A few weeks ago during a visit to see family in Scotland, I shot a few pictures of my eleven year old nephew, Robbie. Setting sun, flash: great fun.

Robbie is getting into BMX and it shows. Dude!

I had the pleasure of shooting the wedding reception of an old school friend at Orocco Pier, South Queensferry a couple of weeks ago. Hadn’t seen him for years. The stakes were high as the bridegroom, Nick Callaghan, is an established commercial photographer based in East Lothian, so I couldn’t afford to make any mistakes!

The couple were married in Italy the week before and the event at Orocco Pier was for friends and family closer to home. A nice idea. Nick was kind enough to bring me up from London to let me loose on what was an event full of challenges for a photographer – shooting in relatively small function room, lit completely on one side by large balcony windows, requiring a canny use of the flash and the high-ISO/wide open end of my camera gear. The benefit was a stunning view looking out over the Firth of Forth and the Forth Road and Rail Bridges, two Scottish engineering icons if ever there were any. The trick was to try to work them into the frame without either blowing them out completely or getting everything in silhouette (although there are some nice silhouettes in there…)

A selection from the shoot below.

If you were a guest at this wedding and don’t yet have access to the full gallery, please contact me.

At the weekend I had the pleasure of shooting some more cat portraits at the Celia Hammond Trust Animal Sanctuary near Brede, East Sussex. I had already photographed many of the cats at the Celia Hammond Trust Animal Sanctuary in Lewisham and I’d promised to go to Brede as they were in need of fresh images for their web site.

Once again, I was really impressed with how well these cats are looked after at the sanctuary, but saddened that there are so many beautiful animals looking for homes. I would have taken them all if I could.

If you are interested in adopting one of these or any of the other cats at the Brede shelter, please contact 01424 882198 for an appointment.

A selection of images below. A full selection of images from both shoots (at Lewisham and Brede), available for purchase as prints or rights managed downloads, with proceeds of sales going to the Celia Hammand Animal Trust, can be found at the Celia Hammond Animal Trust Portraits page.

Late bookings

I am currently available to take last minute bookings for the following dates in 2010:

• 11 September
• 18 September
• 25 September
• 9 October
• 23 October
• 6 November
• 20 November
• 27 November

If you are still looking for a London wedding photographer or have been let down by your wedding photographer at the last minute and need an urgent late booking, you may be interested in my discounted rate for the following dates.

Discount for late bookings

A substantial discount is available for late wedding photography bookings. The cost of this photography package is £899. This is a 35% reduction in my standard fee.

The photography package includes:

• Full Day Shoot – from bride getting ready to first dance
• Bride and Groom Online Gallery with full download rights
• DVD of all JPG files configured for printing

Albums and other products are available at discounted rates if required.

Please note that this fee is for a wedding in London. A small charge for travel and subsistence may be made for weddings outside London.

This is a great opportunity to buy a high quality wedding photography package at the last minute. Contact Matthew Lemon if you have any queries.

I had a great time shooting the wedding of Nicky and Kyle at Oaks Farm near Croydon. Fantastic venue for a photographer – apart from the easy-on-the-eye scenery outside, you don’t have the white-knuckle-drive between where the bride is getting ready and the ceremony as at Oaks Farm, it’s all done “under one roof. The bridal party got ready in the charming cottage at the back of the venue. Great stuff!

The bridegroom is a fireman and the couple received a guard of honour as they left the ceremony room. Here they are, practicing before the big event.

From a technical point of view, this was a pretty tough wedding to shoot as the sun was in and out all day, plus we got a few rain showers. The interior was typically poorly-lit too, so lots of work with gelled flash to balance the nasty tungsten light.

A full selection of sample images from this wedding is available.

I am tweaking my web site on an almost daily basis at the moment – hopefully you will find it is improving all the time.

I have just added a Flash-based Wedding Photography Portfolio page, which displays a collection my favourite images from recent weddings. The great thing about the Flash version is that it is viewable at fullscreen, which makes for a stunning way to view the collection, but I know that not everyone (including those of us with iPads) is comfortable with Flash so I have made a non-Flash version available too. Enjoy.

