The Skyline in Lowestoft has changed

Those of you that are connected with me on Facebook will probably recognise this picture of me taken by Antonella last year in Lowestoft as I often use it as my profile picture. I was taking a picture of the thing on the right with the many legs when Antonella grabbed a rare picture of me rather than a picture by me.

The many legged thing is a 3000 tonne Jack-up-platform called Excalibur and is the largest owned by Fugro-Seacore

The now finished (and now much much bigger) structure on the left by my elbow has been in the news this week as it is finally out at sea being towed to the oil field on the Norwegian side of the North Sea - amusingly for a pedant like me the Norwich Evening News had the headline "Massive construction sales out to sea at Lowestoft" maybe from the Lowestoft branch of DFS ?

The Structure is an LQ or Living Quarters module and is in effect a floating hotel for oil workers in the Valhall oilfield and is the product of over 3 million man hours by workers from Lowestoft based SLP.

The LQ provides offshore accommodation for 180 people and includes an atrium, gym, 'town hall', saunas and heli-deck. The Atrium is required to ensure that all of the bedrooms have natural light as that is a Norwegian legal requirement, seems they treat their oil workers than we treat ours

Unfortunately SLP went into administration in November 2009 and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) are looking for a buyer for the business. For the sake of the 1400 people who worked on the LQ lets hope that they find a buyer soon. And of course it would be nice to have some new interesting clients with interesting products to work with too

New Business page on Facebook for Paul Davis Photography

A very brief posting to let you know that Paul Davis Photography now has a business page on Facebook

I will be using this page to showcase my commercial work particularly automotive & motorsports

Please feel free to drop by and press the Like Button :-) and if you'd like to discuss commissioning me for any commercial photography work please email me on caterham at gmail dot com or call me on 07866 719730

Paul Davis Photography on Facebook

Beaten to it

For some time I have been thinking about writing a blog posting around the importance of the images used in marketing campaigns or on a website.

I had it all planned out, I was going to discuss all of the issues like a picture speaking a thousand words and how a website needs to promote the Unique Selling Points (USP's) of a business rather than trot out the ways it is the same as the competitor up the road and the 5 other competitors down the road. It is very tempting for a business to just buy pictures from a stock image library rather than employ a professional photographer but by buying from a library for a few £££ they run the risk that one of their competitors has also bought the same image - whoops there goes the marketing campaign

That is what I was going to blog about but then I realised someone in the shape of Callum Winton had already blogged on the same subject so rather than re-hashing the words I thought I would pass you over to his blog and then ask you to consider me for your next marketing campaign or update to your website Why you should hire a photographer for your marketing material

Agile and Sexy - the new Alfa Romeo Giulietta

Those 3 boys at Top Gear have very strong views on Alfa Romeo ownership saying that "you cannot be a true petrolhead until you've owned one" and as an owner I know this to be very true, they are quirky, they have lines that only Italian cars have and sometimes, just sometimes they are frustrating.


Alfa Romeo is celebrating it's 100th birthday this June and is one of the featured brands at The Goodwood Festival of Speed this year. Also happening later this summer is the UK launch of the new Alfa Romeo Giulietta which is the replacement for the 147.


I was lucky enough to get an invite to the preview of the new car and so hot-footed it off to Alfa last week


The car on show was a left hand drive, Ghiaccio White, pre-production example of the top of the range model  the 1750 TBI 235BHP Cloverleaf, to keep with the Italian-ness of the car I prefer the word Quadrifoglio

It just wouldn't be an Alfa Romeo without that grille

The DNA switch just in front of the gear lever that offers two different regimes that vary steering effort, accelerator response, electronic stability intervention and settings for the Q2 electronic differential. This really is a drivers car and I can't to get a test drive in one

Quadrifoglio Verde

Gotta love those brake callipers especially with those heavenly large aperture wheels

So it's not just the Top Gear Presenters that like Alfa's, even Autocar Magazine had many good things to say about the new Giulietta - Autocar had a first test drive back in April Autocar First Drive - 1.4 TB Multiair

I'm looking forward to my local dealer getting their 1st demonstrator cars in July so that I can get behind the wheel and also get some shots of the car out on the open road - watch this space


Automotive photography is one of my specialist areas so please do contact me on 07866 719730 if you have any sort of vehicle that you'd like to have up on your wall at home or maybe on your desk at work, anything from a supercar, an Italian legend to a classic, motorcycle or just your pride & joy


You can see more of my automotive photography here

At last, the 1st of my new websites is born with a side order of SEO

A good looking website is vital to the success of a photography business as it is one of the main ways that my clients get a first look at my work and then make their decision about whether to pick up the phone, pen an email or move on to another photographer's website.

I've spent lots of time on & off over the last several months tinkering with the old website but I just couldn't get it how I wanted it so in the end I started from scratch and finally after a lot of head scratching and reading of poorly written documentation it is ready to be thrust, blinking into the world

A large part of the effort I have put in has been in the area of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) to ensure that over time my site will work its way up the search page position it achieves on Google, Yahoo and Bing.

It doesn't matter how wonderful a website is, nor how fantastic the words and pictures on it are, if prospective clients can't find it because it is on page 15 of their web search. So I have my fingers crossed that the cleverness contained within the Google search algorithm will do its magic over the coming days, weeks and months

This first website covers the commercial and automotive photography side of my business, very soon I should be able to publish the updated website for the Wedding photography services that I provide together with Antonella Muscat

It's been difficult typing this with my fingers crossed so I will finish not with a song but with a link

The new website for Paul Davis Photography

Bank Holiday Weather

Well we certainly had typical Bank Holiday weather today

My windows were lashed with raindrops the size of golf balls mid morning and then as quickly as it started it seemed to stop and the sun came out.

I quickly headed out camera in hand to see what there was to see

My 1st stop was an image I have been meaning to capture for sometime but have either been in a hurry or have been without a camera (naughty me), I liked it so much I have decided to make it a new profile picture on my Facebook profile

I continued until I reached the top of the big hill in the middle of Hitchin which is called Windmill Hill and what do you know it used to have a windmill at the top now it has Hitchin Girls School and a large water tower instead. I sat down at the top of the hill on a rather breezy bench but my rest didn't last too long as I was soon assaulted by very heavy hail, the blast effects of which soon had me speeding down the hill to shelter in a shop door way

Once the hail turned into rain and started to ease I decided it was time to head away from the town and look for some proper signs of spring

And I think I managed it, yes folk spring is hear despite the look of those clouds

The Scarborough Flyer gets me into print again

It's always nice to get one of my pictures into the papers

This time it was an image of the A4 locomotive Bittern as she hauled The Scarborough Flyer from London Kings Cross to a day at the seaside in Scarborough

Bittern was in use from 1937 until 1966 when she passed from British Rail ownership into the hands of the Drury family who own her to this day.

After a long period of restoration she started hauling steam specials in 2007, the one on Thursday last week was run by UK Railtours.  I took my shots from near to Cadwell crossing just outside Ickleford near Hitchin in Hertfordshire

The trouble with taking pictures of steam trains is that they pass by in about 20 seconds so it does take careful setting up before hand and good choice of location.

Next time I will have to treat it more like photography from my days as an accredited motorsports photographer - hmmm that gives me ideas for some forthcoming blogs

The very brief article from the online edition of Comet - the print edition is out on Thursday next week

Green Steam Machine Powers through Comet Country