Online Wedding and Portrait Brochures

It's slowly beginning to dawn on me how important websites are. When I first set about designing mine originally I thought I had everything covered. As you may know I'm deep into some pretty big changes to make it more user friendly for everyone. In particular there'll be a whole section for photographers as well as future brides and portrait enquiries.

I see the internet as like another T.V. Channel with lots of interesting things to watch, unfortunately there are alot of adverts too. How do you rate your site? Is it an interesting show or an advert? If it's an advert (and most are) do you blame people for skipping past it on there search for something interesting?

Here's a link to a sneak peak of what my potential brides get to see when they contact me (feel free to e mail it to anyone you know who's getting married)http://martinwilmottphotography.com/slideshows/wedenquiry/ yes it's an advert but hopefully an entertaining one.

As you can see the internet is moving at a massive pace. Only the other day I sat and watched Top Gear on my laptop (this show just gets better and better). The first time I have ever watched a TV show online! If this is becoming more and more available I can see no need for video recorders in the future. Incidently if you are into photography Top Gear is fantastic for picking up ideas, watch how the shows are filmed in high fashion style colour and often cross processed, fantastic! its already driven me to create some more photoshop styles.

On the subject of sport the Colchester Gladiators game scheduled for this Sunday was called off due to a rain soaked pitch (yes we are still in a drought). This is real bad news for me as the rest of the home games I have got weddings booked on the days! I might have to see some of there away games instead (as long as it's not too far to travel).

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Canon Plans to Stop Film Cameras?

No great shocks but the big rumour that's set the emails going is Canon withdrawing its film cameras. I guess it was inevitable after Nikon announced the same thing a couple of months ago.

Canon are attempting to keep it quiet at the moment as they still have warehouses full of film bodies they need to shift to the unsuspecting public.

Also setting the emails going is the Photoshop CS3 rumour. Depending on who you listen to it's between 2 and 8 months away. Interestingly Adobe have refused to comment on the rumors. Also another interesting thing I read was Microsoft have invented a new form of image that is of a higher quality than JPG but takes less space. They intend to launch it very soon and claim it will fast become the high quality way of capturing images. If it takes off (and who would bet against Microsoft) I guess there'll be a huge rush of digital cameras that use this technology I bet the camera manufacturers love it when everyone is forced to change their cameras again.

Whilst we're on the subject of Microsoft I recently started getting really annoying grey lines around web pages I was visiting which meant I had to double click on web pages to open links etc. I figured it was a setting I had set myself and would eventually find a way of switching it off. However I've since found out that it was an update to internet explorer that happened without my knowledge and was downloaded automatically. ....... I can almost hear you saying , "I thought it was just me" anyway I have now found a solution. I now use Firefox as my web browser so Microsoft because of your annoying stupid grey box you just lost a customer!

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A Very Muddy Weekend

For anyone who's reading this from another country let me firstly point out that according to every news report England is in the middle of the worst drought for twenty years.

Bearing this in mind the weather gods decided it was about time we had a few years worth of rain in one weekend. Unfortunately it just happened to be the same weekend that the Essex Young Farmers had put on their country show. The young farmers show is one of the few shows every year that I book to display some of my stuff and hopefully meet up with loads of people and maybe get some bookings.

The omens were bad on Saturday when we struggled to get the cars anywhere near the marquee. Tractors were pulling vans and cars around the site in an effort to get people to their areas. Sunday was the day of the show and it had continued to rain overnight so now when we attempt to get to the showground Nothing can move on the site unless it's a four wheel drive. In no time at all the complete site was a thick sludgey mess, the stalls selling wellies made a complete fortune!

Anyway it was great to chat to so many people I was genually surprised how many of you had signed up for the free online training (look on my site under tips). Anyway after a good show (as good as it could be) it was time to pack up needless to say getting the cars anywhere near the marquee was a non starter and anyone that tried ended up stuck and waiting for a tractor.

So after many trips carrying framed images and boards through ankle high mud about 500m it was time to attempt to drive out of the car park. As luck would have it the cars managed to get out of the field (not before spraying mud all over the cars). So that's how the weekend went ... Having said that it was thoroughly worth being there ...... Lets hope this drought doesn't carry on for too long!

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Graduation Photographs

Is it me or do teenager get a better deal these days when they leave school? Not that they shouldn't do but when I left school the best you got was a teacher standing next to the fire alarm to stop it being set off when everyone left.

Anyway it was my nephews graduation day the other day and they had a ball set up for them. The teachers greeted all the kids at the door as they arrived in various types of vehicles stretching from wheely bins and Del Boys Robin reliant to expensive sport cars.

Of course Aaron (my nephew) arrived in style and looked great in his Tux (the first time he's had to where one.) Although the bow tie didn't last too long (about an hour). He even borrowed a set of my cufflinks suprise, suprise which ones he chose to wear, mini toilets. I picked them up in Australia a couple of years ago when i realised I had left mine behind in the UK.

Unfortunately Aarons girlfreind is a year younger than him so she wasn't allowed to go the ball. So he took along one of his freinds who also looked pretty stunning.

From what little I have heard he had a great time, however now its welcome to the real world. Time to find a job and start paying taxes.

I'm feel sure that no matter what direction he decides to take his career he'll be a great success.

