No sooner had I packaged up the sunglasses and sent them back to Oakley HQ, than I was packing my snowboard and camera gear for a week long shoot in the Austrian Alps.

Snowboarding has been a huge part of my life, having helped the Soul Sports team in organizing the British Ski and Snowbaord Championships for the past 7 years, and having close friends who are riders and skiers, and working with snow photographers who had initially got me back into photography after a 3 year post-degree-hiatus, and it seemed odd that my two passions had never really crossed over. I am constantly in awe of the work produced by snow photographers such as Daniel Blom, Frode Sandbech and Vincent Skoglund, and the UK’s very own Nathan Gallagher, James Bryant, Sam Mellish, and James North, so this job was the perfect opportunity to see whether combining my two passions would be ménage-a-trois made in heaven, or grounds for divorce.

Having never been to Snowbombing before, I had a few preconceptions as to how the week would break down with the majority of the action being music and drinking based. This turned out to very much be the case. The picturesque village of Mayrhofen was the setting, and this is what sets Snowbombing apart from any other festival, and the line up was an extensive and varied one, it was going to be a great week!

When shooting for an international alcohol brand, there are a number of fairly strict guidelines to adhere to which place emphasis on any images showing pretty people having an enjoyable but responsible time, without showing any signs of excess or drunkenness. Bearing in mind that the average Snowbomber wants to get incredibly inebriated whilst dancing to their favourite acts, I had a tough job to ensure that I got the images needed in the edit.

For the week I was to be following the Eristoff “Wolf Pack” girls around the village, in various venues, as they sampled vodka for the public. Part of this meant hosting a couple of Eristoff house parties, dancing/exercising with Mr. Motivator, giving out lots of free shots on the mountain, and VIP access for the incredible party in the Eristoff Forest to close the whole festival. It was a great week with an awesome client, and the combination of my photography and snowboard worlds was a great one I’d be happy to repeat.[[posterous-content:pid___2]]

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So while I’ve been assisting and digital operating for a number of photographers over the past months, including Will Whipple, Glen Burrows, Julia Bostock, Nicole Nodland and Ben Riggott, I have also been shooting some work for clients of my own. In April I finished producing product shots for Oakley’s new range of “Big-UK-Capital-City-Sports-Celebration-one-year-later-than-2011” sponsored sunglasses for the Great British Team. I initially started to see small examples printed in style pages of magazines in the lead up, until I came across a double-page-spread advert in the free Sport magazine (which has since been featured a few times).

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Forgive me for I have lagged behind with my blogging. It has been 125 days since my last blog. In the time since that last post; March 8th, I have been busy with all manner of things, from assisting some new photographers, to holidaying in Santorini, to shooting some jobs of my own, to searching for and trying to buy a flat. Over the next couple of days I’ll endeavour to highlight some of the awesome stuff I’ve been working on.

One thing I have noticed over the past few months is how little I have shot photographs for my own pleasure and enjoyment. I sat down and thought about why that was. I think I have been suffering from a little creative funk, which could probably be called Photographer’s Block. There are many places out on the internet where you can find information about creative block, and ways to remedy it. I think I had been suffering from it as although I absolutely LOVE my job as an assistant and a photographer, I had been focused on what the client wants and needs, and being very busy, and maybe had neglected the visual side of my brain that got me into Photography in the first place, the side that is excited and consumed by the way the light and shadows play on the wall of my room (without wishing to sound like a weirdo!). This, combined with the stresses of finding and buying a flat had compounded to stop me looking with that creative eye.

Knowing and understanding why this has happened has meant that I have now flung myself back into the wonder and awe at the beauty of a photographic image, a moment captured, and I’m really looking forward to heading out with my camera to see what I can see!

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Although others knew him far better than me, I am glad that I got to know him at all the Brits he graced with his happy, humble and charming manner.

You’ll be sorely missed Nelson.

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Back in mid November it had been a while since I had shot in Film Plus studios (now renamed Loft Studios) in NW10, when Will Whipple asked me along to help out on two jobs there in the same day.

The first was for a friend of his, Ben Harrison, one of the Directors of Eisgaard Design, a yacht designing and building practice, who had a scale modle of one of their yachts and a large model of a sculpture they had commissioned for the lobby of a large muti-national corporation. The sculpture took the form of an origami boat, but crafted out of highly polished stainless steel. It looked awesome but as the surface was so reflective, we had to cover some poly boards with an equally reflective silver foil to make the sculpture look shiny. Ben was an interesting chap, and it was great to talk to him about the completely unfathomable (to me) world of expensive super-yachts.

The second shoot was for Livia Firth, and her newly launched Jewellery range. Once again, she was lovely and filled with boundless enthusiasm, and we got a few product photos on a plain white background before getting shots of Livia wearing the jewellery.

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