This is going on my website and in my portfolios (just in time for the pitch tomorrow).

“Having Richard work with me as an assistant on my weddings has been an absolute joy. He is not only aware of the needs of the bride and groom from a photographic perspective, but he is also concerned with how they enjoy their day. He sees his role as more than just a person who takes photographs and as such clearly understands his importance to the couple. In that regard alone he is unique among his peers. His passion for the craft and his innate ability to take photographs speaks for itself.”

Shelton Muller
Photographer

I was just thinking as I was sitting here in front of the computer, working away and importing every photo of mine I can lay my hands on how good it felt to be doing this to music. It seems over the past couple of days I have bought listening to music back to the fore of my core.

Huh? You say? Yes I always listen to music, you can’t help but not. It’s everywhere. But lately I’ve had the headphones on even when I’m inside and had the music going as I do dishes, work, eat dinner (Lucy was on a teleconference) and other times. And it seems to help me do whatever I am trying to do. Especially when I am working it seems that the best way for me to focus is to blast my ears with music.

Right now the playlist is “RXA” which is all songs marked either 4 or 5 stars on my iPod. Currently working on a wedding pitch I have tomorrow night. Getting a bit tired so my chuck a DVD on the MacBook and fall asleep to that.

This post has been bought to you by: “Say” (John Mayer), “Something’s Missing” (John Mayer) & “Are you going to be my girl?” (Jet)

This one is to hold a project I look forward to completing over time.

Go take a look, create an account and let me know what you think.

Happy New Year.

I hope your 2008 is all you want it to be. For me it is going to involve a lot of changes. Changes I both want and need to make. Whatever you decide to do … do it to the best of your ability.

I’d like to take a minute to thank a few people for a few things.

Mum and David for providing a roof over my head and food in my stomach without asking for a cent in return.

Matthew for loving me just as mch as when his mother and I were together.

My family and friends for encouraging me to follow my photographic dreams.

Those who have trusted my abilities enough to have paid me to take photos of and for them.

I thnak the readers of my blog (and there are a LOT of you) for inspiring me to put my thoughts to paper so to speak.

Lastly but by no means Lucy for being who you are and for loving who I am although I know at times it goes against your wishes. You have made me a better man in the short time I have known you and I have never been happier. Your smile warms the heart and advice soothes the often turbulent paths of my life. Because of you I am striving to be a better person in 2008 and beyond. Thank you for being such a wonderful friend to Matthew. He loves being around you and talks about you and Jake whenever you are not around. Thank you for feeding me and all the healthy eating and living advice. I assure you I am listening.

Have a great New Years Eve and make sure what ever you do you get home safley so we can all begin 2008 together.

I look forward to catching up with as many of you as I can as soon as possible.

Richard

See my business blog for a sneak peek.

Up early tomorrow with Matthew to go for a walk on the beach with Lucy and Jake.

* YAWN *

Today has been a LONG day of delays and excitement.

1. My train into the city was delayed 45 minutes due to signals being struck by lightning … so one tram and a taxi later I managed to make it on time to my lunch appointment.

2. Had lunch and saw lots of colleagues from my old job. It was great catching up with them all.

3. Realising I left my home keys INSIDE my home, I decided to go to Southland to start (yes start) my Xmas shopping. I was there when it all went dark for a second and the heavens opened. The rain was precipitating down outside and INSIDE several stores. Like the caring citizen I am I instantly retrieved the camera from the backpack and started shooting like mad until I overheard a security guard who had been looking at me say into his walkie talkie “Green shirt, big camera” It was at that point I deftly extracted the memory card from my camera, shoved it in my pocket and inserted a new card and left the centre.

Fun day so far.

I am going through my photos from present day backwards and deleting any shot that falls into ANY of the categories below:

1. A crap photo (that’s 12,000 gone straight away)
2. Part of a series (obviously I keep the best one or two)
3. Out of focus (but not if I intended it)

I’ve already deleted about 200 photos from the last week saving over 700 Mb.

I might have a hard drive again soon.

On another note, I have assigned Lucy my 512Mb compact flash card so we know whose photos are whose because she is one talented photographer and we are having trouble telling our shots apart sometimes. We took Jake for a walk and she happily played with the 300D for an hour and a bit. For you purists, it was an official walk as she took a photo of me lying on the ground taking a photo of something.

127/365 – Animated Carol-Singing Animals

Originally uploaded by RXAphotos

Christmas time in my household unfortunately brings with it an over-abundance of animated animals all singing/mooing/bleating Christmas carols.

The photo above shows the great effort the turkey puts into his rendition of jingle bells, with his head swaying left to right at a great rate of knots!

Unfortunately , today’s singing was the limit. I could take no more from that turkey. I grabbed the nearest tinsel I could find and … well see for yourself.