Now, there’s no magic bullet when it comes to business and certainly what works for one photographer does not always work for another, but that is not to say that there aren’t a number of principles that will most definitely work for everyone, and sometimes it takes seeing them written down in black and white to make you sit up and listen. I certainly sat up and listened.

-Maybe you feel you’re doing everything you can to develop and operate your business to its full potential? I don’t like to make sweeping statements but I guarantee that you’re not doing everything you can. We’re going to be making changes in this area.

-On the scale of working hard/working smart, you’re probably much closer to the working hard end of the scale than is ideal. I for one want a life other than the one behind the lens and computer screen and I’m sure you’re the same. Follow this guide and it it will direct you through the changes you need to implement to gain fulfilment from both your photography business as well as your life. We’re going to be making changes in this area.

-Pricing is a headache. Yep, this guide has a whole section on pricing and it makes a lot of sense. We’re going to be making changes in this area.

-You get enquiries for a certain type of client but you really want them for a different type and you’re not sure how to go about getting them. I know you think that it’s the chicken/egg scenario….in order to get a particular type of client you need to have that type of client in your portfolio….but if you don’t have that type of client in your portfolio then how do you attract them in the first place? This guide dispels that myth. We’re going to be making changes in this area.

For rather boring legal reasons I have to point out at this stage that although I would gladly and very happily recommend this business guide just out of the goodness of my own heart, Jonathan has arranged for me to receive a few dollars every time someone downloads the guide by clicking on the banner beneath this post, and so who am I to turn that offer down? I have always been a real advocate of Jon’s business sense and I would definitely recommend this guide to any photographer whether I get paid to recommend it or not.

Today though is your LAST chance to download this guide for a price of $199. After today, the price increases. Just click on the link below to follow through with a purchase of the guide, and you will most definitely be doing 2 things very soon: (a) kicking yourself when you realise you’ve not been running your business in the most effective way for your personally, professionally and financially, and (b) writing a point by point action plan for all the things you need to change about how you run your business!

Happisburgh:

Gorleston.

Wells.

Walcott.

Wells.

Unknown dog. Gorleston.

Mundesley.

Wells.

Mundesley.

Gorleston.

Mundesley.

Wells.

That’s all for now- a short and sweet message for anyone else like me who can always think of a reason why not to do something right now and to wait for the right moment.

Here are the stars above Bolton Castle at Amelia & Jonathan’s wedding that we shot last year. Would you be impressed to know I HANDHELD this shot for 54 seconds?! It’s fairly easy if you hold your breath.

For the people who like to know these things, this shot was taken with a Contax 645 (a medium format film camera) using TRI-X 400 shot at 1600.

Stephanie is an amazing model- you can contact her via her website!

I thought I’d take a photo of the couple of work bags I came across in ‘the cupboard where things reside’ and because I wanted the photo for this blog post I reached for my digital camera. Then I remembered I’d got an old instant film cartridge hanging around for my Contax 645, and it had just one shot left in it, and as it had been hanging around in the instant film back for a while, I figured that I might get a few wacky effects on the film and so now was as good a time as ever to use it up. It seemed fitting to use up an old bit of instant film on a shot of my old work bags. It’s almost like old life (the bags) meets new (my career as a professional photographer), despite the fact that the film has probably seen better days. So here are my bags. They saw me through many years and brightened many a day just by being more than a ‘practical’ bag. We tend not to keep clutter in the house but I think there are some things worth keeping just as a piece of history, to remind you of where you’ve been and what you’ve done. And for that, we all need that bit in the bottom of the cupboard where we can put ‘things.’

(N.B. the green bits are of course not present on our kitchen tiles in reality…it’s the wacky effects of the instant film that should’ve been used long ago!)

