HAVE YOUR CAKE AND EAT IT

Had a food shoot all day yesterday in London. It was a great job as the client wanted to focus close in on the food which is the sort of thing I'd normally do so it fitted well with my style. As I use very little lighting apart from natural light this was a bit challenging as the reflections from outside where really causing a lot of problems. In the end I had to use a white scrim over the top to diffuse the light as much as possible but it worked well. I'm a huge fan of desserts and did manage to try all 5 I had to shoot, this summer pudding being particular lovely.

LETTER FROM THE QUEEN

Got a nice letter from the Queen today. That doesn't happen much. I did a wedding photography job in Windsor castle and the couple had special permission from the Queen to be photographed in the Moat Gardens so sent Her Majesty a couple of prints and got this reply today. How very nice of her.

PHILIP BLOOM

Philip Bloom, the video maverick, posted a tweet today about awarding a prize for the 2,000,000 visitor to his site. He was quite a way off. So with a bit of photoshop wizardry I made the 2 million mark magically appear 10 minutes later (see above). He fell for it and the Canon 5D Mark II was all mine but he soon found out and am not sure he was that amused. Oh well. He posted a nice link to my website so I think my hits might go through the roof this week for the wrong reasons.

PICTURE IMPACT

About two years when I was setting up my website (not the current one) I was putting together my pictures and noticed that most of my shots were portraits. Not sure why this was because it takes more effort to hold the camera that way! Anyway, the website I was working on landscape-shaped pictures looked much more impressive and filled the space so much better. So I had to adapt what I'd taken and put two semi-related pictures together (like the above picture) and I found that I liked the effect. There was something about it that told a story. It was no longer a static shot (even though it was) but it added another dimension.

POLAROID TRANSFER OF BRITISH MEMORABILIA

Moving on from the polaroid transfers I did of Asia I've now done a series of 8 images of british memorabilia. I stared with the obvious, a distressed british flag and then went to a town near me which has a lot of antique shops and asked kind shopkeepers if I could take pictures of some of their british memorabilia. There was so much to choose from but decided to concentrate on old pictures of the queen and queen mother mostly commemorating special events. And weirdly, the best items were often on biscuit tins! Here is the link to have a look at more. CLICK HERE

TTV THROUGH THE VIEWFINDER

Now this is a bit different but I love this sort of stuff. It's called TTV (through the viewfinder) photography and its when you use a digital camera to photograph the viewfinder of an old waist-level camera. In this case a Kodak Brownie reflex that cost me £3. Because it's old and beaten up and there's years of dust accumulated in the camera it creates these Holga or Diana camera type pictures. But being digital it is a lot easier than mucking about with the problems associated with Holga's and their light leaks and unpredictable nature. With this it is just a case of pointing your camera at the viewfinder of the old camera. It does look a bit odd as you take the picture and you get a lot of weird stares but stay with it as the results look great. I've only taken one or two pictures so far and this one of my daughter is a bit rough and her expression isn't great but you get the idea. Give it a go.

SAVING FOR A RAINY DAY

This is a new stock shot I did as part of a series of pictures about the fact that people just don't have enough money to save. What with the mortgage and bills what we are saving is just not enough for those rainy days or our retirement days. It's not a very uplifting picture so this might appeal to the editorial market or an advertiser trying to promote their latest saving scheme. We shall see. I've uploaded it to Getty in a series of three other similar pictures with different words on the jars. We shall see as they say.

GETTY OR NOT

This is another image from an alphabet book I did for a family. Similar to the pink Princess picture below. It's a fun picture and a good stock shot as well that I plan to submit to the stock library I work for. Not sure which one yet Getty images charges $50 to submit to their Photographers Choice (PC) collection so you have to be very confident that it will sell in the current climate to pay that fee upfront. Or I send it to another library that doesn't charge but doesn't have the same clout as Getty - let's hope that changes and the internet empowers more photographers either with their own website to sell from or other libraries that offer a realistic alternative.

WEDDING DRESSES

I don't do much but I do a little bit of wedding photographer every year through my site www.weddingphotographerinsussex.com and while wedding photography is often seen as the evil child of photography I enjoy the weddings I do. I really like this picture - the dresses of the bridesmaid and the vicar somehow just come together nicely in this image. It works so much better in black and white than colour as do quite a few wedding shots.

POLAROID REVIEW IN DAILY TELEGRAPH

The Daily Telegraph online has just written an article on Polaroid transfers and profiled my new work so really pleased about that. They talk about the traditional way of creating polaroids and then using Photoshop so a very well-balanced piece with a lot of material to keep everyone happy. The link to the piece is here

TIME-LAPSE MOVIE

Time-lapse photography is a great way of getting into making fun movies without actually having to own a video camera. I did this little time-lapse for a client and they loved it. More so than the rest of the filming I did. It is as easy as setting up your camera on a tripod and setting the shutter to go off every 2 or 3 seconds while the event happens and viola on cool movie. Then it is just a question of loading it into a program like Quicktime Pro and it does all the hard work for you.

CANON 5D MARK II MOVIE

As well as being a photographer I also shoot quite a few videos and movies for clients and this is a little fun project that I shot with the canon 5D mark II. This movie isn't for everyone so you have been warned - especially those a little sqeamish!!

PHOTOS OF KIDS

It's great working with kids, no mattter how challenging sometimes, the rewards are so much higher than the disappointments. This portrait is for an educational alphabet book where they act out each letter. Great fun and can't wait to do some more.

ALL POLAROID IMAGES

POLAROID TRANSFER PHOTOS - Images by carl pendle

Finally finished adding polaroid transfer looks to 30 Asian images so really pleased they are now done and uploaded to my photoshelter site. Hopefully, a few will sell as limited edition prints.

My Polaroid transfer images I've been working on have been quite popular with people so thought I'd add another. Not all images work with this treatment and it has been quite surprising that sometimes the more mundane shots seem to work better than the dramatic. This was was taken in Hoi Ann, Vietnam again.

Been sorting through my library of images from Asia to find pictures suitable for some Polaroid treatment - albeit in photoshop but they look quite realistic. This shot was taken of an old woman in the town of Hoi Ann in Vietnam.

This was taken while on a job in Belgium and it's the sort of thing you don't often see very much these days due to health and safety. And while it is a bit of a shocking photo I really like it.

This is a screen shot for a petition to the prime minister to stop companies in photo competitions stealing artists work. Please sign it if you care about your work.

Click here for the link.

AMI VITALE

This is a great example of a photographer with a good eye for video. Ami Vitale does a really good job here. I own a 5d Mark II and have been playing with video and this is video is a great inspiration.

TODAYS PIC

This has been one of my most viewed pictures on the internet. I took it ages ago when I was at college in America. I guess it says a lot and gets you wondering how the man, his life, what happened to his leg, his tattoos and it seems by this pose his positive outlook on life in the face of a difficulties.

UPLOADS

Uploaded lots of new pictures to my new photoshelter site but it's taking longer than I thought. Click here for a look.

Now this is a very unexciting blog entry so I do apologise now. I need to place a logo on the web to link to my photoshelter website and this blog will do the job nicely. Sorry.

Venice is a fantastic place to photograph but it has been photographed to death so getting something non cliche is always a challenge. This was shot quite late at the evening as the sun was low in the sky and there is just something about the shot that I ike.