Money

A friend of mine was telling me that the budget of his company for travel expenses was running at £10,000,000 a year. It came to a head when he and all the other regional representatives were asked to go to Cardiff for a meeting. His train ticket alone ran to £320 plus hotel bills. So he put in a suggestion to the managing director of the company. Perhaps they should in future hold all their meetings in New York as you can fly to New York for just £99 a saving of £221.

Now this IS crazy. I quoted a photographic job at £250, did the job and sent in the invoice. The PR company phoned me up straight away.
"What's with the £250."
"It's what I quoted and what was agreed." I said beginning to be a little worried, "What's the problem?"
"Well it's not enough. Can you possibly raise another invoice for more money."
"You want to pay me MORE money."
"Yes."
"How about £300?"
"That'll do nicely. Thank you it's a pleasure doing business with you."
I'm still trying to get my head around that. It's rather bizarre. Just like the job I went on recently when all the people were talking in a corporate language that is similar to English but then you wonder.
"We'll give you a heads up on when to take photos."
"It's great to have you on board touching base."
"Aas long as we're all singing from the same hymn sheet." Oh well.

Famous

I'm famous, my daughter laughed her socks off when she read the article in the magazine. She said don't let your head get too big for your hat. I gotta confess it is a laugh the "legend" that is Mike Da Hat. Mind you there are some cool photographs that I'm proud of. The front cover photos are mine too. Well you can have a look at the magazine right here..... (I'm on page 23 and 24 I think)

http://www.artandsoulmagazine.com/create.html

Meanwhile I'm off to photograph some visiting civil dignitaries from London on a walk-about fact finding mission. Look it's a job alright? It pays the bills. And I get a free cup of coffee.

Wishing Wells

Have you ever thought about why wishing wells? There's a very good scientific reason for them.In the past before running water and purification plants people had to rely on wells. So they'd dig a well. Then for good luck they'd toss a silver coin into the well. Why? Silver just happens to have disinfecting properties. Which is why rich people often used silver ware for their food,it kept their food fresher for longer. So if you threw a silver coin into someones well then you were wishing them good luck with their water supply by helping the water stay pure. It carried on so people threw any old coin in and the real reason was lost.

As an interesting point, and why I am teling you this, one of the washing machine manufacturers has brought out a washing machine that features a silver anode that releases silver particles into the wash, thus keeping the machine bacteria free and your clothes cleaner. So now you know.

Total Eclipse of the Moon

Todays paper featured a full page spread (page three) of my work. The above photo is the work in question it's of last Saturdays total eclipse of the moon. I'm quite pleased with it. It's a photomontage of course and not time lapse or anything like that. I took the pics using my canon EOS350D with a 300mm lens with image stabiliser and tripod mounted. They even published a picture of me as well. Wow! So I'm all made up. I've been promoted from my usual page 7 or 9 to page 3. I've yet to make the front page but I'll get there.

Meanwhile at my club we've got the final of the Band of 2007. It's gonna be great we've got three fantastic bands competeing. Well they have to be good to get into the final. The semis and the final have generated so much interest and we're expecting the venue to be packed. Craig, my trainee music promoter, and I will share the compereing duties for the night. Then Shaggy will take over for the announcment of the final winners and hand out the prizes.
Meanhwile we've got the very lovely Heather McVey doing a set to entertain the punters while the votes are counted. You've got to check out Heathers
myspace site and listen to her voice, she is awesome she has a voice that will melt you, rich and powerful, a bit like Annie Lennox. Go on check her out you know you want to just CLICK HERE