Welcome to our web site. It is still quite new with lots more to come.
This site has a blog format so the home page will be changing constantly to reflect activities we’re involved in, pictures from shoots, events, news from the studio, techniques, testimonials and lots more.
If you’ve not been here before, please visit the Introduction page to find out what we do and review some of our work in the Gallery.
Thanks for taking a look.
At the next Wokingham Business Biscotti meeting in two weeks on May 29, I shall be installing myself in a corner of the room with some lights and offering free headshots and portraits to the Biscotti members.
The headshots will be ideal for using in your social media profiles but if you want something a bit different you could go for a more traditional portrait sitting – although there’s no need for this to be stuffy. Feel free to ham it up if you want to create something more entertaining.
After the event, pictures will be available to download for free at both web and high resolution with unrestricted use.
After many requests to do this, I am setting up a photography club. The club will have the clear objective of making its members better photographers with a good understanding of their camera, exposure, lighting and composition.
We’ll be achieving this goal with hands-on tuition, enjoyable, practical sessions, studio events and location shoots.
There is a page dedicated to the club and, in time, I hope to host a gallery of members’ work.
Find out more about the club here and register your interest at the foot of that page.
This is the first of a series of blog posts about subjects not directly related to my photography activities – but which I find particularly interesting.
I chanced upon this Kickstarter page recently and find myself intrigued by the possibilities of a watch wirelessly linked to my smartphone (Android or iPhone).
The Pebble watch uses an epaper display to present the time and notifications from your phone on your wrist, where you can view them instantly. Text messages, email alerts and incoming calls are displayed on the watch as they come in, relieving you of the need to grope around for your phone to check their urgency.
The watch grabs your attention by vibrating – although you probably wouldn’t need that as you’d likely still be staring at it thinking “wow, this is so cool”.
The epaper display is similar to that used on the Amazon Kindle. It’s a very efficient, black and white display which only requires power to change the image. It’s easily viewable in bright sunlight and there’s a backlight for viewing in the dark.
Communication between the watch and your phone is over Bluetooth and because Bluetooth is bidirectional, you can even use your watch to send signals to your phone to control stuff like the media player.
The watch comes with a phone app which allows you upload alternative watch faces so you can be digital at work and analogue when going out for dinner. You can even write your own watch apps.
The developers went to the fund-raising web site, Kickstarter.com, to raise $100,000 to get production going but have so far raised over an astonishing $8,100,000.
I guess I’m not the only one who thinks this is a neat idea.
I am grateful for the following testimonial I received this week by letter. I’ve entered it verbatim except for some punctuation.
Dear Dale
Please accept this as a thank you for the recent player photos you did at my local football club.
Our Chairman had enlisted the services of another photographer earlier in the season but the photos were very poor quality. I recommended you due to previous work you had done and the pictures were perfect.
As I have said before I would have no hesitation in recommending you to friends and relatives for photography work in the future
Kind regards,
M. Williams.
Thank you Mr. Williams. I look forward to the chance to work with you again.
I’ve included one of the pictures from the session.
A social media headshot might be an important part of your online presence – particularly on business relationship sites like LinkedIn.
A decent headshot doesn’t have to be a drama to obtain. Here are a few headshots taken today for a business group. The entire process took less than ten minutes and they got their pictures by email just after lunch.
The reason handsome young Paul features in four pictures is that I couldn’t decide which I liked best.
You can pay a significant amount for one of these if you go to a specialist photographer and you’d probably have to dedicate half your afternoon to it.
Or you can grab me at a local business networking event and see if I have my camera on me.
This selection were all taken using available light but I’ll use flash if necessary.
(More headshots in the gallery.)
Please come along and support this really great event with the Barberettes singing songs from the 50s through to the 80s in close harmony a capella. The event is raising funds for the Duchess of Kent House charity. It starts tonight at 19:00 and tickets are £10.
The venue is St. Andrew’s Church, Albert Road, Caversham RG4 7PL
I’ll be there getting a few pictures.
I’m holding a studio day with model Rebecca Tun on April 17 in Wokingham. Rebecca will be posing for photographers all day in eight 1 hour slots. Slots are £50 which includes model and studio fees.
Rebecca is an intelligent, experienced, versatile and very artistic model who has a lovely figure and fine, distinctive looks. Her portfolio is a varied collection of great work from many photographers.
I will be on hand for a small extra fee to provide assistance and training with studio lighting and technique.
Rebecca is based in Cambridge so this is a great chance to photograph her without incurring the travel costs.
There is a discount of 10% on bookings made before the end of March.
For full details, please download the flyer from here.
Since my early teens, I’ve been a big fan of the music of the Yes, a band who I consider has a unique style and unmatched for its inventiveness.
When I discovered a local band was playing their music I was pretty sceptical that they’d achieve anything close to an authentic sound.
I first saw them in August last year and a small venue in West London and I was blown away by how good they were. These guys were awesome and their musicianship and mastery of the Yes sound was spellbinding.
I left that first concert quite moved by what I’d experienced.
I’ve been to see them twice since; most recently last night in St. Mary’s Church in Speen, Newbury. An unusual venue for a rock concert but it worked well and the music was brilliant, as ever.
The light wasn’t as brilliant so getting good pictures was a challenge but here are a few. There will be more on my Facebook page later.
If you want to find out more about Fragile and their concert dates their website is here.
The next concert is in Sutton on tomorrow.
I shall be photographing the Reading Half Marathon on Sunday April 1 for charity Sue Ryder. I’m looking forward to it.
Watch here and my page on Facebook for pictures on the day.
I mentioned that I’d post some more wedding fair pictures recently, so here they are. The make up is by Sheila Hair and Make Up, the model is Fankie May and Christophers Car Hire supplied the car.
I was very impressed with Sheila’s work and I look forward to working with her again.
I’ve worked with Frankie before and she’s always a delight to photograph. We’ll be working together again soon.
