I decided to be very efficient, and sort out my self-assessment tax for 08/09 today, so I gathered together my P60, P11D, student loan details, finance spreadsheets and settled down for what I thought would be a mammoth session. However, I was pleasantly surprised that it only took an hour to fill everything out.

I don’t have any particularly complicated financial doings which certainly helps. In the second year of business, I managed to more than double my turnover which is quite nice, so the total revenue was £3485. I also managed to post a profit in triple figures (as opposed to double figures this time last year). Most of the the revenue came last summer, and it looks like that’s going to be the same this financial year (as that’s when most people get married).

So that’s some good news for the business. We’ll have to see what 09/10 holds, but it’s looking positive, with more bookings that 08/09 already, despite a move to Kent.

I’ve had the same stylesheet on this site for the last three years now (since I first designed the site). To be honest, I’d forgotten how long ago it was that I first used it, so I used the Internet Archive Wayback Machine to look at the first versions of my site that were archived. Three years is ancient for web content, and although the content of the site has changed and matured over that time, the look and feel remained the same.

What you’re seeing now though is just an interim stylesheet. Currently I use a fixed width of 800 pixels, which back in 2006 was necessary for the 20% of users who browsed at an 800×600 pixel resolution. That has now dropped to 4% of users (stats courtesy of W3C browser statistics), and if the BBC News website is now providing a site with a fixed width of 1024 pixels, I think I might too. That’s in the future though, and I’ll try to make some other CSS improvements when the time comes.

For the last few years, every time that I’ve flown, I’ve looked out of the window and thought how great it would be if a map could be super-imposed over the view so that I could know exactly where I am. Names of villages, and maybe little links about some of the landscape would be added extras (you can tell I’m a bit of a dreamer!)

Well, maybe that technology isn’t too far in the future. I can’t remember how I stumbled upon it, but there is a fascinating blog post on the OpenGeoData site about augmented reality and landscapes. When I was at university, although I didn’t specialise in the field of computer vision (I was more into algorithmic composition and computer music), I always found it very interesting. This is something else though. It is the combining of data from different sources, and the merging of information that makes this augmented reality so fascinating and useful.

I’ve included one of my holiday snaps as part of this blog post. It was taken from the top of the Untersberg Mountain just outside Salzburg in Austria, looking towards Salzburg. It would be great to think that in maybe 5 or 10 years time when I take a similar photo from the top of a mountain, I too would be able to augment it with off-the-shelf software…or maybe that would all be done within the camera? Who knows? It’s certainly an exciting time for photography!

I like photos in the rain; there’s something magical about the reflections, and the glisten of everyday objects when they get wet. One of the things that really pleased me about my recent holiday was that I was able to take photos at a fairground, at night, in the rain

But what about protecting the camera? Whilst I was taking these pictures, luckily there was shelter, so I didn’t have to let my camera get wet, but there were other days when photos just weren’t practical. I’m willing to risk my camera in the rain for maybe one photo, but for a series? No way.

However, there are a few options to protect cameras when wet:

• Camera covers - a quick search of Google shows that there’s quite an industry in this field.
• Camera umbrellas - I actually own a camera umbrella, similar to the Probrella. I have to say it’s not that practical though, and although it does the job, it’s a bit cumbersome.
• Plastic bag - by far the best option in my opinion. It’s cheap, and it does the trick; simply cut a hole in the bottom, then secure it round your lens with an elastic band.

I have to say that I’m rarely organised enough to make sure that I have one of the above options readily to hand, so I normally risk the odd shot where my camera gets wet.

Today I had the pleasure of taking photos at John and Fiona’s wedding at the Priory Restaurant in Hayward’s Heath

It was the first wedding at the Priory Restaurant since they got their wedding license, but everything went smoothly, and it was a lovely day. It was a great idea to have the wedding breakfast in the carvery, and the chocolate fountain in the evening was a lovely touch too.

One of the aspects of photography that inspires me to get out there and take lots of photos is that I’m contributing to a historical record of the here and now. Whilst I was in Munich this summer, I learned about how this was the inspiration for many people to take photos during World War 2

Knowing that their city was soon to be bombed, the residents of Munich took photos of important architectural and cultural buildings, monuments and fountains. This way, when the war was over, they would be able to reproduce accurately the originals. I found that really quite moving. I’m sure that Munich isn’t alone in this aspect, but to see photographs of Fraunkirche, Munich before the war whilst standing in the reconstruction was amazing. The majority of the church was damaged by allied pilots, however they left the towers standing as a navigational aid.

