If you saw my Tuesday Challenge entry, you may have thought “That looks like a silly cash machine”.

Well, I can confirm that it is a silly cash machine. You could argue that it’s there for disabled access, but it’s actually too low for people in wheelchairs to comfortably use. The only comfortable way to use it is to sit on the floor as many people, in fact, do…

Silly Cash Machine

The reasoning for the silly position is apparantly something to do with planning permission and not ruining the lines of the building.

So, yesterday’s open day went very well… a few people I hadn’t met before (some people opted to come along to the open day for a free sitting, rather than paying my usual sitting fee, which was very wise of them!) and some chums as well. As always happens at these things, I go into automatic and fail to notice if everyone is having a good time – generally, the area in front of the camera is my domain, and H – my glamorous assistant and all round good egg – deals with all the meet and greet, feeding people tea and biscuits and that sort of thing.

While it was quiet, we had a play with different lighting set-ups and some very patient chums (thanks Hannah, Neil and Tammy) posed and put up with my endless faffing. One of my favourite shots of the day came just before we packed up to take all the kit home then out for a little curry.

Open Day II

Curry was good, although we were chastised by the waiter because non of the four curries we ordered actually exist in India. Then on the the local for more drinks, Buckaroo, and exceedingly poor darts. Around 9:30pm we all declared ourselves to be pretty tired and went home only to end up playing Singstar until about 2:30am. A lovely way to polish off a busy day.

One of the services I offer in my job as a wedding photographer in Leicestershire* is a pre-shoot. It’s absolutely invaluable as I found out at my open day yesterday… One of my couples came along, and although I’d met them to discuss options, prices, basic order of the day and so on, I hadn’t really got a good idea of their character – except I knew they were lovely people.

At the open day, we did a quick portrait sitting, and they turned out to be full of fun and mischief. Looks like it’s going to be another hoot of a wedding, and an absolute pleasure to shoot! I can’t wait for July!

I think the pre-shoot is invaluable for me and the happy couple.

* when I say “Leicestershire” I mean the surrounding areas such as Hampshire and Kent so far

Set up your photo of any subject.

Now stop. Think. Make THREE improvements to your photo.

…and finally take it.

Usual rules apply! Good luck!

So this week was about anticipation – setting the scene first in the hope (through educated guesswork or not) that something would happen.

This week there were six entries!

Thanks to everyone who entered!

It was some time ago now that my chum Henry introduced me to Operation 365. His was alcohol related, mine gluten. I tried once and failed. However, after an amount of success in 2008, I declared 2009 to be gluten-free year. Operation 365 got underway.

Well, I checked the calendar and here we are on day 309. It’s looking good. It’s the final furlong. A little error (accidental) on day 18 seems so far away, as does the worse error (even more accidental due to mislabelling by an evil coffee chain) on day 140. In that time I have found really good GF bread, honed my pastry and pie-making skills to giddy heights of success, and more to the point stuck to it!

If I’m ever beating myself up over not going through with a plan, I should remember this one. It would be daft to go back on it at the end of the year, too, so it might have to become Operation Infinity.

It was an interesting quandry. Here I am launching into a career as a midlands wedding photographer and I find myself having to hire a wedding photographer. Finding someone who can do the job to our satisfaction? Not easy. But we’re very happy with our choice, I’m sure she’ll be excellent!

Anyway… on to the related subject of this blog… Cory Williams is an LA based film-maker. He recently got married. I think it’s fair to say he hired the big boys to make his wedding video… they’ve only released the trailer so far…

I’ve been using Google Analytics on my site (I’m a loughborough portrait photographer in case you hadn’t worked it out yet) and it’s very very very interesting. I’d recommend it to anyone, even if just for fun. You can tell where people are coming to your site from, how they got there, how long they stayed and so on – all in a general sense of course, not each individual person.

What it’s telling me now is that my advert in Japan (to catch people who will be coming to Loughborough for the 2012 Olympics) has attracted 6 clicks, with each person visiting on average 1.17 pages and staying on the site for 1 second.

This is not very good.

So today, I’ve added the ラフバラのカメラマン page which doesn’t give a massive amount of information, but may at least increase the amount of time spent on the page. Moreover it provides a more appropriate welcome as a landing page.

Little things.

The reason for the change on the Tuesday Challenge picture viewer is because it doesn’t take any time. I don’t have a lot of time these days. Well, I do, but I need it for earning pennies to pay my mortgage and eat and, indeed, clothe myself if I’m not going to scare the clients. My photo catalogue software will throw one of those pages out for me for free.

I shall experiment with different presentations over the next few weeks. Let me know what you think (experience tells me you’ll have no problem doing that). But I’m not going to spend any large amount of time on presenting the challenge. If I have to do that, the challenge will stop.

Thank-you for your co-operation.