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Something for the weekend

This Sunday I found myself with nothing to do. In the previous week I had read in the local paper that the Colchester Gladiators had a home game against the Cambridgeshire cats. It's been along time since I've been to see a game of American football 10 years ago I was really into it and even traveled to Atlanta Georgia to watch the a superbowl where the Redskins took apart the Broncos.

Of course I couldn't go to something as fast action as this without taking along my camera. For anyone that's interested the rest of the images are here http://www.martinwilmottphotography.com/slideshows/Gladiators

I must say it was a fantastic game. The Gladiators seemed to struggle in the first half but put in the best comeback I've ever witnessed. With one second left on the clock they were two points behind, the pass and catch will no doubt go down in legend for the Colchester club and will be talked about for years. The final score finished in a victory for the Gladiators 33 Cambridgeshire Cats 27.

Anyone interested in watching the team can find details of the next game on their website here http://www.colchestergladiators.com I'll certainly make an effort to go as long as I haven't got a wedding on.

See you there ......

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Theo Walcott and England

Am I the only one who's struggling to understand Sven's tactics? He's picked an unheard of player (although Arsenal paid £12 million for him and haven't played him). Now we are led to believe that Sven has heard of and been thinking about him for a while but admits he's never seen him play.

I along with thousand of other England supporters have paid to watch England play friendlies all over the country and watched Sven substitute the whole team on most occasions. On many occasions at half time a completely different team troops out onto the pitch. We watched as a inferior side would struggle through the second half but we didn't mind too much because Sven had a master plan and wanted to give EVERYONE he was watching a run out.

I'm not against Theo, from what I hear he's a good striker with blistering speed, but surely if Sven had got him in mind he'd have picked him before now?

On a different subject unlucky West Ham a very brave effort only to be beaten on penalties. On the plus side looks like Gerrards on form and will actually make a major tournament for England!

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Photoshop Actions

I've spent several hours over the last week just sorting out some actions in photoshop to try and speed up my work flow. I'm up to about thirty seperate actions at the moment. I find it's cutting down time spent on the computer when I'm trying to sort out albums. On average I guess it's saving between 5 - 30 minutes per image. In an album of 150+ images thats a lot of time!

On another note the amount of interest for the lifestyle portrait training day has suddenly grown over the last two weeks. I'm not sure why but all I can say is thanks for sending the cheques and just to tell you it's going to be great! I can hardly wait to meet you all.

F.A. cup tommorow and suprisingly the diaries empty? Strange how the England games for the world cup are also non photography days, I wonder how that happened?

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Exciting Changes for Weddings Online

I've spent the last two days really concentrating on the wedding side of my business. I am so honored that I get to record some magical fantastic days.

It was recently that I realised how the experience and knowledge that I have picked up over time would be of use to brides. The handy tips and one liners from speeches etc that make the day just that little bit more special. I've been putting these down on paper recently with the intention of making them freely available by downloading them from my site.

If any bride takes one of these ideas and makes their day better then that will be a success in my eyes. I also thought there are loads more people with the experiences to give really handy advice so I've been ringing round people I've worked with in the past (florists, caterers etc) and got there tips too. To put the icing on the cake I've also recently gone back through some of my brides and asked them to contribute any tips they can think of. I really hope this will grow into a massively useful document that Brides can use prior to their wedding.

If you're getting married soon keep your eyes peeled and I'll get it on my site as soon as I can. I'll put a mention on here as soon as it's live so if you've signed up to receive this blog via e mail in the box to the side you won't miss it.

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Business Books

I love to read and find if I can take a few bits of information from a book and introduce them into my working life then it's been worth while. Currently I'm rereading Chris Daffy's excellent Once a Customer Always a Customer.

I first became aware of Chris when I worked in the motor trade selling Land Rovers. My employers had got Chris to give a talk to all the staff and I must say what he said really hit a note with me. Unfortunately the company I was working for at the time for some reason did nothing to introduce any of the practices into the work place. On a brighter side it was probably meeting Chris that made me realise how bad some (most) companies are and all I had to do was look after customers and being a business success comes naturally.

My copy of this book is now a little dogeared with notes and scribbles written all over various pages but I still take it out occasionally for inspiration. Next time your in the library or browsing through Amazon I strongly recommend you give it a look. Chris has a web site here http://www.customerserviceuk.com/ give it a look for inspiration if you're in business or thinking about it you'd be a fool not to.

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Great Photography website

Some while back whilst flicking around i-tunes I discovered a podcast under the name of photoshop tv and thought I'd give it a run and see what it was all about.

It's run by the three guys you see hear who let it be said have their own sense of humour and in house jokes that can make you grimace a lot of the time.

Having said that the tips and tutorials they give for photoshop are outstanding! Very much worth a look if you have any intention of getting even a small fraction of the capabilities of photoshop from your machine. The pod cast is released once a week (normally a Wednesday). I've set i-tunes on my machine to automatically download it whenever there's an update. A word of warning the programme can be long 40 minutes plus sometimes so after a few months I tend to delete the old episodes so as not to burn up too much memory.

If you just wanted to check it out go to www.photoshoptv.com and see what you think. You don't have to have a video i-pod you can watch it on your computer screen. Hope this is of as much use to you as it has been to me.

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