Sams Toddler Portrait

Sam and Mum popped down to see us on Tuesday to get some photos of baby Sam, who's grown loads since I last saw him last year.

After spending about an hour throwing things at me indoors and playing with our dog, Sam and I went out into the garden to play football. By this point, he got into the habbit of throwing things at me and I found myself battered from pegs, flower pots and small bricks after about an hour.

Needless to say we got some great photos! Following our shoot, I've been invited to go along to a nursery in Birmingham to discuss ideas to be there main residential photographer, which will be fantastic! Anyone who knows my work will know that I hate just putting people in front of white backdrops and shooting away, so I hope my fresh approach to their nursery photography will be enough to persuade them!

This weekend is looking like a very mixed bag at the moment (I love it when there's a variety in my work). Friday afternoon I'm in Birmingham picking up some new bits of kit (new lenses/accessories/back up cameras etc) before meeting a "haute couture" gown & dress designer to sketch up some ideas for a few creative photos coming up.

Friday night, I'm the main photographer at a models party in Birmingham (Why oh why can't I just live in Birmingham!). Saturday I'm in Bourneville shooting a childrens "choir" for Timeout Magazine (wow!) and Sunday I have a pre-wedding shoot with Hana and Kaleem before photographing their wedding in less than a month! Then in the afternoon we return back home to meet more potential wedding clients to discuss plans etc.

We've been very busy with wedding consultations and bookings at the moment. Our most recent clients met with us last night to discuss their wedding. They booked there and then which was great. They seem like a lovely couple and they're wedding venue looks stunning, Thanks Amanda & Gareth!

New Design

As you can probably observe, we have made a few changes to the blog. We've replaced it with a nice new header and a cleaner layout which should encourage to write more here.

I have plenty to write about just not much chance to actually write it here.

Going back a week or so, I met up with Tii in Birmingham for his second portrait shoot with us. We decided to try and make the most of everywhere around Birmingham and tried to get as many location shots as possible.

Highlights of the day included getting to the top of a lovely high multi-story car park which overlooked Digbeth and the Bullring. We got some great shots from there and a few shots playing around with light etc.


Tii's one of my favourite people to shoot with because he's open to ideas and has some great ideas of his own. Also - any client that buys the photographer lunch deserves a fantastic set of photos!

Cheers Tii!

Yesterday we spent an hour or so at our "wish" house. It's a house we've had our eye for the last month or so. It's in total need of work (basically demolishing and starting again), but it's a spacious house in a nice area so we're eager to snap it up. All the parents were down there yesterday seeing how much work needs to be done. It'll take a long time to develop, but I've fell in love with it. Bad news is - because I'm self employed, we have to wait till January/February till I have my first years worth of accounts. So we're not getting our hopes up till after Christmas!

Today we're in Birmingham meeting half booked wedding clients Hana and Kaleem before their wedding on December 20th. Very exciting :) Might do a spot of wedding shopping down there too! We seem to be in "Confetti" every weekend now, Dani knows it's the only shop she'll get me into because they give out free sweeties :D

Featured: Urbanitez Magazine

Received this through the post this morning.
Inside cover/page 2. Random but Nice.

We're Engaged!

We're home after a short break in Poole, Dorset. Which was lovely!
Before blogging about the whole holiday, I thought I'd summerise it with two simple words. "We're Engaged!"

I know some of you may already know (or guessed!) but I finally broke the question to Dani on fireworks night on a quiet beach near Poole. It's something we've both wanted for a verrry long time and it's so great to finally tell people and start planning for our big day, which we're hoping will be Summer next year!

I could go on about why I want this to happen so much but I really don't wanna get soppy or sound like I'm engaged for the sake of going against what everyone thinks, so that's all.

Anyroad, we went on holiday....

First day in Poole was spent....in Poole. We took a look around a few of the shops, Dani spent the ENTIRE day (or atleast it seemed like it) in Lush and some other beauty shop spending all the money we haven't got.

Second day was my turn to choose where we spent the day. As you'd expect, I chose Monkey World.

We drove through a tank/military training ground to get there, as you'd expect from a holiday with me. Having a huge roaring tank pulling up behind you on the way to see monkeys was a little bit odd, but we soon found a short cut and parked up ready for a day of monkeeeeyys!

We got in and I found myself in the souvenir shop before we even got into the actual park. Once I was dragged away (without purchasing the monkey mask I so dearly wanted) we walked around a few empty monkey enclosures, but saw plenty of Robins and Crows, not as good as monkeys but still...


Eventually we came to the orangutan enclosure, which actually contain orangutan and not pigeons, which was great. The youngest of the three orangutan even took the time to have a quick chinwag with Dani. The picture below shows Dani looking into the mirror. :P

On the evening, we went down to the small local beach to do abit of proposing etc etc.
On the evening of Wednesday 5th November, me and Dani were engaged :)

We started the morning early to go to the island of Brownsea. Which sounds like diarrhoea, but it's actually a dead pleasent place with red squirrels and lots of bits of wildlife and stuff. We jumped on a boat which took us to the remote island, Dani took the chance to show off her new ring.

It's also currently inhabbited by the BBC for Autumnwatch, which finished the day we visited. I tried my very best to get a (good) photo of a red squirrle, but frankly, I hadn't the patience to sit and pretend to be a tree/nut/pile of leaves etc, so focused on getting a photo of a pheasant. Hmm.

All in all, it was a time I'll always remember, mainly because the fruit machines there never paid out and I lost about £60 on fruit machines and fulfilling my addiction to grabber games. I'll also remember it for other things, like proposing to Dani n that.

Tune out now to avoid abit of cheese,
Dani you are everything to me, I can't wait to spend my life with you.
I Love You.