A year in the life of…

Zap – there you go, another year done and it flashed by as always. I don’t think my feet touched the ground during the summer as life became a blurry series of trips, shoots, edits and meetings. I think the toughest time of the year is autumn : summer clients are tweeking book designs, I’m working through current jobs and then into the mix you throw pitches and presentations for the following year’s commissions as Sep/Oct is when people begin to plan, phew!

As a result this is destined to be pictureless blog post, just a bunch of highlights, memories and moments which stick in my now 40 year old brain…

January opened with a Daily Mirror moment. Less than 24 hours prior to a wedding shoot the job was called off – groom turned out to be sleeping with a bridesmaid. I thought all that stuff only happened in soaps!?

February found me in a room with a bride and her Mum, minutes before the service, where Mrs ???? seemed to be actively trying to persuade Miss ???? NOT to go through with it (?) I seem to recall justification in the form of …”nobody will think any worse of you”… (yeah, they will). And …”he’s not good enough for you, dear”… (well, her decision, I think). I dreaded somebody turning around to me for an opinion, it really wouldn’t have helped, not a jot.

March saw me shooting a couple from Dubai who flew from their home (35 degrees) to the UK (5 degrees) to get married. A lovely couple, a great day (despite the shivering) made all the more memorable by the bride’s surname becoming Holiday, when her job was a cabin attendant for Emirates! Classic.

April‘s highlight was a great commission at One Marylebone in London. Gorgeous bride, dapper groom and a stylish black tie affair. Then the ash cloud began to hover! The guest list was a particularly international mix and attendance was thrown into confusion by the travel chaos due to said cloud. Some magic from Tigerlily Weddings’ Penny Merricks saw a hastily arranged web feed beam the wedding to those who couldn’t get into a smoggy UK. Also in April I shot the smallest wedding I’ve ever done – 12 people including the happy couple – love tiny weddings.

May seemed to be a very business orientated month. I was confirmed as a supplier to a couple of really nice venues and already people were starting to suss out my schedule for 2011 (rubbing hands together in between typing).

June… and finally I got to visit Fawlty Towers. Not the TV film set, but a rather well known venue in Wales which was hated by the locals, staffed by idiots and gave a service performance at the wedding breakfast bordering on comic – all it lacked was a Spanish waiter!! In order to avoid a libel suit I’ll just say the place rhymes with ‘burst mouse’… ?

July, ahh summer on the Thames for a brilliant shoot with a terrific couple in central London. Wedding at Temple Church, drinks reception on a boat while chugging down to Greenwich Naval College and then the trip home via the DLR (with Canary Wharf at night feeling like a scene from Blade Runner). The job also led to me being confirmed as an official supplier to Temple, which excites the hell out of me (oops, I blaspheme).

August was jam packed with the first of a run of a dozen commissions in 5 weeks, plus editing, really not a spare minute in the day. You close your eyes and whisper to yourself to think of the money.

September… in the year I leave my 30′s I nearly met my maker! There I was up on the roof of the Institute of Contemporary Arts shooting a panoramic image for their PR usage when I’m barked at by the MET. It’s the day before the Pope toddles down The Mall and everybody is feeling jittery, seems nobody should be above a certain height without prior consent. I cheered myself up by going home and watching ‘The Day of the Jackal’.

October… nothing else matters apart from the fact that it was in this month I moved from Blackberry to iPhone – like going from video to Bluray!!

November is memorable for two reasons, extreme frustration and then mixed emotions. The frustration was due to having a dozen wedding enquiries on the trot which ALL clashed with work already in place for 2011, I mean what are the odds?? The mixed emotions were at a very atmospheric wedding shoot near Canterbury. The groom was/is very seriously ill and on the Monday following the service was to go into isolation ahead of a course of chemotherapy. The service also encompassed the christening of the couple’s twins, so all in all an emotionally charged occasion rather beautifully handled by the family. It was a genuine pleasure to be involved and extremely humbling, made me feel completely stupid when grumbling about irrelevant issues and everyday problems. Very, very sobering.

December is a case of so far so good. I’ve discovered the 9th wonder of the world (beef teriyaki at Wasabi) and landed a great new commission to be the supplier of corporate material to a large asset management firm in London. And Santa will also squeeze his butt down my chimney and give me ‘Inception’ hopefully – this year’s must see flick.

Happy days, happy Christmas… and I’m up and at ‘em for 2011, bring it on.

Claridges…

The venue needs absolutely no introduction. As well as being one of the most recognized hotels in the world, it’s also a busy wedding venue for those lucky enough to be in a position to book. The shoot was my second visit of the year there and each time I walk through the door the grandeur hits me, it oozes history, the place feels like a film set.

Earlier in the year I’d met with Janaina and Rory to chat about their ideas and was subsequently delighted to land the commission. A very laid-back couple, but still with significant attention to detail, the plan was to have their reception in the hotel’s ball room following a service at the spectacular Farm Street Church in Mayfair, just a short walk from Claridges.

For me the day unfolded nicely and I was able to step back and pick off portraits and atmosphere having been given a pretty loose brief. I seem to remember being really happy with the editing process a few days later (always a good sign) and I’d like to think the feeling of the day was captured for them. Here are just a few which, I hope, tell the tale…