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As a thriller writer you have to thrill, it’s in the title and it’s the law. But do I really have to make my hero Indestructible? Really? Do I? Now I know a lot of people who I class as real heroes. They are strong willed, tough of thought, hard as nails, but Jack Reacher they ain’t. They can’t jump off roofs and receive not so much as bend a to...

Whatever happened to the wedding march? Felix Mendelssohn's wedding lynchpin music, that song which, in the distant past, wafted across the entire country, North, South, East and West, every 3.40pm on a Saturday afternoon. It's a rousing thing the wedding march, gets you in the mood for life's journey together, kinda shoves you out the door saying...

I mean it, how important is photography? And how cool too. Dead cool I reckon. Capturing the lives of complete strangers, these landmarks in the lives. Birth, married, family growth, life in general. But here's the thing, why make a shoddy job of it? It's important, every time you are employed to take photos of someone or something, it's super i...

Business doesn't just appear you know? Sorry to break it to you. You have to sow it, grow it and nurture it. And that's what we have been doing this week, on our Solid Heritage side of the business servicing museums and collections with our dedicated ONSITE digitisation service. Now this is a unique offering, which we established 20 years ago no...

You know what? Being a photographer is so rewarding in so many ways, and the more you do it, the more the rewards flood in. Of course, when you get it right it can make you a good living at it, although it seems as though there are only a few of us full timers left after the Covid thing mind. Then there's the actual image creation, building a pho...

NEVER EVER SPECIALISE. There I've said it, and I've said it all you budding wedding photographers, portrait photographers, fashion photographers, sports photographers et al. These words have been ringing around my head for the past, ahem 42 years as a pro photographer. Spoken by my very first boss, Frank Barry in Hayes, Middlesex. Frank had been...

Wow, what a great year. That's what I'd be saying if it were a great year but, of course, how do we judge a good year? How about survival? Yeah that's about right, with a little bit of growth, that's our barometer. In previous years, growth, growth and more growth. In fact, a record year in 2019, with 2020 looking tons better still. C'est la vie...

We are solitary animals us photographers, a flash of energy whilst taking photos is tempered with hours in a darkened room working on thousands of images. A minute in the limelight, a lifetime in the shadows. With this comes the addition of lots of meaningful communications with clients followed with long bouts of talking to the walls. No wonder...

Well, well, well…when did it become popular for a ‘people’ photographer not to be able to interact with ‘people’? Those horrible people who employ you? Those nasty people who give you a living? Well, it seems to me, that the Rise of the Documentary Wedding Photographer was the catalyst. Now don’t get me wrong, my early days in wedding photograph...

It’s a funny old game being a photographer. Everyone can do it you see, everyone is a photographer and everyone has taken a ‘nice photo’ at on point in their life. So the progress from there is rather simple, new camera, new business card (visaprint £5.99 per 100) and voila, a photographer is formed. Then there’s the opposite end, the egomaniac w...

Day 5 – 28th December 2018 Yeah yeah, I know I’d signed up for 10 days, but really, the 5 hour round trip each day has taken its toll on this tired old man. Today I was late, I’d figured that the roads from Bournemouth to Bermondsey would be choked with Christmas hungover families coming back from the coast so yes, I gave it an extra hour. I nee...

Day 4 – 27th Dec 2018 Today was a bad day for me, I was in mourning for Kirsty, she doesn’t speak to me anymore and it occurred to me that as social animals, the worse thing we can do to one another is to ignore, to forget and to be forgotten. So the loss of the girl I truly loved and who I expected to spend the rest of my life with was compounde...

Day 3: Boxing Day 2018 The days are blurring into one long procession now which in itself is very bad thing. I would love to say that I’ve only moved a handful of homeless guests and that I know them all by sight, but alas no. Like a Lowry painting, there is a constant stream of people with their faces to the ground, their worldly possessions tuc...

Day 2 – Christmas Day 2018 Here we are back again, 2 hours 10 mins to get here. 44 volunteer drivers this time so suspect it’s gonna get busy busy. Goonies on the tv so spirits are high. Tempted to stand up and shout ‘HEY YOU GUYS!’ But won’t. Warehouse looks full, so that means the supplies need shifting today, smaller vehicles slipping all over...

Day One: 23rd Dec 2018 It’s unbelievable, the amount of people volunteering today at Crisis at Christmas. It’s also very heart warming to see those with time to spare helping others for nothing. So this is where I sit, giving strangers my time and happy I am to do so. We are in Bermondsey, in a derelict warehouse, but there are maybe 50 voluntee...