59/365 - For Momona

My boy Jackson all wrapped up on his way to another party this afternoon, think I could get used to this life. Saturday afternoon drinking, party food what more could you want. Was going to take a shot of him with his mates again but remember that my flickr contact Momona12093 wanted to see my boy in his new hat, so just for you here he is.

58/365 - Come on Wales.

Thought what better way than to start the weekend off with a pint or two, especially as Wales play France away tonight in the Six Nations RBS Championship.. So how fitting to have my shot of the day as a pint of the black stuff. Good luck boys.

Wedding Special - Make me an offer.

Yeap that's right. You have seen what I have to offer and if you want something a little different then let me know what it is you would like, long shooting time, shorter shooting time, trash the dress shoot, engagement photoshoot or something a little different, then work out what you want to pay for it and make me an offer. As long as it is a sensible offer then I'm pretty sure we can come to an arrangement.

Spring Special - Half Price Portrait Packages.

For a limited time I am offering my portrait packages one and two at half price. No catches, no gimmicks and no limited places. Just book one of my portrait packages between now and the 10th April and only pay £25 for package one or £30 for package two. It's a simple as that. Honest.
You can have your session wherever you like, at home or out on and about. The choice is yours.
Please contact me to make a book or discuss this further.

****Please note that portrait sessions or wedding packages undertaken with an excess of 40 miles from my home may incur a travel charge****

57/365 - How big?

Didn't have much time to grab a sensible shot today so just a quick mobile phone shot I took of a canvas print that arrives for a client. The print is massive, bigger than I expected. 60 inches x 36 inches. But it looks amazing and will look amazing in it's new home when the client collects it on Sunday. Promise to find more time tomorrow for a proper shot.

56/365 - Old Skool Days

Have found some old photo's from my school days over the weekend in preparation for my bit as best man at my mates wedding. So having a look through this afternoon thought it would make a photo's for my 365 blog. For those interested I am sticking my tongue out in the bottom left loose photo, stuffing my face in the one above that and feeding the horse on the right hand photo, in the main shot I am back row 8th one in from the left.

55/365 - Ummmmm. Pancakes..

How could I let Shrove Tuesday pass by without using it as a photo opportunity, So whilst the wife was stacking the pancakes up I snapped away and poured a generous helping of maple syrup over them. And yes they tasted as good as they looked. Cheers love.

54/365 - Swim son swim.

Ideally tonight's shot would of been of my boy at the pool this afternoon, but as it frowned upon I had to settle for a shot of his favourite rubber ducky in the bath tonight. Words can't explain how proud I am of my boy tonight. His swimming has come in leaps and bounds in the last month. Today he was able to float on his own on his back and with the aid of a woggle and ring to make a horseshoe loop he was of a fashion able to move himself the length of the pool. I am a man but I'm not afraid to admit it brought a tear to my eye. Good on ya son.

53/365 - The party continues.

Today we headed over to my parents house to celebrate my boys first birthday with them, once again very hectic but great fun. There's loads of images from this weekend on my flickr stream now so follow the link to the right in the links part and have a look.
Looking forward to settling back into a normal routine again next week.

52/365 - Happy birthday to you.

My son's first birthday today and what a manic day it was. Just working up the strength to go clear up the house.
Was going to use a picture of him on his new rocking horse but liked this one better. To see the rst of the day's images follow this link

51/365 - What is it.

It's my boys 1st birthday on Saturday and it is left to me tonight to construct his present. Just hope all the bits are there otherwise it will be a very mad dash to town first thing to get it sorted.

50/365 - Fire Fire

What's a Thursday daily photo with out something relating to the fire station. Bit of a cop out tonight as we only had lectures so no chance to get some action shots, so came home and got out the light tent again. Seem to be having a bit of a light tent revival this week.
The subject is one of my son's new toys.

49/365 - Not more....

Since getting the Polaroid camera at the weekend my passion for old skool film cameras was awakened, after a few minutes on everyone's favourite auction site and a total spend of just over £5, I now own another two cameras. The first is a Halina 35mm circa 1950's and the other is a Ilford Sportsman 35mm in leather case. So not the Kodak brownie pictured above but both units are very dirty and in need a serious clean, so dragged one of my other oldies off the top shelf and put me light tent to good use.

