Yesterday was our due date for the new baby. Weird considering he’s now a month old already!

He’s doing great though. Sleeping well and happy (asleep) most of the time. His big brothers keep wanting to play with their new little brother and our family feels just a little more complete. Our house, however, is feeling somewhat smaller!

To celebrate Jonas being here for a month we took time, on a rare Saturday off, to take some new photos.

If you missed it, you can still see the slideshow from when he first arrived by clicking HERE

In ten days Anna & I will be jumping on a plane and heading up to Edinburgh for our first ever wedding north of the border.

A wedding at a Scottish Castle. We’ll be in our element!

Lou & Steve’s engagement shoot happened a little closer to home though, on a Sunday afternoon in Birmingham…

At the end of June I was lucky enough to finally photograph my favourite band. Twice!

You may have already seen the photos from Belfast Odyssey Arena and, since then, I’ve had a few messages from people waiting to see the Hyde Park photos. So here they are

It’s always a bonus when you get great support acts on the bill, and I was delighted to see another of my fave bands added to the bill… The Gaslight Anthem

Always fun and entertaining… The Hives

The main support was Ben Harper, who was joined on stage by Eddie Vedder for a cover of Queen’s Under Pressure.

And then it was time for the main event… And this setlist..

It was good to meet up with a few friends at the gig too. All in all, not a bad way to spend a Friday

And here’s a photo of me doing my thing, taken by Kerrang! photographer, Chris Casey.

Many thanks to Jen at Rock Sound and Ali at LD Communications.

Today is my birthday

So, I thought it fitting that I post some photos featuring myself & Evelyne taken recently by the amazingly talented and lovely Emma Case.

Working as photographers, we get to meet, and often befriend, some of the best photographers in the industry, and Emma is one of them. She’s making a real name for herself as a wedding and portrait photographer in Birmingham (and beyond) and was kind enough to do a shoot for us in London a few weeks ago.

We love the results and Emma was good enough to let me post the results here. Check out Emma’s website for more cool pics…

So… what do you do when, as you’re driving towards somebody’s home for a family shoot, the clouds move in, the sky darkens and the rain starts?!

You improvise.

I’ve photographed Nancy & Mark and their little boy before but now they have a new member of the family and wanted some new family portraits. We planned on doing these in Sutton Park but, alas, it wasn’t meant to be. We’re rescheduling that for another day.

We did manage to get a few good images from the session but it was obvious that we were limited thanks to the miserable weather and lack of natural light.

Hopefully, next time the weather will be a little more on our side…

Every now and then it’s good to seek inspiration from photographers we admire and go and get learned.

Recently I attended two one-day workshops with photographers Brett Harkness and Damien Lovegrove. Both were great and gave me some new ideas on creative ways to use flash on location.

Here are a few images I came back with…

Firstly, from Brett’s workshop.

and a few from the day with Damien (including the image at the top of this post)…

Big thanks to Brett, Kristie and Damien for their generous sharing of knowledge. Both workshops were great fun and totally inspiring.

Originally we had planned to do Emma & Wayne’s E-shoot in Sutton Park, a great location near to their home. On the day, however, Wayne suggested using an abandoned farmhouse that someone he knew had just purchased. Errrr… yeah! Sounds more like my kinda place

We dodged showers, suspicious teenagers and the possibility of a roof collapsing on us and came home with some pretty cool photos. Here are just a few…

Their wedding will be our first of 2010 – On January 2nd! It’s at New Hall too which we love. Not a bad way to start what’s already looking like a busy year (we have 25 weddings booked so far).

Rebekah is not only gorgeous, she’s also an amazing DJ who travels the world spinning tunes.

She’s also the loveliest person you could meet and, I’m glad to say, a good friend.

Recently she asked me to do a photo shoot, as she was in need of some new, and different, images for promotional purposes. I was more than happy to help. Here are my faves from our session together…

Check out Rebekah’s MySpace page HERE

A few weeks ago my glamorous assistant Anna & I were lucky enough to shoot a fantastic Sikh wedding south of London at Addington Palace.

Purdeep & Beney (you may recognise them from their engagement shoot in Brighton) booked us despite some people suggesting that only an Asian Wedding Photographer would truly understand the traditions and ceremonies involved in a Sikh wedding. I can understand this view point but, for me, I love shooting Asian weddings and, with all the colour, decor and amazing outfits, there’s so much to photograph. Purdeep & Beney have hundreds of final images to choose from and getting it down to a number to post on this blog was tricky. But here are just a selection of images from an amazing day… (there’s still alot!)

As an ex-club DJ myself I can tell you these guys knew what they were doing behind the decks and they had the floor jumping!

The rings…

Time to escape with the couple for some portraits…

After that it was off back to Purdeep’s parents’ house where Beney had to bribe his way past the girls to see his new wife

And then an emotional send off…

Thanks a lot to Anna for making the trip down to London with me for the wedding. It was worth it for sure. An amazing (and HUGE) wedding with a great group of people. We loved every minute and look forward to creating a wedding album to die for for Purdeep & Beney

Congratulations guys!

It seems like years since Pete & Glen booked us for their wedding! Regular readers may remember their engagement shoot in Bradgate Park. But any wedding at New Hall in Sutton Coldfield is always an event worth waiting for and this was no exception.

An intimate wedding where their two kids played a major part and the attention to detail and colour was beautiful. Glen looked amazing in her dress and Pete brought his own style to the proceedings by turning up in his cab from his trucking job. Love it!

So cute!

A lovely moment with mom and daughter..

Ready to get married…

Table set for a groom who’s used to being on the road

Time for speeches..

Love this portrait of Glen

Only one wedding ring this time so we did something a bit different for the ring shot…

The family

Another great wedding in a spectacular venue. We wish Pete & Glen all the luck in the world for their future together. It’s going to be a very colourful wedding album (note – no black & white photos).