'twas my birthday on Friday. 40 years old. ffs. was completely non-plussed about the whole episode right up till I woke up on Friday morning to be greeted by my family all looking at me to see my reaction. it went something like....

yaaaaawwwwnnnnnn. check johnson. scratch. oh bollocks. reach for cigarette. remember I haven't smoked for 6 months. feel grumpy. realise I now has the absolute right to feel grumpy what with being middle aged, so really go for it. get handed stroooong coffee which diffuses the situation for a bit.

and so on

Anyways, not much to do about it , but relax into it and go with the flow. if I could only remember how to relax without involving mind altering chemicals.

so, to the bright side of birthdays - pressies. yeah man. I think most people who know me are genuinely surprised that I made it to 40, so hadn't banked on having to get me anything, so they gave me money - so with said money I have just bought myself a Hasselblad 501C Get in! being the wonderful and generous chappie that he is gave me the coolest pinhole camera - one of the zeroimage 6x9 ones. its stillsitting in its box as I'm scared to take it out and use it, so pretty it is. on top of this I got enough silver nitrate from my lovely wife to make an actual silver bath for floating or dipping of my papers. yes. I have peculiar tastes, but I'm all happy.

Anyways, thanks for the favs, watchers etc. Must now go and moan about the state of the world to anyone who stands still long enough to listen........

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God I should update this thing more often. weeeelllll, ok maybe not. so. life. eh? don't talk to me about life.

Points of note in the last ehh, some months since I last updated.
1. is home from Oz for a couple of weeks. which is good. yay!
2. taught me about mornington crescent. which is good. yay!
3. (this is in no order by the way) had a shoot today with LindaLu - makeup done by . One of the most enjoyable shoots I've had for ages. although am kinda donald ducked tonight. yay!
4. there is no number 4. ehhh, yay?
5. have been playing in the darkoom with my new (to me) devere 504. it sits beside by Ilford 5x4 enlarger. you can never have too many 5x4 enlargers.only mildly poisened myself last month with potassium dichromate. am getting better at not bathing in it. yay!
6. am about to appear in Playboy US. not personally. October issue apparently. which is nice. Have stopped feeling dodgy about it. umm, yay.
7. am hungry. might have a beer. its hot. and 2:07AM. ya..
8. Macbook pros burn your knees when you actually use them as a laptop. yaaahh.
9. have been playing with my new toy - a Yashica Mimy half frame wee camera. its so cute. not as cute as the pentax 110 though. yeugh.
10. i shoudl go to bed. night night. yawn.

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hoooooookay,
first of all and myself have started up a wee online mag with some articles and interviews with some folks. Its not going to be issue based, and we're going to update on a regular basis with more of the same. So go and have a look over on [link] and Read a couple of interviews with an with more to come.

Secondly, we went to the Ansel Adams exhibition in Edinburgh today. Now to be honest much of the subject matter didn't really catch me even if technically flawless. However there were 3 or 4 print that are probably the best silver printed images I've ever seen or are likely to. I found it amazing how badly prints are reproduced in books in comparison to the real thing. So if any of you have a chance to go and see some of his work in the flesh, then jump at the chance. Also a mention for the local boy at the exhibition Lindsay Robertson who is highly regarded in his own right - his website is [link] and you don't really get a flavour of his prints from it as some of them were monstrous in size and really bloody good.

Oh and Sarah, you're right - Planet Terror rocks

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well, it is. I've been sitting here trying to go through 700 messages and 600 deviations since I haven't been on for a bit. sheesh.

Anyways, not been shooting much, real life's got in the road, but aiming to start again this weekend then try and get a wad of shoots in over the next couple of weeks. have some new bits and bobs I'm wanting to try out and a couple of new themes go expand on.

Was speaking to our Sarah today all the way from Sydney (hey S ) and if any of you Oz readers are looking for a photographer/model to collaborate with, then theres few I've known as good. Brilliantly talented and just lovely with it.

God I should get to bed. too much coffee and cigarettes.

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Well, i'm sitting here in the car browsing this place on my palmtop. god, I need to get a life. anyways, had a productive shoot on friday with Abbie. have again altered my shooting mode, by trying to get multiple shot types out of one shoot. seemed to work ok on friday, was kinda frenetic, but for a change I was organised. now have 5 films to develop - inckuding some colour, which will be interesting as i've not developed colour before.

thanks for all the nice comments etc on my photos.

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