Winter

One of the bizarre things about sharing a house with a south African, apart from the fact that most South Africans I've met are madder than a bag of snakes and love to partay, is they love a barbecue. It's traditional at Christmas to have a barbecue. Rory phoned me up. "Get home, We're having a barbecue."
"What? It's minus two degrees and you want a barbecue?"
"Sure. It's traditional." So we had a barbecue out in the garden. Dontcha just love life? Can you fecking Adam and Eve it? Christmas Eve morning I'm dozing in bed after a skin full the night before at our barbecue and enjoying one of the few lie ins I can have in a year when I am brought to complete wakefulness by hammering on the door. In my dressing gown I go down stairs to see who it is. The bleeding police. The road outside is swarming with police cars and occifers. Now to the best of my knowledge I've never been to Ipswich, nor have I murdered anyone absent mindedly, so what gives?
"Is that your car Sir?"
"er yes."
"It's causing an obstruction."
My car is in the exact same place it's been for the last six months, no one has ever complained. Now it's Christmas Eve and the police have nothing better to do than hunt out soft targets to boost their coffers. I got a ticket. Which really started my Christmas off nicely. Ian and Rory both said "We'll fight them every inch of the way."
Boxing day I went walking in the woods to clear out the muzziness in my head that I've had ever since I started imbibing the ol' festive spirit. These are some of the images I captured.

Doing an all nighter

Well my politician was a no show yesterday. It seems he got shit faced on an all night bender, so didn't make the photoshoot. Hmmmm. Anyway not wanting to waste a day I high tailed it down to the recording studio where I found Jimmy Kidnap and Point Seven Pistol took a few shots. This is one of them. Bless 'em. I say I want you all lieing on the floor. They go "Sure what ever you want." Great guys. 
Todays game is guess which party the politician belongs to. I'll give you a clue, it aint the Monster Raving Loony party. Funnily enough most people guess straight away. Is this indicative of the state of politics now, where everybody knows straight away that if a politician is totally shit faced then he's got to belong to a certain party? I wonder... guess away. 

Party Politics

Laydees an Gennulmen I give you The Playful Rays. A finer bunch of girlies you couldn't hope to meet. They're all about 16 and play in a punk pop band. I've virtually all but given up using the flash gun at gigs. I take the shots on speed priority and they all come out black initially, but then I photoshop them and get this grainy effect then it's a matter of playing with the colours.  
Tomorrow I'm on a photoshoot for the local party candidate. I shant say which party in case I get hate mail for having the wrong politics, which I haven't because I have NO politics. Anyway I'm going to be following him around taking shots as and when I see fit hopefully putting together a portfolio of pics for his campaign. Look it's a job! OK? 

The money shot

Today I was out on a job and being a tidy sort of engineer I said I'd put out the rubbish from my job. The bin was in the back garden as I walked out I spotted a stylish leather settee languishing in the rain. "What's the settee dpoing in the back garden?" I asked.
"Oh we bought it then couldn't get it into the flat. It's too big for our narrow doors."
"So why didn't you take it back?"
"The shop was shut."
"But leaving it outside.....?"
"There was no where to put it."
So they left it outside and it rained. It got wet and the shop refused to take it back. They didn't know what to do so they left it for three more days. The upshot of it is I got it for free and our friend Ian is going to dry it out using the industrial blowers for his bouncy castles. Sorted. Now Rory has a leather sette to slob on. 
This is yet another "Queen type" head shot montage. I'll get fed up with doing them soon. Or maybe the bands will just stop asking me to do them, as it will have been done to death. Believe it or not the light came solely from one of those garden stones with a light in. As usual pushing the camera to it's limits. I particularly liked the image of the guy on the left just making it a little different. I knew that was the money shot the second I took it. 

Drivers they should ban

We have a carpark near us and almost everyday I see the wife or the husband get out of the passenger seat and start directing the driver as he/she reverses out of the car park. Now it occurs to me why are these people on the road? If they can't reverse out of a parking space or whatever without assistance then I'm sorry buty they should have their licence taken away until they pass a test to prove they can do it by themselves. The amount of times I've seen husband or wife almost run over their partners who have been standing directly behind the car shouting "STOP!!!".
Can you imagine taking your driving test and after being asked by the examiner to reverse round a corner you say "Can you get out and see me round?" It's ludicrous. But still there's people driving on our roads who shouldn't have a licence and not just the people who read the newspaper whilst driving, or have breakfast, shave, or have sex (yes I've been in the back of a car whilst the driver was being seen to by someone in the front)no not just those people because they're just plain stupid, it's those people who are so terrified of their own car and others that they become a danger to everyone. They are so nervous they stop at the end of a slip road as they try to get on a motorway. They drive at 20mph and if you get even vaguely close they slam on the brakes.
I've ranted enough. Your turn... 

For Cherry

Just for Cherry here's a non arty shot of the girls. (The Neumes)Go see them they're great.  

Lilly pads

These are three of my most favourite people. They are "The Neumes". They're three sisters who play in the same band. Eleanor, Emily and Charlotte. This is an improvised publicity shot I did for them. I'm not sure it works. But it's interesting. I tend to try and use what's available and as such I'm a bit of an opportunist when it comes to photography. A singer friend of mine asked me to do some nude shots of her. Woah! Hold me back. But as usual it's not that simple. Her concept is to have a photo of her floating just underneath the water, hair everywhere, with lilly pads in strategic places. I'm sure it's been done before but who cares I love the idea and if she's going to get her kit off for it I'm not going to complain. I think I might end up shooting her in a childrens paddling pool. Then photoshopping her into a lake with lilly pads. Or we might just sling her in the lake.