Harvey is growing up fast and what with shooting weddings and cats, I haven’t had much of a chance to shoot the bonny lad these last few weeks.

Tried a couple of different quick set-ups this weekend. A bare 580EXII on a Gorillapod to the left, gelled with a half cut of CTO, about eye level and the ST-E2 Speedlite Transmittor with the 50mm f1.8 on the 5DMkII – and pointed the whole lot at Joanna as Harvey had his bath in the washing-up bowl, a nightly routine in the Lemon household nowadays. As expected, I got some very direct light out of that, and a nice rim light on the bairn. The overall aesthetic is pretty low-key, you’ll agree.

I then waved the Gorillapod and flash around as I fired away and got some softer, warmer images, depending on how I pointing/bounced the light.

I shot a few more of Harvey this morning as he lay on the sofa, this time in soft, curtained window light. You can’t loose at f2.0 with these. Soften the skin a touch, dial up a bit more saturation in the eyes and Bob’s your uncle. I delivered these ones to the grandparents in the knowledge that they might want to print them, so they look a bit oversharpened for the screen. Still I thought I’d post them anyway. Good fun and nothing serious – you learn from everything you do in this game.

If you look on Flickr, you’ll find a lot of photography devoted to water droplets. In fact, there are communities of photographers dedicated to the genre. A few weeks ago I bought a second hand Canon 100mm f2.8 macro from the London Camera Exchange on The Strand but I hadn’t had the chance to play with it yet.

This blue plastic comb, fresh out of the bathroom this morning, provided an opportunity for a tinker with it.

I stuck the 100mm macro on the 40D. You need a tripod with these babies as you’re working in the f11-16 range to get any decent depth of field, so, working in natural roomlight (pretty dim) exposures are at around the 3-5 second mark. I also discovered that the sensor on my 40D is pebbledashed with dust – such small apertures really show that up. Possible to get rid of in post, but a pain in the you know what to do – one or two of the images below still show the dust pretty clearly. I leave them as a warning…

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The video below is.

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The daily commute to my day job involves a seven mile journey by bike from Lewisham to Westminster, via New Cross and the Old Kent Road, which usually takes me just under thirty minutes. I wouldn’t expect anyone to sit through half an hour of it, but here’s a speeded up video of my journey, filmed with an non-HD Flip Video taped to my handlebars. Music is a cover of Castanets’ “You Are The Blood” by the weird and brilliant Sufjan Stevens.

Anyone who has got anywhere near setting up their own business has probably read a tonne of advice about writing a business plan. I wrote one a few months ago and took it to a meeting with my accountant, during which she asked, “Did you write this for me or for your own benefit?”

It was a good question.

A good business plan must out in cold reality of your idea and attaches figures to it. I’m talking hard cash. An business idea is just a business idea unless you task it to make money for you, and it must be enough money to provide you with a decent living, otherwise it’s probably better described as a “hobby plan” or a “weekend plan”. The business plan I wrote told me that, yes, I can make you money, but not until 2012 at the very earliest.

That’s good to know. Better not walk out of the day job yet.

I also rigged it so it was realistic – a useful attribute for a business plan to have.

The plan is also far-reaching. I know I can’t just walk into being amongst the best wedding photographers in London without years or experience, training, practice – and a modicum of good luck. If you plan for that kind of upward curve, you can climb it.

I don’t fiddle with my business plan every day – I haven’t read it for over six months, but I know it’s there and I know what its primary objectives are. In the meantime, I learn as I go.

SEO, marketing, advertising, web site development, equipment, sole proprietorship, tax, business banking, insurance, training, time management, pricing strategies and accountancy.

If you’ve done it right, you might find you’re on track.

It’s mid-2010, I’m in the middle of my apprenticeship as a wedding photographer based in Lewisham, South East London (who is actually shooting weddings in Scotland, Croydon and Kent). I reckon that’s in there somewhere on page five.

To answer my accountant’s question, I wrote the business plan for me, knowing it could be read by someone “who knows” at any time. Not a bad strategy to have.

Good sites that have helped me in business planning:

• Business Link
• Starting your business (HSBC)
• Teneric Business Forums
• Grover’s Photographer Recession Survival Tactics