Blast from the past . . .

Having completed a hastily arranged press-call shoot early this morning, the shot above shows me stuck in traffic at Buckingham Palace. thankfully I was able to perform a swift U-turn and exit the West End via St James's. 

My early morning shoot was another job at One Great George Street to cover the launch of the report about cutbacks of NHS Dentistry throughout the UK - a subject that I have at least some knowledge. The shoot featured Edwina Curruy who demanded - no flash whilst she was speaking but thankfully she "allowed" available light pictures! As usual, the Pocket Wizards and SB flashes were employed to lift the interior pictures. One Great George Street is a wonderful venue to work in but there are areas of darkness and broad swathes of dark wood paneled walls that reflect flash horribly, so the use of extra flash seems a no brainer! After a first run through the raw images, all seems fine and I will process out at the start of next week . . .

After the shoot, I drove the short distance to meet up with Ed at his flat and to collect, what turned out to be a car's worth of boxes and cases that needed my attention. Some of the items will be eBayed, others claimed and the rest will be star attractions at Harrow's Civic recycling centre! It is interesting to see many items still baring my handwritiing and many memories of moving the same items around over fifteen years ago come flooding back. There a number of small items that are immediately useful as well as others that show immediate eBay potential and I will endeavour to sell and claim the promised 30% After our weekend away to Belfast, I should have more time for this and hope to shift the bulk of items and clear some floor space!

As mentioned above, we are off to sunny Northern Ireland this weekend where I will see my Mum and Sinead and Hannah will attend Noreen's Birthday party at the Canal Court Hotel in Newry. I won't be with them - due to local difficulties that don't need to be explained but I look forward to a few beers with Evelyn and Lju on the Friday night in Belfast - possibly the first proper night out in a long time! Watch for some air to shore images as we fly into Belfast City Airport for the first time and the Ricoh GR Digital will be poised as I hog the window seat! 

Image above shot with the GR Digital as I queued briefly on the Mall.

Cost of calls

I hate paying for phonecalls and try to keep the yacking to a minimum and I think I'm beginning to get there with various deals and technology to keep these bills down. In the last week BT have offered a package that allows FREE evening and weekend calls but still with the line rental and I have signed up for this as calls to Belfast are obviously included with these usually taking place at weekends. I have resurrected Skype account and can use this as the BT line replacement for daytime calls when I'm in the office and in front of the Mac. A five minute call to Graphistudio in Italy knocked a grand total of 10p of the Skype credit! It's also very informative to watch the credit total drop differently as one calls varying number types . . . but still much cheaper than BT.

You may ask why keep the BT line as there are a number of very good alternative packages out there? My broadband connection needs a BT connection - so no way round that one.

So where does my Mobile come into all of this??? As a long time Orange customer, my monthly bill is always in and around £30 - again careful use and most calls are incoming anyway. As always with these things, I will keep an eye on the bills over the next few weeks/months and report findings later.

The power of the Recce . . .

As the title suggests - time spent before a shoot recce'ing (if there is such a word) is time so well spent, especially if you can incorporate a bike ride! You may remember a previous post from Sunday 17th February, Wedding recce in a refrigerator where I toured the City and Westminster to find suitable locations for a personal wedding day shoot? Well, yesterday was the Wedding Day and shoot for real. Those of us in London experienced rain and gusting winds on Friday and to much relief all round Saturday dawned clear and sunny. This perfect weather, considering the time of year, persisted throughout the day allowing me to shoot successfully at the locations I had found and you can see a sneak preview of one of the images from this very fruitful hour above.

All this was down to the recce . . . an invaluable exercise in preparation taught to me by Ed Pritchard where time spent before the shoot is time saved during the shoot, allowing things to flow effortlessly. A great day and shoot and I hope the wonderfully patient couple also love the images . . . we will see!