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Where do we start? I guess we begin with wishing everyone a Merry Christmas. Then, as it’s this time of year we move onto family, the annual gathering over the festive period of those closest to you, the true, Humanist view of what it’s all about and what we should be celebrating. But what if? What if you have no family? What if you have nothin...

That sounded rather rude. But it’s not meant to be, really. This art thing has gotten under my skin in the same way that photography did all those many, many years ago. Truth is, it’s always been there, I remember my first real drawing, in my first classroom at my first school, Wood End Park in Hayes, Middlesex. I even remember the drawing, it...

I’m a entrepreneurial kinda guy, I was once described by my old boss at Fujifilm, Tony Lawrence, that I enjoyed the thrill of the chase, and I guess that’s true, I do, and what with meeting a very good friend of mine, a real entrepreneur Maurice Collin s, who has encouraged, flattered and inspired me, I reckon that statement has never been truer....

What do us photographers do when it’s quiet? When the work just stops, when the time of year dictates that little is happening. Panic. I hear you say. Well, yes, that’s true. Don’t forget, us small businesses run on the throughput that our clients give us, and of course, if they have a slack time of year, we have a slack time of year. It’s true...

Thirty-seven years, nearly thirty-eight, actually. Thirty-seven years as a professional, that’s a paid professional photographer. There I was, Saturday morning, 16 years old, watching Tizwas and the telephone rings. It’s a strange man, an old man, the local town photographer, ‘do you wanna be a photographer?’ He asked. ’Yeah ok.’ I replied thoug...

So, the potential saviour of us Fujifilm X Series / Lightroom users has become available this very morning, On1 Photo Raw, downloaded and briefly tested. Now, I love the workflow of Lightroom, it’s easy to use and is familiar if you, like me, are used to the Adobe range of products. What I don’t like is the cataloguing element of Lightroom, I cop...

The advent of digital files has made a profound effect on distribution of professional photographs. The client needs the images you took for them quickly, so an emailed or downloaded image has become the norm. But what happens with that image? Who does it go to other than the recipient once they have received it from you? An art director, or a g...

OK! Let’s get into the debate, we have another Mac vs PC, iPhone vs Android battle going on here…conventional vs mirrorless cameras. MIRRORLESS CAMERAS? They’re rubbish right? Yeah. Good Night. But hold on there, lets look at what the conventional brigade are saying, and my flippant counter-arguments, just point out what pointless argument it...

I am a bold kinda guy, I believe in being progressive and trying, failing and trying again. Here’s a list of some of the worlds greatest people. Abraham Lincoln Thomas Jefferson Michelangelo Gandhi Albert Einstein Leonardo Da Vinci Nikola Tesl Florence Nightingale Sir Isaac Newton Archimedes Aristotle Winston Churchill Benjamin Frankl...

I love this writing lark, it frees your soul from the drudgery of every day life, and Lord knows we need it right now. I love the research element in particular, real life is…well let’s just say, you couldn’t make it up. With the historical novels I write, historical in terms of being within living memory, research is key to making your writing b...

This is a technical post, a kinda, what are the photographic big boys thinking? Commercial suicide? Now, last year I blogged about letting competitors into your business domain by being damn stupid, not thinking about what the client needs or wants, not making the effort to satisfy them and thus opening the door to others. Well that’s all very we...

My blog header says ‘Worried Human Being’, that’s what I am, worried for us all, especially now. This world of ours is shot to pieces, truly we humans are a mess, nothing is sacred, life is cheaper than it ever has been, evil people are, it seems, a stones thrown from all of us. But I feel there is hope amongst the anger of Brexit and Trump. Now...

What is it with this year? I’ve shot way more wet weddings than ever before, still, I’m a pro, I don’t flap, or I don’t show it. The thing with a pro photographer it that we don’t flap, we’ve kinda seen it all before and we know how to handle it, and the more wet weddings we pro’s do, the less we feel the need to panic. So here we are, another be...

There is one thing I’m sure has not be rattling around your heads for the past few months, that had not been keeping you awake at night and has not been making you stare off into the distance whilst you munch quietly on your cold toast over the breakfast table. What has Jonny Ballzup been up to lately? He’s been such a prolific blogger up until no...