Site News - GraphiStudio Albums

I have updated my wedding packages again today. I am now offering GraphiStudio printed wedding albums with most my wedding packages. They are standard with packages two and three, but are an optional extra on all my other packages. The printed album offered with package one is of exceptional quality but not to that of the GraphiStudio albums. I have a sample set arriving in the next few weeks and would be more than happy to show potential clients the quality of both types of albums. Alongside the main albums from GraphiStudio they also offer parents books with the same layout as your main book and mini guest books too.
Please contact me for more details on these amazing books or check out their site - GraphiStudio

48/365 - The gathering.

Came home today to find a gathering of babies in my front lounge, not that I have more than one lounge and it stretches from front to back, but they were in my lounge. Carnage is all I will say. So, not one to miss a photo op I got down on the floor and snapped away. Took a whole heap in a short space of time with only my trusty 24-105mm f/4 L and Sigma 500 DG Super.
The rest of the set can be found here :: MWI - The Gathering.

47/365 - Typical.

Typical isn't it, spend all day watching the the skies hoping the decent weather hold out till you finish work, then bang 3pm comes and the skies change in the blink of an eye. Had today's shot of Baggy point all worked out as the weather and skies looked lovely all day, then get down there after work with all my gear, it turns overcast, misty and a slight amount of drizzle in the air too. Oh well. Took the shot anyway, will just have to return when the weather is better.

46/365 - Snow drops keep falling on my head...

Went for walk at our local gardens today, the snow drops were out in an abundance. Just couldn't resit a few shots. Click here to see the rest of the set.
Got down real low to the ground and took the flash gun off the camera. Camera set to manual and exposed for the background then used flash to fill in.
Canon 40d : Canon 24-105mm f/4 : 1/250 sec : f/4 : iso 100 : Flash camera right 1/16 power

Website Update - Portrait Packages

Continuing on with my current website updates, I have this week also updated all my portrait packages. The new packages can be found here on my site - MattFryer.co.uk
Packages start from £50 including a mounted print. I have also added a digital only package for those who to have all the images from their session to do with as they please. All my packages are bespoke and can be tailored to suit your needs. Just get in contact with me if there something specific you are looking for. These prices also apply to modelling portfolio's too.
Along with the package updates I have added some print packages to my site now.
Next on my list of website updates will be to move this blog over to my own server. Fingers crossed it will go according to plan and I won't lose everything.

45/365 - Lost pictures?

Been playing with some ideas for wedding photography recently and one I would like to try is getting an old polaroid camera and getting shots of every guest at the wedding to sign a polaroid print of themselves for the bride and groom to keep instead of a wedding guest book. Put this idea to my best mate and his future wife and they loved it. So I am now the proud owner of this little lot....

What a bargain - £7 and it had the original receipt too from 1989. But more importantly in the box was two old snaps presumably from the original owner. Very late 80's too. Doubt I will ever find out who they are in the pictures. How random?

44/365 - Tea time.

Had the pleasure of feeding our boy tonight, but just couldn't resist a cheeky shot for my blog.
All work was done in lightroom, a simple crop to remove unwanted clutter and dead space, levels, WB and de-saturation with added vignetting.

43/365 - What a life.

I want to be a cat. Ours has done nothing but sleep in the sun all day on the sofa. What a life, till some idiot sticks a lens in your face and blinds you with bounced flash. Couldn't decide between two images tonight so uploaded both to my flickr 365 set. Here's the other.

Click the image to get to the full sized version and blurb about it.

****Note to everyone, I didn't blind the cat that was merely a line I wrote, the flash was stoffen covered and set to 1/64 power bounced off the ceiling, the cat was not harmed in anyway and is perfectly well and able to see. She is so well in fact she is sat on top of our gerbil tank seeing if she can get in. And before anyone reports me she can't, Lexy our gerbil is safe and well out of harms way of our very healthy non blinded cat. Who btw is called Sophie. Thank You****

42/365 - Some flowers for you dear.

Bit of weird night tonight so just got messing with my a heath robinson light tent made from several bit of black and white card. Haven't done still life for a while and it shows. Not really happy with this one, will have to try harder next time. Think it was down to my choice of white flower against black.