Would your first instinct be to photograph architectural and cultural interests if you knew that your city was to be destroyed? I like to think I would, but it probably wouldn’t be my first thought in the heat of the moment.

Whilst on holiday in mainland Europe this year, we saw lots of memorials. Our holiday started in Munich, where we went on a free walking tour one day, then a visit to Dachau the next, led by Californian historian Matt Ryan who works for New Munich Tours. The emphasis on both of these tours, was the idea of memorials; in the walking tour of Munich, it was the hidden memorials that were shown, and at Dachau…well, the site of the former concentration camp is now a memorial in itself.

The tours led by Matt covered extremely emotive subjects in a sensitive and factual manner. One thing that I found extremely difficult (especially at Dachau) was photography. Whilst some members of the tour chose to pose for photos in front of the memorials (don’t even get me started on how inappropriate I thought that was), I struggled with my camera. I didn’t know what to take photos of. What do you photograph at a memorial site? I guess more importantly, WHY do you take photographs at a memorial site? I knew that I wanted to communicate something in my photographs, but I didn’t know what; was it the horrors of what had happened there, was it the sense of remembrance, or was it just to further the historical records? I still don’t know.

The other memorial site that we visited on holiday was on the outskirts of Budapest, where in the 1990s a lot of the communist era statues and memorials were brought when removed from the city. This in itself was easier to photograph, but once again, I questioned why. Even though the site was created as a memorial, the presence of the statues almost seemed to celebrate and promote communism.

I have to say that I found it much easier to photograph the scarred buildings that were the result of conflict and unstable politics; a dilapidated shop front, peeling plaster, and bullet marks in walls. They’re not presented on a plate as memorials, but for me, it’s the little reminders that are more powerful.

I had the pleasure of taking photographs for Neil + Sarah today in Burford. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t too kind, but it was all in one location, so there was no need to go outside.

I was asked to take photos by Neil + Sarah when they were guests at another wedding where I was doing photos; it’s always nice to get follow-on work. It was a lovely day, and a pleasure to be part of it.

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been on holiday in Europe! We started in Munich, and worked our way through Austria to Hungary.

Our destinations were:

• Munich - 2 nights; had a fantastic free tour with New Munich Tours, then visited Dachau (the first German concentration camp)
• Salzburg - 4 nights with a day trip to Innsbruck; visited salt mines, went into the mountains, visited crystal caves, did a beer tasting
• Vienna - 4 nights; it rained a lot, so did art galleries and museums, had very posh coffee and Sacher Torte, went to the Opera
• Budapest - 4 nights; once again it rained, so it was museums once more……

I have created a small gallery of the photos from this holiday; as you can see, I try not to go for the standard touristy photos, but sometimes I just can’t resist!

I am commonly asked by people what brand of camera they should buy, and most of these people ask which is best out of Canon and Nikon.

As you can see from the photo, I was able to source both Nikon and Canon lens caps because I own cameras of both brand. Obviously there are other good brands; Olympus, Panasonic, Leica, Fuji, Kodak and Sony to name but a few, but I think it’s fair to say that it’s Nikon and Canon that people have heard of most.

So which is better? Well my first camera was a Canon film SLR but I didn’t really make a decision over brand with that; I inherited it, as Canon had been used in my family for a while. It then made sense for me to buy Canon when I extended my range of film cameras, so that I could use the same lenses. I have to say that I have been very impressed with Canon. But then I bought a Nikon DSLR, and departed from Canon.

Why Nikon? Well to be honest, I found very little difference between Canon and Nikon within my budget range, and I think it’s fair to say that no matter what your budget is, there will always be similar Canon and Nikon cameras within that price range. The only thing that convinced me in the end to go with Nikon was that I preferred the menu system.

I therefore don’t like to recommend either brand over the other one. Both are good; I would just recommend that if you’re looking to buy either, you consider prices of lenses, how the camera feels and then read lots of reviews.