It’s been a kind few days since beginning this blog last Thursday – I went straight from posting it to a quirky afternoon as the right-hand man of Peter, an eccentric surveyor I first met a few months ago. You might say this was my first experience as a paid photographer, providing a few images for him to use as evidence, but really I think I just provided him with a spot of company. It still felt good to be paid £25 an hour for my company, though – considering the number of friends I have who whinny and whinge about my presence…

My other main task for the week was photographing an up-and-coming folk band called Spidermilk, featuring some tremendously talented musicians. Hoping to do some location work with them in the coming weeks – barring a host of artistic cock-ups on my behalf (and you must never count it out), it might benefit all concerned. Will keep you posted on how it goes.

Last week also saw a glittering return to Norwich for the fabulous Duke Special. I photographed his performance, and have earned some kind praise from musicians around the city for the images, but I freely confess to feeling nothing short of a berk when photographing gigs. At the best of times, nobody appreciates a tall person at the front of the crowd, but when you are that tall person, and you are also holding a bulky camera, and you have to keep moving around to find the right angle, you naturally try to avoid being in the same person’s way for too long, which irks everybody, and all it takes then is one embittered, grumpy old fart (often the bald guy in the leather jacket) to make a comment, and the rest of your evening is shrouded in embarrassment. Thankfully, I was spared this experience – though it is something I would do well to get used to, as a photographer. Every moment captured by a photographer working in public, comes at the expense of somebody else’s. I could illustrate the point using countless examples from my own experience, but none would compare to that of Malcolm Browne:

Malcolm Browne & the 1963 Buddhist Protests

If Malcolm Browne can take a photograph of a monk burning himself to death without stepping in, then I think I can take the difficulty of being right at the front of the crowd for one of my favourite musicians, doing a job I love, hmm?

Well, hello!

Well, well, well. Who’d have predicted this, hmm? Not I. I am following a fashion trend, folks… how I scoffed five years ago when the newspapers reported on their own impending dooms, as a ridiculous new word burst into popularity.

‘Everyone will have their own blog in five years’ time’, they wrote, ‘and online reporting will change everything. In five years’ time, Tuesday morning’s newspaper will be so out of date, it might as well have been printed the previous week.’ Well, hmm, I thought. Here’s a deal: you can drool, swoon and make excited chimpanzee noises over your WAP-enabled phone all you like, reading blogs written by some dull old numpty living in Norwich, and I shall pay my fifty-five pence each day, and read quality articles, however dated, and once I’ve read my dated articles (which you weren’t complaining about two days ago), if I really can’t wait until the next morning, perhaps I’ll switch over to News 24.

Five years’ time is now here. Internet phones are the new Pogs, blogs are now causing the reports on News 24, and I am now paying ninety pence for my quality articles, which I can actually read the evening before, free of charge, on the newspaper’s website. Journalists fill their articles with quotes taken from Twitter, and I... I am that dull old numpty living in Norwich, nothing achieved, but blogging about it anyway.

At least the dull old numpties of five years ago could call themselves pioneers…
This, then, is an apology for my attitude. I sit in my garden now overhearing a plethora of interesting little nuggets of conversation from people walking past; a good blog should provide similar interesting little nuggets, going into just a little more detail to satisfy the curiosity we so often feel. (Yes, dear lady, if you don’t think your daughter deserves to be given a car, you certainly may give one to me…)

I will write up this blog, then, with my future in photography in mind, though aiming also not to alienate those of you who seek to avoid nerdy information on cameras you’ll never own…

…hopefully.