Website Update :: Wedding Packages

I have finally finished off updating my wedding packages. All my packages can still be bespoke to your needs, but having found new suppliers for this year I am able to offer a wider range of albums and prints. All packages now include unlimited number of images taken on the day, pre wedding meeting to discuss your wedding photography needs and all images presented in a mixture of black and white as well as colour processing along with some more modern styles of processing. Something new I am offering this year is a digital only package. I will present the images from your day in hi resolution format on DVD, allowing you distribute those images as you see fit, make your own albums, prints whatever. And finally I think I went a little bonkers last night finishing it all off and have added a "make me an offer" package. Yeap that's right. You have seen what I have to offer and if you want something a little different then let me know what it is you would like, long shooting time, shorter shooting time, trash the dress shoot, engagement photoshoot or something a little different, then work out what you want to pay for it and make me an offer. As long as it is a sensible offer then I'm pretty sure we can come to an arrangement.

Link to my site :: MattFryer.co.uk
Link to my :: Wedding Packages

41/365 - Some baots.

To make a change I took a brief walk down to one of my favourite spots in the village. Finally a shot that doesn't have anything to do with the snow. Will hopefully crack out the light tent this week and shoot some still life stuff. Fingers crossed.

40/365 - Oh some snow.

Was out and about today over the moors, I pass this valley at least twice a week and always keep meaning to go back with my full camera gear and shot it. But never have, took this leaning out the window of the van on My Nokia mobile phone, it had a horrid colour cast to it so converted to black and white in CS3 to improve it a little, also didn't add any vignetting today, I am trying to wean myself off of it. Hopefully the vignetting addiction classes are finally working.

39/365 - New shoes, New shoes.

A big day for our boy, his first pair of proper shoes. Size 2 1/2

38/365 - The drive home

Taken on the drive home from Exeter, it had been sunny all day and I planned to stop and get some cracking landscape shots of the snowy countryside, but typically the weather deteriorated and this is the result. Processed in Lightroom only.

37/365 - Will it ever end...

Even more snow today but only on the high ground so jumped in the van and went and had a look. Police mistook me for press reporter and gave me free access of the area. A hi-vis vest works wonders. How cool..
Have posted a load more on my facebook profile. Check them out here:-

Ilfracombe Snow Part I
Ilfracombe Snow Part II

Have also had a few local and national media groups interested in publishing some of pictures from today so you never know Icould have my first tabloid image. Fingers crossed.

36/365 - More snow!!

More snow again today but was able to get out and about and on with work. Grabbed this shot on the road to Blackmore Gate, took two shots and stitched them together in CS3.

35/365 - I want to go home. Please.

After yesterdays fun I had to pay the price today. Double shifts to catch up with the backlog of orders. Tired, cold, wet and hungry i grabbed this one just after the sun set on the depo and we waited for the last lorry to come back. A long day.
Took this one on my Nokia 6220 Classic mobile phone - 5mp camera don't you know.

34/365 - Might be a bit late today..

Not sure why really, but I made a vain attempt at getting to work this morning. Only got about half way and lost traction in the van so came home and had a snow with the family. Took this at 8.30am on the main road between braunton and Ilfracombe, at this time of morning it is normally a flurry of cars, but today only a serious flurry of snow. Currently working through a load more shots from today which I will upload later.

Have uploaded this morning extra images and they can be found here - On my flickr stream

33/365 - It's snowing......

Not a very exciting shot today but I don't care, it is snowing. We never get snow in North Devon. But today we did, and a fair amount y dusk too. So much so that I got called out, (I'm a retained fireman too) and we had trouble getting around this evening and had to resort to using the snow chains.
Hopefully we shall have a bit more snow by the morning so either I will get the day off work (yeah right), or be out and about and get some real good scenic shots tomorrow..

32/365 - Congratulations.

Had the pleasure and honour of shooting our friends daughters christening today. Slightly different from my normal work, so much more relaxed. Had great fun and it was a lovely day.

31/365 Please go to sleep.

Spent much of this afternoon trying to get my boy to sleep, drove for about 50 mins for him only to fall asleep about 5 minuted from home, typical, so had to wait in a lay by overlooking Saunton whilst he slept, but did manage to grab a few shot though, so all was not lost.
Sorry for no update today but had my works Christmas do in the evening and by the time I got home I wasn't really in any fit state to type.