Our new Blog on our own server

New Blog

Our new Blog on our own server

http://martynrayner.co.uk/Blog/

New Years Resolutions

Probably a little early for new year's resolutions, but I think I'll be to busy after new year to write them down. so here they are to take effect from 1st Jan 2011. okay I'll start with the ones I know I'll probably break before 2nd Jan.

Start the sensible diet, not drink as much, not get arsy with Penny as much, and generally be a nice person; and the ones I do intend to keep at least til next year, stop lending stuff to people, stop giving stuff away, be a lot more targeted in how I run the studio, I also want to practice my make up a lot more, I'm already a qualified MUA but need to do a bit more practice, I also think I'm going to learn a bit about hair styling, whilst I don't think i'll ever be a full-on hair dresser I want to be able to do a bit of styling for the models so I can offer make-up and hair styling in the studio. We will still be getting in professional MUA and stylists for our commercial work, but will now be able to offer this to our amateur photographers. The studio has a professional Iwata/Temptu airbrush make-up system which will produce some fantastic results, so a lot of my time is going to be devoted to becoming really good at that: watch this blog to see how I'm are getting on! We are also going to try and break the mould a bit as a hire studio and offer fashion photography alongside our glamour and art nude days. many of our photographers have said they don't want to shoot glamour as it's simple not what they want to do. What they have asked is if we can find some fashion model and run days with them, so that's exactly what we are going to do. we will still be having our glamour and art model, so don't worry.

Towards the end of last year we were in talks with Kerri Parker about running her academy days for Cambridgeshire at our studio, and are delighted that we will be running our first KPA day on the 30th Jan 2011, and hope to have Kerri along (weather permitting) .

We had the last meeting of the St Ives Fashion and Beauty photography club early in December when we decided to change the name (the old one was a bit of a mouthful) to Face Works, the club was set up as a photographic club but with a much more specific aim than most clubs, Face Works is devoted to "people photography" and is not just open to photographers we also welcome models, make-up artists and stylists along to our meetings, which are normally held at the studio on the first Wednesday of the month, we have a small charge of £4 per meeting. which we hope everyone feels is great value for money as most other clubs with the same charge are held in village halls and scout huts, and not large professional photographic studios. Finally for this blog entry I hope everyone had a great Christmas and I would like to wish you all a prosperous New Year

Unfortunatly due to the cost of living rise and the increse in fuel cost, we have had to increase our studio rental charges in line with all the other studios in the area, from 1st Jan 2011 our prices will be £30 per/hour for bookings up to 3 hours, bookings between 4 and 7 hours wil be £25 per/hous and bookings of 8+ hours £20, any bookings already made for 2011 will be at the old rate, any bookings made before 31st Dec for 2011 wil be charged at he old rate, so if you are planing a shoot early in the new year book and pay before 31st and get the old rate. we have managed to hold our prices for two years, however our studio is the largest in the area and the cost of running such a large space is fairly high.

I have been neglecting the blog for far too long, anyway I'm here now, the studio is looking forward to 2011 but we still have a few more weeks left of this year and we are planning some exciting events, last night saw the last meeting of the year for "Face Works" the studio's photographic club, and we hope to have a blog especially for the club soon, we are planning a three day photo bonanza over Christmas. For all the models and photographers fed up with the rubbish telly we have events on the 28th 29th and 30th of December, 28th will be a chance for people to try out the cameras they had for Christmas in the studio, on the 29th we are having a group shoot, so if you are a model or a photographer get in touch and book your slot, models can come for free and photographers there is a charge of £50 for the whole day, and if you are still bored we are having a Photoshop CS5 and Lightroom3 workshop. we are doing this at a special festive rate of £50 it's normally £85.

Photoshop Backgrounds

Susie