The Recipe
Hair: Severin Hubert of The Hepburn Collection
Make Up: Elbie Van Eeden
Behind the Scenes Video: Richard Wakefield of FX Films
Organiser: Kat Williams of Rock n Roll Bride

I found this little chap enjoying the charming Cumbrian countryside almost as much as I am. The weather today is not quite matching either of our expectations though!