aftermath!

What an amazing party on Friday night - these are just a few of the pictures - to see more just type the word moon in the password box on my homepage! - very simple but the running horse was the place to be - loads of friends turned up, I feel really lucky to have so many brilliant mates and it was great to see pals from the drama festival committee, chamber of commerce and my evening buddies all together having a laugh. OK, so my singing and dodgy stand up routine may have been cringeworthy to say the least but it was all in the name of fun. Sadly Hilde could not come for long as she was unwell but I am glad to say she is better now. It was a shame my good friends Andy park and Blue White could not have been there but it was an awfully long way to come. Thank you to everyone for coming and sharing it with me and thanks for all the cards and gifts, it was a night I will not forget in a hurry! Thanks too to the Running Horse, Colin the DJ, and the Dukes head for the 'after party'.

My reccommendation for the week is the restaurant in Cobham - La Capanna, I was treated to a lovely meal by Hilde's family there and It was superb!

Not much to report on the work front except I did a great Surrey Life shoot with a thoroughly nice chap called Greg Manchester yesterday, He was located up on Ranmore Common and we had a great time with his dogs and his son Jack snapping away.

So now I am 40 I guess I had better grow up a bit and act my grand old age.....nah! no fun in that. Besides, I have to keep my youth for my lovely girlfriend who is a little bit younger than me although sometimes she is the more sensible one in the relationship. She is in Texas at the moment and I feel like I have had an appendage removed!!

OVER THE HILL AND AWAY WE GO!

Wayhey, I am 40 - cannot believe I have made it to this grand old age. They say life begins at 40, er, well, bring it on!
I will not be in the studio tomorrow as I may be a little hung over!!
hi to everyone, other news: Photographed Mick Hucknall this week at Sandown Park - nice chap, he spent some time with some of the kids from the Childrens Trust and was happy to be snapped with them along with the rest of the band. The concert was good too!
mind you - my era, I have to confess I was a fan of theirs, and Queen, spandau Ballet, The pet shop boys etc etc etc ......

Just got back from a really cool day in London at a music video shoot with Shola Ama the singer who had lots of hits in the late nineties and early noughties and who is relaunching her career! The video included a cameo with Jack Tweed who was well down to earth and had a good laugh doing his thing! Shola was a pleasure to work with and it was a great experience watching how it is all done. Lots more been going on over the past week or two - last week I had a work experience lad with me - Luke who spent the week learning Photoshop and editing. I finally got on top of a ton of bits and peices and am in the middle of another busy week. anyway, more next time but now its late and my eyes are starting to struggle! till then!

Facebook Frenzy

Ok so finally after avoiding it for too long I have embraced the cultural phenomenon known as Facebook. It is strabgely addictive, suddenly I have this new realm of communication and already I am keeping in touch with pals I have not had time to be in touch with, so far so good. I officially have friends now, there is something quite disconcerting about a statement that says - you have 1 friend which is what it said for the past eight months since I sort of signed up!
Anyway, finally I have had a quiet week and was able to catch up with some housekeeping and editing.
This week consisted of a total of ten meetings of varying types, two shoots and lots of screen staring. One very positive aspect of the week was my sessions with Greg Suart from Ultimate Goal who is helping me to re focus on my business aims and is so far very enlightening. Sometimes you just have to see things from a different perspective and this is what Greg does. It is like turning a light on in a remote corner of your head and discovering that actually, there is some sense in there! I will keep you posted on progress but for anyone who is needing a help in the right direction then this is the man for the job, for more info go to www.ultimategoal.co.uk
So, what else? like I said, a quiet week so not a lot! Only two more weeks till I hit the 40 mark and so far I still have not decided whether a party is going to happen yet although I am sure there will be some sort of event involving alcohol and falling over, we shall see!

Looking out of the window, the rain is lashing down and it feels like Britain again! Lets hope that this is just a temporary thing as I was quite enjoying the hot summer weather, made a nice change!
The events are still thick and fast - I even went to a christmas event - a preview at Denbies Vineyard - at one point we had santa jumping up and down between the vines in sunglasses - quite surreal! The Swing and Pop events at painshill were fun and the weather did them proud. The highlights were of course the fireworks at the end of the evening and spectacular they were - pics available to see on my home page!
The Duck race too was a huge success with over £2000 raised and a riverside full of kids and families brandishing duck whistles - a great family atmosphere. For me that preceeded a superb night in Hyde Park with my old pal half pint (aka Andrew Gordon), as we watched the Boss in all his glory on stage at Hyde Park Calling. I have always been a Springsteen fan and this is the fourth time I have seen him perform. For a sixty year old bloke to keep going like that for two and a half hours is pretty amazing - I would be knackered after ten minutes! My reccommendation music wise is his latest album - 'Working on a Dream', and look out for the first track - 'Outlaw Pete' - awesome!
Last week I was in London a lot, for various commercial projects and sweltered on the tubes which I really don't enjoy. I did drive one day and seriously regretted it after getting stuck on the Kings Road for I don't know how long!
Last Thursday I was working for The Children's Trust again covering the Guy Portelli Exhibition at the Mall Galleries. Guy won investment from Dragons Den to put on the exhibition which was very good and made even better with support images of Iconic rock and pop stars by famous photographers. I met photographer, Nobby Clark there too whose work is well known and who informed me he had photographed Springsteen (pah!) - For me it was quite an honour to meet one of my contemporaries and to actually have approval of my techniques by him (ie. no flash and prime lens). Amongst the guests was Prince Harry's friend Astrid who was really pleasant too.
Somewhere between all this I managed to go fishing with my girlfriend but it was too hot to catch anything, although it was a beautiful location and it was great to relax in the sun!
After such a hard week sunday was truly a day of rest and it was spent walking with the dog on Leith Hill and watching films, just the ticket.
It would not be right to let the week pass without mentioning Michael Jackson. What a shame and such a musical genius. Once again the press had a field day with an average of six to eight pages per paper dedicated to him for the most part of the week. This I disagree with as he is just one person in a world of billions and whilst he was a superb performer and unique in many ways he did have his dark side and it was obviously his dark side not his music that gave him so much coverage - what a sad world we live in. Nevertheless he was one of those artists who left his mark in some way on most people. I myself won a Michael jackson dancing competition when I was nineteen and recently at a party I relived the experience (after a few jars of the brown stuff of course!) I hope that there is not one almighty battle now for his kids, for their sake . ...and boy, how quick did the jokes start! I bet the phone companies made a fortune on text messages.
Happy birthday to my Nan who was 86 on the 4th July, bless her and my brother Christopher who died when I was younger would have been 37 yesterday, I cannot even imagine what he would have been like but I still miss him so much.
and finally, as Trevor would say, hello to Kristin who is in Namibia at the moment eating crocodile kebabs and doing canyon treks, - it sounds like 'I'm a celebrity....' hope you are looking after my camera, I dont want it coming back covered in elephant dung.
...till next time, I will try not to leave it so long!