Billy Joe Strummer Bailey at Loftus Road

You may recognise this chap as Richard Bailey. A fellow within the coooperative of photographers and the creator of a multitude of stunningly beautiful images. I have a link to some of Richard's work at the foot of this post. Richard's photography may be beautiful and of course vitally important to put food on the table it being his full time work, but photography is just one of many of Richard's passions. His lovely family always come first and on Saturday, his eldest daughter Billy Joe was selected to be a mascot for Queens Park Rangers in their home game against Peterborough.

Richard Bailey

Billy Joe at the sponsors' board


The Loftus Road tunnel

The mascots were allowed a short knock around prior to kick off, a quick formal shot with the teams and referee and then as the pitch was cleared for the game to start, Billy Joe helped to direct the club's tiger mascot back to his seat.

Billy Joe's two siblings Daniel and Cydney were also at the game (and coincidentally my son Lance). Below Daniel celebrates the equaliser goal from QPR whist Cydney tries to follow in her father's footsteps.

1-1 Daniel celebrates

Another Bailey with a camera! Little Cyd.

Richard Bailey links:

"Knit Hats" and "To be a dad" are two of the books published by the Bailey Hart Publishing company which Richard runs with his wife , the CEO of Knit and Kaboodle Fiona is also a star in her own right.

http://www.baileyhartpublishing.com/index.html

Richard's web site:

http://www.richardbaileyphotography.co.uk/

Richard's Flickr site

http://www.flickr.com/photos/38055015@N00/

And finally... For information about the Downs Syndrome Association and future "Shifting Perspectives" exhibitions go to:

http://www.downs-syndrome.org.uk/

Christenings, Carnivals, Bicycles and Weddings

I can never work out how my peers get their blogs posted almost ten minutes after every event they cover. Whilst my own blog updates may or may not be of some vague interest to my clients, friends and peer group, the first priority for me is always the post production, album creation, web updates etc for our clients.

People like Crash Taylor and Zoe Richards (links at the foot of this post to their fantastic sites) not only to do all of this other creative and important work, but also manage to provide their followers with stunning blog updates and galleries seemingly effortlessly. I think I need to go and work with them both to see how they juggle their hectic lifestyles! Some call it espionage, but I prefer the term networking!

So since the last post on 15th August I have taken the images of the injuries sustained by a poor Italian cyclist when a builder's hoarding collapsed on him. The law firm commissioned me to record the damage done, scar tissue etc (and no I wont be posting these ones). the prognosis is good, so I would like to wish Samuel a full recovery.

On a happier note, on the 29th August I held another training day for a new second shooter on the cooperative called Martin Malocco. The weather was lovely and Martin, who normally shoots with Olypus kit, had a swift induction in the use of Canon DSLR's. He proved to be a very fast learner which was just as well given the 5 days notice of our next wedding in Hampshire (more of that later).

The following day, the beautiful Isabel had her Christening in St Mary's Church in Denham.

Isabel Grace Ivory

The day after that, on the bank holiday Monday 31st August, I travelled the short distance from home to record the Notting Hill Carnival. I've covered this annual event on most years since the late 1980's. By definition, most carnivals and festivals are so colourful, that my mono work takes a back seat, but this year, my favourite image (below) is one in the latter format. You may recognise the teenage women here from our January snow images. It's that Amy getting into my shots again with her sister Ella. We stumbled across them on our travels.

And to get completely up to date, on 4th September I travelled with Martin to Hampshire for the wedding of Rod and Teresa. This was the 380th wedding that TPS has shot since 1981 and it was a return to where it all started in Fareham, Hants. Horizontal rain had been forecast, but thankfully meteorologists lie like politicians and the day went very well indeed. Here are three of my favourites.





The venue provided a great opportunity to play with some off camera flash, whilst still having the premises illuminated by in-house lighting.

Rod & Teresa - 4 September 2009

So - those links I promised you all....

Crash Taylor: http://www.crashtaylor.com/

Zoe Richards: http://zoephotography.co.uk/

Hunger striker's 19th day

On 15th August 2009, I went to meet up with the hunger strikers from the Iranian Liberty Association outside the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square, London. The ongoing protest is largely over the treatment of peaceful protestors in Ashraf City in Iraq. The Ghandi-like protestors (all peaceful and unarmed) have been met with chains, bricks, stones, batons, iron bars and live ammunition from the Iraqi military.

There are a number of reasons these peaceful people appear to have encountered such open hostility. Firstly, and probably the most likely reason is that their leader is an Islamic woman who is secular (believes that the church and the state should be separate).



The Ashraf City culture is one of fairness and equality and a profound belief in human rights. The activities of the Ashraf City residents has been supported by Amnesty Internationational and other human rights groups.


Partly because of the secular nature of the Iranian Liberty Association, some of the people who came to speak today were not Muslims, just human beings who share the Association's hopes for peace, harmony and fairness.

Many of those people present today have lost family members, solely because they spoke out against oppressive regimes. Some had been tortured or killed because their views differed from those in power. There are few members of the Iranian Liberty Association who haven't lost someone close in the fight for justice and equality.

At the foot of a statue of Dwight D Eisenhower outside the Embassy is the plinth below. A statement from the wartime president's opening address that most people would have difficulty in disagreeing with, yet there are so few people around the world who are truly "free".

As I see it, there is an irony here that so often gets overlooked. The citizens in developing contries who yearn for the sort of freedom we taken for granted in the West find that freedom is so often denied to them because of interference from the very countries who boast about democracy.

