We have moved - Again!!

At the beginning of July we moved again. This time into a more permanent home on a very long term rental.

We  managed to find a great house that can accommodate me with my photography  and a nice big double garage that can house all my framing equipment.

At least here, Angela also has her own room to do all her cross stitching and card making.

We are now in a little village called Sturmer, near Haverhill in Suffolk.

This time we used a removal company to do the move, wasn’t going to do it all again ourselves.

Called my broadband service provider long before we moved to find out how long it would take to get connected and was told it should be almost immediately.

Great, I thought, not long off the internet and no hassles.

Well, I was greatly mistaken. It took 3 weeks to get connected. Couldn’t believe that, in this day and age of computer technology, it takes that long to do things.

I won’t go on about getting new lounge suites and other goods delivered. Also many promises and then no delivery and no explanation or call to say when it will happen.

Needles to say, everything is now in place and we can now enjoy our new home.

The cats, amazingly have settled in very well. One always gets worried about the stories of cats going missing when they have been moved and turn up at their old home months later. These two are such home bodies, in as much as they love being around us and of course their food, that they know home is best, even if it is a new home.

That’s it for now.

New Beginnings.

I haven’t posted for a while, as we have just undertaken a house move and we decided to do it ourselves. Never, ever again. Far too much stress and unnecessary work.

We decided that it was time for a change and sold our house in Bishops Stortford and have moved to a bungalow in a smaller village nearby.

This is a temporary move, to enable us to look around at leisure to find something that suits us and in a smaller village. Want to get away from the hustle and bustle of a large town and of course away from the “Commuter Belt”, which pushes the price of everything sky high.

We are now relatively settled, still a lot of unpacking to do, a lot of which has been put on hold, as last Saturday, when I was out photographing a wedding, Angela ended up in hospital with a mild form of Viral Meningitis. She is home now and hopefully on the mend.

I am finding it difficult to make her stay in bed and rest, as she is a very active person.

The wedding was fantastic, Jenni and Dean are a lovely couple and so laid back, it was a pleasure to work with them.

Here is one image from the day:

There are more images on my Wedding Blog to see and then in a short while their online gallery will be up to view.

Anyway, back to my nursing duties.

Backup, Backup, Backup.

I was sitting here at my computer this morning and realised that I hadn’t done a backup of the latest wedding to DVD.

Well, as you can imagine, it was done immediately.

I had a situation almost 4 years ago where my hard drive failed and I was unable to recover a lot of images. Fortunately, they were personal images and not business related.

What upset Angela and I the most about the loss of the images, was the loss of the one’s of my grand daughter taking her very first steps.

I was at her first birthday party and had the camera trained on her to take a couple of shots and as I pressed the shutter, she let go and walked. That was a once in a lifetime happening and it is now gone.

Since then, I have been very strict with myself on doing a backup everytime I have new images on my hard drive. I back them up to another hard drive and make a backup to DVD.

There has been a lot of discussion regarding the life of DVD’s and CD’s and I don’t think anyone really knows what the lifespan of these various type of media is.

After doing some research on forums and talking to other photographers, I have started using Taiyo Yuden DVD’s and CD’S, as these are considered to be one of the best on the market. There are other manufacturers, but I can’t think of who they are right now.

So, remember to back up your images as soon as you have downloaded them onto your computer. If you do, then you won’t have my horrible experience.

Now that I have decided to start my personal ramblings-

I really don’t know what to ramble about.

Well, I suppose that a bit about me would be a good idea:

I was born in South Africa many years ago. My father was from Aberdeen, Scotland and my mother was South African.

I have an elder brother and sister. My brother and some of his children now also live in the UK. My sister is still in SA and it is doubtful if she will ever leave.

But I digress, at the beginning of 1999, I decided that it was time for me to leave the sunny climes of South Africa. This was mainly due to the high crime rate.

First hand experience for me unfortunately, 9 burglaries in 5 years. All my camera equipment - the most devastating blow for me. No insurance to cover the loss, as in SA, after the third burglary, you won’t get any cover.

So, on 3 August 1999, I landed at Heathrow. I had never been to the UK before and said to friends before I left, that I would know whether I would stay within 2 weeks. Well, after a couple of days, I knew that I would stay.

Had a couple of various jobs to build up additional capital and eventually I was able to invest in a Canon 10D and then a Canon 20D and various lenses, Canon and Sigma.

I met my wife Angela in August 2000 at a barbecue I organised for my birthday. She was brought along by a friend of mine. We obviously immediately clicked and we were subsequently married on 20 March 2004. The third anniversary coming up soon. Mustn’t forget that!!

Friends of ours had seen my photography and persuaded my to take on their wedding photography. Having not done any weddings for a couple of years, I was not too keen. After much persuasion, I relented and did it.

I loved it and the passion was rekindled and the rest is history.

I am now a full time photographer and help out at a police station in one of the surrounding villages, three days a week. Lovely bunch of people there to work with.

Finally, we were blessed (well our daughter was) with a set of twins at the end of August last year. I will post some images of them at a later stage. They have an elder sister, who will be 5 in the beginning of August.

Our son and his girlfriend ( note I don’t say partner, can’t stand the word) have a little girl as well, she just turned 4 a month ago.

Well, now you know a lot about me, so I will end this bit.

Goodnight.

New Blog

My official wedding photography blog is now at http://parkphoto.blogware.com/blog where you can see all my wedding posts.

Please visit!!!!