Very quick just to explain what’s happening with my email backlog. I sound incredibly lisp-alicious and scatterbrained, not to mention that my eyes make me look like an alien (distortion, perhaps?). Also, the red hair is gone (far too much maintenance), but I’m now a warm-chesnut colour, which I have never been before. Back to regular programming shortly, away from vanity & excuses…

I’ve had quite a few requests lately to put up new photos of Moses. So I snapped a few yesterday morning when I was getting settled down to do some work. He wasn’t really having any of it and was far more interested in his baseball. He does, however, continue to be the funniest cat about, constantly trying to entertain. I’ve had cats since I was a child and I loved them all, but this little fella is just something else. Miles apart from any cat I’ve ever had. I think it’s because we got him as a young kitten and because he gets so much attention, but at the risk of sounding ‘crazy cat lady’, he is a total ham and I love him.

Anyone who knows me will know that I love flamingos with all my heart. When I was six years old my class in Primary School adopted a flamingo at the Belfast Zoo and I clearly remember being fascinated with this animal. I’m a ‘cat girl’, but when it comes to non-domestic animals, the flamingo is by far my favourite. It also has a lot to do with the fact that I spend a lot of time in Florida – you can’t avoid the flamingo theme that the state of Florida has going on. For my 24th birthday, my good friends/family threw me a flamingo themed party at my favourite restaurant in Florida. I didn’t get too many Flamingo shots when I was in Florida, but here are a few snaps….

All photos are available as high quality, crystal archive prints at either 10 x 8″ or 8 x 8″ (depending on the format) for $20. To purchase prints please visit my ETSY store!

Also, here’s how happy I get when I’m in Anna Maria Island….

Night on Holmes Beach, FL.

My Spring in Florida is over and I’m currently in the UK (Belfast, then London as of Tuesday). I was not really ready to leave the USA this time (even though I missed my cat, Moses), but that’s ok I have a lot of work lined up in the UK and a lot of play too then I’m back to the US mid-summer if all goes to plan. I have a LOT of photographs to get through, so I’ll be posting over the next few days. I’m also going to be selling prints of all my work over the past few months. Now, my Google Reader has over 1,000 entries to get through….

Greetings from Sunny Florida!

I’m currently in south-west Florida’s Gulf Coast, my home-from-home. I’m doing a lot of sun lounging and resting, so if I’m slow with any email responses, don’t worry, I will get around to it – just a bit later than usual.

Oldies (Part V) Sunsets & Nightscapes in Anna Maria Island.
In keeping with pulling up older photos I’ve taken over the past five or six years. I’m also running with the theme of posting photos of Anna Maria Island, the tiny little ‘city’ in the form of an island that I consider to be my second home, where I’ll be headed back to on Friday.

These photos I shot back in 2006 for arts and culture magazine, Contra, of the Danish band ‘The Kissaway Trail‘.

To be completely honest, band photography had never really interested me and I was still a relative newcomer to photography in general at this stage. The shoot itself took place in Primrose Hill, North London, on one of the coldest days I remember from that year. I walked from my place in W.Hampstead to Primrose Hill with absolutely no intentions or ideas. I had very little equipment, just a camera and a tripod (I didn’t even have a flash or a light meter). The band were friendly, but we had a bit of a language barrier which, thankfully, the photo editor (who joined us on location) helped out with that.
It’s funny to look back and see how the photos at least turned out to be somewhat useable given my complete unprofessionalism. Now when I turn up for things like that I have a full outdoor and studio lighting kit, external flashes, umbrellas, different cameras and lenses, yet I don’t think the results have varied all that much. Photography is such a trick.

Since then, the band seem to be doing pretty well for themselves. You can visit their official site here or go watch them on youtube.

Just four, totally random, snaps I took last winter in Anna Maria Island, Florida, my ‘home other home’. I will be back here in nine days and I couldn’t be going at a better time. Not only am I trying to warm myself up right now because we have had no electricity or heat for 12 hours (along with the rest of the country) but the cause of that was high winds and snow blizzards. Yes, snow blizzards a day before April. Being a girl who loves the sun and hot-heat and despises winter, I’m pretty glad to be packing my bag and headed back Stateside. My month and a half back in Belfast seemed far too long mainly due to the weather.

Also, the day after I arrive is April 10th – my birthday, my 24th birthday to be exact, and there is nowhere I’d rather hit my mid-twenties than that sunny little island.

Another video post, eh?

Another video post in which I explain why I’m a terrible blogger (and that I have a fairly decent excuse for it). Thanks for all your responses on the last one – especially regarding that old accent of mine, I think I’m a bit more fast-talking and Belfast in this one, so don’t worry if it’s a bit more inaudible. This is much the same and nothing special, but I do have a nifty little HD camcorder all to myself and I’m working on some videos for the blog that are more than me chatting about my day into a webcam. I sense a revolution of video coming on – it’s about time! Being a photographer isn’t about still images, picking up a camcorder is no different and I’m working on it. Plus, I’m spending most of between now and May in South-West Florida, a huge source of inspiration for me, so I foresee plenty of video-action VERY soon.

…PS, I’m going to do a live-webchat for camera/photography advice.

A little tidbit I forgot to mention in the video is that I’m going to hold an online chat sometime very soon (and hopefully make it a regular thing) – either a video chat or just a plain old typing chat – for camera advice. I worked for 6 years in camera sales, repairs and commercial retail, so I figured I should put that to use in some way. So if you want to ask about which camera to buy, if I would recommend a camera or lens, if you have a problem or a broken camera, if you need general advice on cameras and what to buy or how to use them etc, that’s what this will be for.

So, if you are interested in participating can you please let me know. I only plan to have a few people at a time involved in the chat and it’ll be first come first served. It will be completely free and informal. So if you’re interested, hit me up.

Just another silly little promo.