I’ve got a picture up in an exhibition in Oxford, starting in a few days time. The “press release” details are:

Made In Oxford

Photographic Exhibition by the Oxford Flickr Group
3rd – 31st October 2009 – free entry
(Opening night for press/exhibitors only 2nd October)
The Jam Factory, Holly Bush Row, Oxford, OX1 1HU (near main railway station)

The exhibition is the brainchild of a group of 30 local photographers who live, work and study in the Oxford area, most of whom had only met online before we decided to arrange this exhibition.

We’re here before term starts and we’re here when the tourists have jetted back to their own cities. And whilst it’s an outstandingly beautiful city to live in, it can get awfully boring photographing the Dreaming Spires again and again. So what we’ve set out to do is try and show you our Oxford instead. Every exhibitor has attached a little explanation to their photograph – what it is, why they took it. All the photos are geo-tagged and marked on the exhibition map so you can find out where we took them if you feel like exploring the city yourself.

Garrett Coakley, one of the organizers, said “It’s been an exciting challenge setting up an exhibition when most of the exhibitors have only ever communicated online – it just goes to show that when you have a internet-based community of like-minded individuals you can translate that into a real-world event. We’re looking forward to organising more events like this in the future.”

If you’re visiting Oxford and fancy taking away a slightly more interesting souvenir than the usual set of cheesy postcards and an Oxford University T-shirt then take a card, visit the website link , and purchase yourself a gorgeous shiny new book with all the exhibition photographs in. You can also purchase prints and books at the venue.

Pretty fun stuff. Do go and take a look if you get a chance (like if you happen to be in Oxford for a dedication service…)

I’m generally making the prints I sell at exhibitions as limited editions, but at the moment, that’s pretty much the only way I will sell them. So in the next few weeks (ok, that will probably mean months) I’ll add a new section to my website to make them more widely available – while still being very exclusive.

Brit and Chris got married at St Aloysius church in Oxford. This church has one of the most beautiful interiors in Oxford, and a Priest who was reasonably relaxed about photography during the service. The ceremony was followed by a reception at Somerville college. While the college isn’t completely unattractive, they did have a few achitectural disasters there in the 60′s which crept into the background of a few of the candid photos. The wedding breakfast itself was in the college hall, while the disco afterwards was in a marquee within the college groups.

The interior of St Aloysius

The day went very smoothly, and on time. Brit had everything planned amazingly well and is one of the most relax, yet organised, brides whose wedding I’ve had the privilege of photographing. At this wedding I also had the privilege of accompanying the mother-of-the-bride in the Rolls-Royce from where the Brit was getting ready (The Randolph Hotel, Oxford) to the church, not something the photographer would normally expect. The speeches were very entertaining, particularly the beginnings of a Manga comic about the groom that the best-man had commissioned. The remainder of the comic was going to be completed based on tales collated from the guests. A very novel and fun wedding gift.

I’m working on a community art project at the moment called the Oxford Photographic Grid. The aim is to photograph Oxford in a systematic way rather than focusing only on the tourist attractions. The basic idea is that a grid is overlaid on a map of Oxford, and then a single photo is taken at each node location on that grid. If you’re interested in finding out about this project, please visit the project website.

We are currently looking for Oxford-based photographers (both amateur and professional) to take part. If that’s you, please sign up on the project website.

Thanks to Matt Durber for creating the banner & logos for this project.

A few weeks back set up my portable studio at St Aldates Church, Oxford, for their toddler group. There are a range of kids there (including my own) from babies to just pre-school. Some were in the mood for photos, and others were not. There wasn’t much time with each child as there was limited time, and a lot of eager parents.  Consequently I wasn’t able to perserve with the kids not in the mood for photography.

The little chap above amused me, as I’m more used to photographing kids in DJs who are barely able to stand in the context of student balls. A few other children/parents made the effort to dress up for the shoot, while others preferred the more casual look. Hopefully I’ll be able to post a few more photos once I’ve got permission from the parents.

I guess I should thank my young assistant, Joanna, for helping out by; Running into the shot to hug whoever was being photographed, leaving breadcrumbs all over the backdrop, and sitting on her Daddy while he tried to photograph people. Perhaps one day I’ll get her to help…

I’ve got a feeling my blog posts are getting a bit like buses. I think that is because even if I have something to write about, finding time can be tough, and the blog is low on the priority list. But posting get bumped up the list a little when I have a back log like now.

A few weeks back, I did an engagement photoshoot for Paul and Serena. Paul is and old friend from undergraduate days, who like me still lives in Oxford. While they don’t want me to shoot their actual wedding…. in Thailand… I’ll be doing the photography for their wedding party back in the UK.  As part of my wedding package I offer a free engagement shoot when the wedding photography is booked.  I do this to give potential wedding couples a chance to decide whether they like my style and personality. Although Paul knows me already, he and Serena were happy to take me up on “free”.

The mutually convient time for the shoot ended up being in the middle of the afternoon on a very sunny day. That might seem like a good thing, but for portrait photos it isn’t. Despite seeking shade in Shotover woods it was still necessary to use flash to fill the shadows in their “panda eyes”. Serena also struggled with keeping her eyes open for photos, rather than squinting. Hopefully they enjoyed the shoot anyway.