The fact that the government of this or that democractic country wants their oil or other natural reserves, means that they will collude with and line the pockets of dictators who have something to sell them. In payment, (some) governments of the developed world turn a selective blind eye to the human rights violations of the corrupt governments around the world.

Every government should contain a government health warning. Nothing political is correct.

For more information about the Iranian Liberty Association go to: http://iranliberty.org.uk/

Annabel Williams Bumps & Babies Course

As the title might suggest, on 20th July 2009 I attended a 1 day course in photographing pregnant women (bumps) and fairly newborn babies.

The venue was the Annabel Williams centre of excellence in Cumbria. Annabel's Contemporary Photographic Training has just moved premises, so I think we might have been the last course in this brillaintly lit studio cum classroom. The grub was great and the "models" (volunteers) seemed unphased by a dozen bonkers photographers snapping away and asking lots of questions. Thanks to all involved. Here's a few shots from the day.

For more information on the courses available at the Annabel Williams studio visit: http://www.annabelwilliams.com/

Gay Pride London 2009

On Saturday 4th July, I attended a breakfast hosted by the London Fire Brigade for this year's London Gay Pride.

I was accompanied by Hugh Hill and Marta Demartini and we shot our images as we marched amongst the others celebrating and commemorating and remembering and thinking. I love the fact that in the UK we have the right for consenting adults to love one another without breaking any rules. This is not the case everywhere in our world of course, nor is my above statement an attempt to get away from the fact that hate crimes resulting in murder or serious injury still occur. Why one human would kill or mame another becsuse of their sexual orientation, skin colour, gender, religious belief, disability, age - is beyond me.

That ism list that so many people talk about but so few actually deal with properly proves again and again that nothing political is correct. Well if I'm going to be so late posting my blog items I guess I might as well make them lively....



Right up the front representing the Greater London Authority was the Deputy Mayor Richard Barnes, pictured below with Rhona Cameron. There are 200 images uploaded to our main site at https://www.theimagefile.com/?skin=7635&Action=_VC&id=32968450&ppwd=nc3835pr




During the entire time I worked in the Royal Naval Submarine Service, where I was trained as a photographer by the Fleet Air Arm Phot Section, if anyone had come out as gay, it would have immediately terminated his employment. The perverse rationale argument from the MOD(N) on applying an absolute ban on gay men in the navy was that the person would be a potential blackmail victim, being forced to sell state secrets to the enemy in fear of being exposed! So the argument is that if it aint banned, it aint concealed. It must have taken military intelligence years to fathom that one out, but at least in the 21st century people like this two badge submariner below, no longer have to live two secret lives.

Boy George put in an appearance surrounded by some colourful mates.

To view Hugh and Marta's work too, go to https://www.theimagefile.com/?skin=7635&Action=_VC&id=32968450&ppwd=nc3835pr

Mary Poppins meets Brent Parks Department

Creatives at work

Photographers4Charity - Image by Cyd Hoy-Griffiths

On 24th May 2009, 14 photographers from the Photographers4Charity group plus Richard Bailey, Hugh Hill and Marta Demartini descended upon Roundwood Park in London Nw10 for a training day I'd organised. Our "model" bride and groom were Maria and Kevin whose real wedding I'm shooting next year with Marta. This was a great opportunity for some reciprocal altruism and networking. Maria's father Martin Malocco is also a member of the Society of Wedding and Portrait Photographers (SWPP).

Kevin & Maria

I'm sure that in order for a Blog to be most effective it needs to be fairly current/newsworthy so I've failed on that count not having uploaded this bit until 2 months later. Do other Bloggers have this problem of work overload displacing their posts, or do you have staff? (answers in a plain brown envelope please).

Nuns on the run

Today I took the cameras to shoot a fundraiser for the children's charity Barnado's. A four mile run including 4 of the Thames bridges starting with the most famous Tower Bridge. So what made this one so special? Well I guess the most obvious difference is that all competitors were required to dress up as nuns.

The runners were offered a warm up exercise in the form of an aerobics session near the starting line. This was well attended and provided a great opportunity for a shot against the imposing buildings of the city.

Whilst the runners were finishing off their warm up, I walked quickly to the South side of Tower Bridge to get a suitable backdrop for the runners as they came by. I shot the London Marathon runners (albeit running in the opposite direction) from this locale in 2008 for the Muscular Dystrophy charity with the award winning photographer Richard Bailey (name dropper!). The sense of fun was tangible and thankfully (unlike in 2008) there was no rain.

Funnier still was the reaction from passers by. Whilst it would be difficult for people visiting London not to know that there was a marathon going on in the capital, this was a much smaller and shorter event and the runners had to share the roads with traffic and other pedestrians. At times, people were walking directly in the path of the running nuns, oblivious to their presence until they had passed. The stewards did a tremendous job given the circumstances and most people I saw looking on seemed to have an obvious sense of humour.

There is always a serious side to these events of course. Barnado's does vital work for children who are vulnerable and like almost every other charity, needs events like this to raise their profile and their funds to do the very best they can. The following quote is taken from the Barnado's web site.

"Whatever the issue from drug misuse to disability; youth crime to mental health; sexual abuse to domestic violence; poverty to homelessness; Barnardo’s believes we can bring out the best in every child. We run almost 400 projects around the UK: discover the work we do in your region."

The Barnado's web site can be found at http://www.barnardos.org.uk/