Poland 20th-25th November

Just back after a few days over in Poland. Had a great time. I stayed in Gdynia, which is a great city, and visited Gdansk, which is also great and steeped in history. I am keen to go back over and spend more time actually seeing more of the country. Met some very nice people as well, who made me feel quite at home. I enjoyed the food as well, especially the soup - Zurek - I hope I got that right?? It's just amazing! Oh and the beer - Tyskie in particular - is great also!!

A few pictures from the trip.

8th November

Time to head back to Scotland, it has been a great week, had a great time, and met some amazing people. We made lots of great friends over there and I am already planning a trip back in springtime for a shoot. Thanks to all the Maltese photographers for a fantastic welcome and thanks to the UK and Ireland people who were great fun. Big thanks to Gordon Cowell, oops Gordon McGowan for all his help and encouragement during the week. Roll on X factor in January Gordon haha ;-)

7th November

Today was the last full day in Malta, so I hired a car and went out to shoot at a few places. First stop was Popeye Village - where they filmed the 1980 Robin Williams film/musical. As David Facey said, the film was shite but it's a great place!

After that I went to Selmun Palace and shot in a few locations around that area.

5th November trip to Gozo

Well just when I thought the early mornings were over, they got us up in the middle of the night!! 6.30am for goodness sake!! Trip to the island of Gozo. What a day, scorching hot, and guess what I wore - a black bloody shirt, because Gordon McGowan told me it was going to be a crap day!! Grrrr!!!!

Anyway - what an awesome place Gozo is - wish we had another day to spend there. It was great.

4th November

ANOTHER early morning!! Started off with a Stephen Busuttil lecture, which was about Photoshop, followed by a shoot with Alan Carville, which involved 2 girls and 2 Harley Davidson motorcycles.

At this point I had the chance to go on a shoot with Gordon McGowan so I skipped the afternoon lectures by Tom Lee and David Facey (sorry guys!!). Too good an opportunity to shoot with my favourite photographer!

Anyway, we shot around the hotel for a while then went downtown to the shopping centre and got some really cool images!

The day ended with the awards and honours night. I got 3rd place in the print competition and won a trophy and £150 worth of books!

3rd November

Another early start....I hate mornings!

9am was a lecture by Gordon, which was great, an inspiration and some amazing new images. Then that was followed by a shoot with David Facey, which was interesting and highly entertaining - what a nutcase!! Ha Ha! Sorry Dave! Very funny guy!

2nd November

Today started early- 3 hours sleep then breakfast and registration and entering prints in the competition. The first seminar was by Walter Barbara, one of the Maltese photographers, and this was followed by Eileen Mason and Bill Johnson, which was very interesting. After lunch it was time to go on a shoot out with Gordon McGowan with a bride and groom. This was fun and very helpful. It ended up with the 'groom' actually proposing to the 'bride', silly man!! I think she said yes, and then got swamped with business cards from all the photographers present!!

The day ended with a live judging of the print competition which was, as always, very interesting to see. A few images from the day - sorry Gordon!! Had to be done!! I know you like to read this, so I couldn't miss out the nice pics of you in action!! The fisheye lens is quite flattering to you I think?

Malta

Flew out on the 1st November to Malta for a week with the SWPP and MIPP.

1st November Oran Mor shoot

I have been wanting to photograph this girl for ages and jumped at the opportunity when she offered to do an alternative shoot with me. Due to fly out to Malta in the evening so needed something to do to keep me sane for the afternoon. Sou De Sade is one of the coolest girls I have met!! And superb in front of the camera. The shoot was at Oran Mor in Glasgow, which is a cool venue, I love the colours in it, and it really worked for the gothic feel of this shoot. My assistant Megan came along as well and shot some images. She's in Glasgow at Uni so I wanted her to get some experience working on one of these shoots. She loved it too and got some amazing images as expected.

Thanks to Sou for her ideas and hard work. Thanks to Angie for helping out on the day as well.