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

New toys and some street photography

My Partner Antonella Muscat has recently been making a lot of investment in her photography. She is a great fan of prime lenses (a prime lens is one that doesn't zoom), prime lenses usually offer better image quality and often have a bigger aperture (they can let in more light when necessary which is good in dark Churches and the like)

Although they can be more of a challenge to use as you have to plan your shots more carefully

One of her most recent purchases from Warehouse Express in Norwich was a Nikon 20mm f2.8, after we left Warehouse Express and all the lovely tempting goodies they have in their huge showroom we decided to head out into Norwich for a bit of street photography and lunch

I thought I'd share just of a few of the images from our walk around Norwich with the new lens

The Sweetie stall in the amusingly named Gentlemans Walk was a very colourful start, I particularly find it difficult to start pointing a camera at complete strangers in the street especially with such a short focal length lens and always take a few minutes to "warm up" and allow the feelings of self conciousness fade

Just round the corner from John Lewis there is a very photogenic piece of metal sculpture which you may recognise from some Antonella's previous photoshoots

One of the characteristics of a lens like the 20mm f2.8 is it's ability to produce bokeh which is a Japanese word which means something like blur. In the image above the subject is the line of black flints with the background being nicely blured or bokeh'd

As we stood looking at the building with the Panasonic signs on it we noticed a stream of people coming up the a Big Issue seller. It appeared they were on some sort of treasure hunt type event as they all seemed to ask him a question and his answer gave them their next clue. They didn't know whether to look at us or their friend with her point & shoot so it made a change to be on the other side of the "uncle bob" situation we find at weddings where one of the guests tries to gatecrash our professional shots

We finished off in Norwich market which is the largest and one of the oldest in the country

Then we headed for home to get the batteries of her other purchase on charge - looks like I owe you another blog posting very soon

On assignment to photograph Gordon Brown as he opens extension to Great Yarmouth College in Norfolk

As well as the wedding photography side of my business that I do with Antonella Muscat as part of Davis & Co Photographers I also take on more journalistic photography assignments


It was this side of my business that led me to be in Great Yarmouth on Monday 14th February to photograph Gordon Brown as he opened an extension to Great Yarmouth College

The £8 million pound extension was officially opened at the end of a 45 minute tour of the college where Mr Brown met students and college staff.

He also met people working in start-up businesses in the new Alchemy 2 which alongside the Alchemy Centre encourages innovation and new businesses to help stimulate the local economy by providing office space and business support for fledgling enterprises. Alchemy 2 was funded by the East of England Development Agency (EEDA)


Mr Brown was accompanied by the local MP Tony Wright, College principle Robin Parkinson, chair of governors Mike Field, Deborah Cadman Chief Executive of the EEDA. He also met with with Councillor Tony Smith the Mayor of Great Yarmouth.

Cut off, it was like going back to the dark ages of the early 1990's

I was planning to continue posting about my time at the SWPP conference back in January but due to some idiot using his digger to break a whole lot of high capacity fibre near to J6 of the M1 on Tuesday I have been without broadband for nearly 3 days. You might have thought that there would have been resiliency in the network that linked many of the residents of Letchworth, Hitchin, Harpenden, Luton, Leagrave and Houghton Regis to the internet but there wasnt i.e. 10 seconds work in a JCB and we were all cut off.

I'm going to do some research now to see if other internet service providers (ISP's) have the same single points of failure in their networks and will be posting my findings here

Starbucks, coppers and the SWPP Conference

Picture the scene, there I was sat in Starbucks on one of the arm chairs trying to write this blog posting. A couple of men join me near the window and sit on the sofa next to my chair

I mostly ignored them but as soon as I glanced up from my note book & magazine I could tell that they were plain clothed cops - I dont know why really, maybe it was their size 12 feet. Then a few minutes later they were joined by 2 other groups of rather cold looking cops from a local operation. I was totally surrounded (but didnt feel the need to put my hands up), it felt like I was on the set of The Bill, I reckon the banter was very similar.

Good luck with the shoplifting gang folks

Back on Plan B, I mentioned in my last posting that I had attended the annual SWPP (Society of Wedding & Portrait Photographers) conference back in January. I came away after 6 days with a head & notebook full of information and have spent the last 6 weeks making sense of it all and trying to put some of it into practice within the business.

I'd signed up for the Business School sessions which formed the first 2 days of the conference which was held at the Novatel in a rather cold, wet & snowy Hammersmith

The 1st session I went to was by Michael Turner - Networking: It's good to talk. Michael covered all of the basic of using networking as a means of growing a business including the importance of developing a networking strategy as a part of the overall marketing plan. This is certainly a area I need to work on more as most of my networking seems to be happening online using social networking such as Facebook (both with Davis & Co Photographers and my own personal page) and twitter 

I've been exploring face to face networking "clubs" such as BNI, does anyone have any experience of them and their usefulness ?