Christmas Gift Vouchers & ‘Last Chance Saloon’ Prints!

Well its that time of year again and we are all dashing around looking for special gifts for loved ones this Christmas. We have a few ideas for a special present to give this year.

Photographs can bring such immense pleasure not only at the time of giving, but for years and years to come. If you don’t have time in the busy festive period to get some pets photos, family shots or kids photography, you can always give one of our gift vouchers. It can be for as much or as little as you decide! It can go towards any of our photography in the new year so if you know someone planning a wedding it’s something that could make a real difference!! The vouchers can be put to use for prints or for canvasses!

We can also do some last-minute photos for you. We can come to you and do the photographs, and produce mounted 6×4 prints there and then! All next week in the build up to Christmas we will be available! We can also organise 7×5 or 8×10 prints within 24 hours! It’s not too late yet!!! Your local award winning photographer is available at short notice right here in South Cheshire!

Working with Cheshire’s Poet Laureate

Many of you will know I volunteer my services to local Community Radio station RedShift Radio. Presently on the airwaves on 87.7FM in the South Cheshire area I am doing four shows a week in between the busy festive photoshoots! I ordinarily present the local music show on a Monday but have stepped up the shows and present the local community show called Community Roundup three days a week!

Recently one of our many guests was Cheshire’s longest serving poet laureate, Terry Fox. He delivered several poems and one, Homage To Cheshire, was so full of wonderful imagery that I had to ask if we could collaborate. I have recently put together some slideshows of various areas of my photography and thought the idea of photographing a set of images to put to the poem would be a wonderful project. I am pleased to say that Terry was very keen, he commented “I am enormously pleased by the prospect of my poem being used with your photographs.” I can’t say how proud I am to be working with such an esteemed poet!

I will of course keep you up to date on the progress of this project!!

Meanwhile there is still time to get Christmas bookings in. I use local suppliers so I can guarantee prints and canvas for a while yet so please do get in touch if you fancy a kids, family or pets shoot for Christmas! We also offer vouchers which make wonderful Christmas gifts!

On Saturday 10th December we will be at the Kingsmead Primary School Christmas Fair in Northwich. You can pop along to see some of our canvas montages and printed work including our kids photography, family photography and pets photography! We’ll have images of newborns, baby & toddler shots, maternity photos and lots from our portfolio! I’ll also have my portrait portfolio and some of my wedding books! See you there?

Dabbers in FA Cup History & Guillemots at The Box

I spent the afternoon at the Weaver Stadium in Nantwich. Nantwich Town have made history by reaching the 1st round proper of the FA Cup for the first time in their 127 year history and head down to Milton Keynes for Saturday’s fixture. The place was buzzing as the team got ready to set off with Sky Sports News broadcasting live as well as all the local Press. I’m off to the Stadium:MK on Saturday to photograph the match for the club and local press.

Thursday night saw one of the best nights of music at The Box in Crewe I have witnessed. Guillemots were in town and the performance was special. I had a good chat with the band before they took to the stage and shot a portrait of each band member as well as a group shot of all the band together.

I also was the official photographer for the WTD Promotions darts exhibition at Crewe Alex with three times world champion John Part. Did a great portrait and also all the shots with the fans!

I’ll be working with the Retrospective on Sunday on a band shoot. Got some great ideas and looking forward to an interesting shoot!

Duff McKagan and Four Four Two Magazine

Another busy week is underway at SJN Towers! After a weekend spent partly in Blackpool photographing loads of MPs and a day at RedShift Radio for the special photo day we have loads underway this week.

On Tuesday night I was off to London to meet and photograph former Guns ‘n Roses musician Duff McKagan. Duff is now with Loaded and I met him at The Garage in Islington. We did some portraits followed by some live shots of the last gig on their UK tour! Great gig it was too!

I recently received a request from the famous football magazine Four Four Two for some images of Nantwich Town manager Jimmy Quinn. I photographed the former Northern Ireland international leading up to my exhibition at the Lyceum Theatre earlier in the year. The resulting article is in the December issue and is a humorous take on Jimmy featuring on the bench for the Dabbers due to suspensions and injuries! I photographed Jimmy in a charity match in which he found the back of the net against Franco Baresi’s AC Milan Legend XI.

Still got lots on over the rest of the week. Guillemots stop by Crewe on Thursday at The Box. On the same night I’ll be photographing three times world champion professional darts player John Part. John is taking part in an exhibition with WTD Promotions at Crewe Alex’s Carlsberg Suite. Friday sees another gig at the Box before a weekend which will involve heading down to Milton Keynes for the historic match between the MK Dons and Nantwich Town in the first round of the FA Cup. Sunday I have a family shoot followed by a music promo for local band The Retrospective!

NME Music Photography Competition

Every year NME hold a music photography competition. There is an amateur category and a professional section. I entered the maximum photographs allowed, five. This year I let my Facebook friends decide the 5 I entered by making their selection of 5 from my narrowed down selection of 10.

The top 5 were:

– a portrait of Al Campbell of Sham 69, a black and white portrait I did at The Box in Crewe.

– a portrait of Matthew Davies-Kreye of Funeral For a Friend, another monochrome portrait.

– a portrait of Kingsley Chapman of the Chapman Family, a hot and sweaty shot taken straight after a performance.

– a live shot of The Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne, taken from the pit at Transmission 001 Live From Jodrell Bank.

– a live shot of Iggy Pop performing with The Stooges, taken at Chester Rocks this summer.

A have a huge passion for live music and music photography. I love photographing bands on stage, in posed group promo shots as well as documentary style shots. I have accompanied several bands into the recording studio and documented the process of recording music.

You can check out my NME entries here:
http://www.nme.com/ratemy/218221/nme-professional-music-photography-awards-2011/item/225945
(Mine are this image and the following 4!)

Also feel free to have a browse on the website where I have many of my favourite music photos in the galleries!

I’m pleased to say that at the time of writing all 5 of my NME entries are in the top 20!!