Party photography

There's nothing like going to a party to get over the demise of a business in which you've invested a hunk of time for no return.

Particularly when you are paid to attend.

Images by me and Meeyoung Son from a party in a humble Sports and Social Club in Wallington are here - party photographs - thanks to Jeanette and Lorraine for providing a great group of party animals to celebrate their 30th birthday.

Italian diversion

A long time since the last post but I've been to Italy for a holiday, did some stock photography and have posted the results:

Flew to Pisa:

Leaning Tower of Pisa, Duomo etc
The rest of the city

Train to Lucca

Duomo and other churches
Lucca - people and streets

Train to Florence

Cathedral, Duomo Santa Maria del Fiore. and other churches
Streets, people, views and Ponte Vecchio

An encounter with Yell customer services

I raised the issue of London Commercial Photography very nice person at Yell Customer Services

"I am sorry that you feel like that" she said about 6 times (as a carefully worded alternative to "I am sorry we are crap") as I explained that three clicks a week would as likely as not get a nil return on my over £700 investment in Yell.com services. I explained that other photographers would like me jump ship at the end of the term and if this happened they would be left with one advertiser occupying all the positions.....

She had explained to me that as long as an advertiser had an arrangement with someone in the building, even just to collect mail, then it was a legitimate use of the premises from the point of view of Yell.

From the point of view of Yell, LCP's contribution to their coffers would be a lot more than mine so you might not be too surprised that they were not volunteering to do anything...

Free photos! (Maybe.....)

It's been a while getting around to it but at last I've set up my fight back against the relentless march of the micro agencies - yes free photos!

Well not quite free of course. It's a pretty restricted list of beneficiaries and anyone using a photo has to provide a link back to this site. That link helps with the Google ranking here and accordingly will help the site get found by people who will be paying for photos.

And what is the point of giving away images to governments and schools? Easy - no link is of more value than one from an educational establishment or government organisation. Links from these sites are a huge spur to online marketing efforts because they are so difficult to get and they are going to be genuine. So links from them give a site credibility and Google regards them as of being of much greater value than other links.

And some photographers object to giving photos to charities. I've always regarded giving money to certain charities as being a waste of money. For example, hospitals. Give £500m to the health service and the government (who will always fund it to the lowest level that is politically acceptable) will give £500m less. But overseas charities are different. No one cares too much how much is given to support people overseas, so they need it more.

And the page itself should of course pull in the punters looking for free photos. With the new watermark (it's not actually on the photo but it will seem it is) and the photo click protection the defences are up. It's not foolproof but it makes it just a bit more difficult.