St Hilda’s College ball was on Saturday 8th May. Photos from the ball can be seen in our client area. This Oxford college was the last single sex college, and started accepting men for the first time this year. Although that makes little difference to the ball night, since men attend as guests anyway.

This ball must have been the first that we have attended where we were not pushed for space in one way or another. The room had high ceilings and decent amount of floor space. Unfortunately for the us, we were at the far end of the college from the majority of the ball venues, and less people ventured that far away from the beer tent. I know of at least one person that was unable to find us during the ball. We weren’t completely out of it, as we were right next to outdoor cinema which was screening “Romeo and Juliet” repeatedly.  I guess it gets the couples feeling romantic before their photos are taken.

As a benefit of our location within the college, while setting up for the ball we were treated to a lovely sunset behind Magdelen College tower.

For this ball shoot aCoolDryPlace Photography was assisted by Kate of Paperleaf Studio, maker of handmade stationery

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I finally got around to getting off my first film from my medium format camera developed. The film was a black and white one which came “free” with the camera. I’d realised (even before I tried this film) that I’m not very good at visualising the world in black and white. When converting digital files  I need to give it a go to really appreciate what an image will look like in B&W. Unfortunately, there’s no such luxury with film so I tended to go for high contrast scenes this time around to be on the safe side.

I’ve learnt from playing this way, and now I’m looking forward to trying out the colour portrait film I have sat in the fridge.

Because this was an experiment really, I couldn’t bring myself to spend the £20 to get them properly scanned from the negatives, so I’ve scanned in the photos using my cheapy flatbed scanner at home. That has degraded the quality a bit compared to the prints.

I hope you’ll forgive me, but I’m spying on you! Well, sort of, in a very anonymous kind of way. It’s helpful for me to know what visitors are looking for when they come to my website, and how many visitors I’m getting. That kind of thing. So to help with that, I use Google Analytics. That tells me most of the things I’d want to know about visitors to this website.

The number of visitor is always  quite interesting. Peaks in the visitor rate, as shown above, can normally be correlated to events or Oxford college balls that I have photographed, and are people who have coming looking for their ball photos. These peaks often start building during the ball – people expect me to work fast to get the photos online!

The more amusing details that Google Analytics tells me are search terms used to find my website. As expected there are are lot of “acooldryplace” and variations on that them. My favourite of those was “the pretty cool place photography” – obviously I don’t come across as very cool. My site is also popular for those searching for “trash the dress” photography, “ball photography oxford” and even engagement and wedding photography in Oxford, but the rarer hits are the more interesting  – “screen printing wedding stationary”, “bean time lapse” & “tutors at Oxilp” have all been used and followed to my website. I know why I have come up for all of them, but I can’t imagine I rank that highly in any search engine for those terms.

If you’re looking for screen printing wedding stationery or bean time lapse I can help. I have no idea of the tutors at Oxilp, but I hope to see you at one of their balls.

On Saturday I attended the The Oxford Union 1950′s Ball (Hilary, in the title, refers to Oxford University’s name for the term between Christmas and Easter). The Oxford Union is Oxford University’s world famous debating society, which is regularly attended by famous politicians, both as students prior to their careers in politics, and working politicians at the height of their careers. None of the latter were at the ball as far as I was aware, and if any of the students there have serious political ambition then I imagine they will have avoided my studio if too inebriated (but I’ll hang on to the photos just in case the Daily Mail should ever need them ).

The photography for this ball was requested last minute, well more precisely on the Monday before.  Unfortunately this meant that Julian, my usual assistant, was unable to be there. Some good friends, Matt & Jo, bravely agreed to give me a hand. Jo got stuck in helping with the photography, and Matt acted bouncer for a lot of the evening – leading him to believe that he needs to be balder and fatter.

I’m amazed that so many students openly tell me that they intend to try to rip off the photos rather than pay for them, or ask me to use their camera to take the photos. I guess many (mistakenly) think that I’m being paid as part of their ball ticket cost. I don’t know whether I should be more surprised, or less, when this occurs with a bunch of wannabe politicians.

If you are looking for photos (to buy!), please visit the client area.

Oxfam in Oxford regularly have special camera sale weekends where they display all their photography gear. Rarely is there anything modern, but I’m always tempted by the older cameras. I don’t know why. Last time I almost bought a Kodak Junior, but having researched it, I found that I would have ended up having to re-roll 120 film on to the now obsolete 620 spools. That seemed a little bit too much like hard work, for what would have been just for fun.

But it got me thinking. I fancied playing with a medium format camera. Digital medium format cameras are somewhat out of my reach price wise, so I started investigating film ones. Rather than opting for something very old, along the lines of what I might find at Oxfam – I’ve got hold of the camera above. It’s a early 1990′s professional medium format camera. I’m hoping that the additional expense of film, and the slowness of a fully manual camera, will teach me to think about each shot that little bit more. While it is largely for me to practice with at the moment, I may start offering a retro portrait service for those wanting the look-and-feel of good old film.

I’ve not had any films developed yet, but I’ll post some photos when I have.