Fuji 400H used to be my favourite film, but since shooting a couple of rolls of Portra 800 in Canada, it’s taken over as my favourite colour film. All colour film here was metered with a handheld meter, bulb in and at 45 degrees to the ground. We used a silver full-length reflector on some shots. I also shot some black and white film, and although I’ve shot TRI-X 400 before for some travel and landscape photography, I’ve never really used it for this kind of work and nor have I ever pushed black and white film, so this was a good time to try. All black and white film in this post is TRI-X 400 shot at 1600, metered the same way as for Portra 800, and then at the lab it was pushed 2 stops. All film was developed and scanned by the increasingly brilliant FIND lab.

I had all my film developed and scanned at the FIND lab in Utah, and I was very happy with how they came back. I was just as happy, maybe even more so when the FIND lab chose one of my shots for their blog. You can see the post here, and this is the photo below, which for some reason never made it into my own blog post!

It’s all about totem poles. More coming soon…

So it was a big learning experience for me, and an exciting one at that. I took a medium format camera – the Contax 645 – along with a Carl Zeiss 80mm f2 lens, and also a Carl Zeiss 45mm f2.8. The latter could have stayed at home because I used it only for one shot the whole trip! My other camera was a 35mm rangefinder: Leica M6, equipped with a Carl Zeiss Sonnar f1.5. I chose to just shoot black and white through the Leica as I’ve long been admiring Jonathan Canlas‘s black and white work shot on a Leica M6. On the Contax I shot on manual and used my Sekonic 508 to take meter readings. I used this approach for the Leica too, though sometimes just relied on the TTL meter built into the M6.

The films I shot were as follows: Fuji 400H & 160NS in medium formats, Portra 160 and 800 in medium format, Ilford Delta 3200 in medium format, TRI-X 400 in medium format and 35mm, T-MAX 100 in 35mm. All film was developed and scanned by the amazing FIND lab in Utah. I’ve experimented with various labs and the FIND lab wins, hands down. What you have to hope whenever you have film scanned is that the person operating the scanner knows what your intentions were with each shot, and the FIND lab did this perfectly.

This is going to be a mammoth post jam-packed with photos, so here it is, starting with Fort Langley, BC.

Below are shots I took along with Kane Valley Rd in BC. Deep in the middle of nowhere, this was a magical drive with magical light.

Kaslo, BC.

Kaslo Motel. This place was originally built by Japanese prisoners of war.

Yahk, BC, just north of the border with Idaho USA.

The ‘Yahk Soap Company’ make quite a claim (see picture below this one). So strong was the claim that we had to verify it, and I have to say, they’re right…my chai tea lip balm, is the best lip balm I have ever used.

Sandon ghost town, BC.

Lake Minnewanka, AB, on one cold and frosty morning.

Mount Rundle, Banff, AB.

Coalmont, BC. An ‘almost’ ghost town.

Check out their signs as you enter town.

Alert Bay, Cormorant Island BC. We stayed for 3 nights on the island, and it rained – heavily- the whole time. It got to late afternoon on our last day and I’d not taken any photos of this place, so we ventured out armed with Ilford Delta 3200 as the light was fading…this film perfectly captured the atmosphere of this remote island. This is the goverment dock…

First Nations totem pole, with the island’s derelict hospital in the background.

The ‘Big House’ of the First Nations people who inhabit the island. This is where they hold their meetings.

The old cannery on Alert Bay, now defunct.

First Nations burial ground, Alert Bay.

A church in Creston, BC. This is the only shot I used the 45mm for!

Curlew, Washington State, USA.

Erica at Two Jacks Lake, AB.

On the Kootenay Ferry (‘the world’s longest free ferry ride’!)

Seats on the ferry…

Merritt, BC. This is Canada’s country music capital.

Okanagan BC.

Osoyoos, BC, and Spotted Lake.

Telegraph Cove, BC.

Tofino, BC.

Ucluelet Lighthouse.

Deep Cove, North Shore Vancouver.

Mini doughnuts in Steveston, BC. Doughnuts included ‘maple syrup and bacon doughnut’, which I have to say was delicious.

Comox, Vancouver Island.

And last but not least, our trusty car (Kia Sportage) that took us safely on our 2500 mile trip!