You can't find a decent bit of graffiti when you need it - but is it art ?

One of the advantages of being a photographer without the millstone of a studio with four walls is the ability to find interesting places to shoot people

Grungy town & city centre locations are often popular as backdrops, this is particularly so of walls plastered with colourful graffiti.  Some people see graffiti as art (or at least sometimes as art) and there are many people who see it as undecorative vandalism that creates eyesores across the landscape.

I fit into the "sometimes" category

I've been out on one of my regular location scouting expeditions to check on the status of my local graffiti hotspots and it has all been a little disappointing so I though I'd share some images from my local area and also some across Europe where I have been shooting.

There is plenty of graffiti around my home town of Hitchin in North Hertfordshire

Some of it is rather dull tagging and I suspect this was done by someone other that Fuse who I believe is a big time London artist

and some of it just seems to spraying over the top of other artists work

You can come across something that has the makings of a photography location

But they never seem to go far enough

And some that look like they might be good if the next stage of colouring was completed

and some of it is a dead loss

and will possibly never go anywhere

There are some very popular locations with the local artists, unfortunately these locations are also popular with the clean-up teams from the local council or Network Rail

This is another popular location that shows a little promise sometimes

But then a walk down another popular backstreet location showed some new promise

and some recently completed work that if it managed to remain intact may well be appearing in one of my photoshoots very soon

It is also interesting to see graffiti with some sort of political message although in this case I'm not at all sure what the message is

and in some cases I don't agree with the message, copyright is definitely something I am in favour of to protect my work

Looking further afield, I saw some great graffiti when I was in Vienna Austria working. These images were all seen along the banks of the Danube in the city centre

This one must have been 10 feet tall so must have taken quite a lot of planning and perhaps a step ladder

Most of the Vienna work seems to contain a message

Some of the messages were quite clear

and some were a little too clear. I certainly looked out for what I was treading on after reading this (and wondering why it was in English rather than German)

and then back to England and my home town of Hitchin

This guinea pig stencilled image in the centre of Hitchin has always amused my son and I'm sure there is a message behind it too but from my experience with guinea pigs the message may well be Squeeek

If you'd like to talk to me about a photoshoot for yourself, your company or band please call me on 07866 719730 or email me on caterham@gmail.com

Also if you know any good graffiti locations please do leave a comment below

New website for Davis & Co Photographers - Hertfordshire & Norfolk Wedding Photography

As well as my own commercial photography business Paul Davis Photography and Antonella Muscat's business Antonella Muscat Photography we are also partners in a wedding photography business called Davis & Co Photographers we aim to shoot beautiful weddings anywhere in the UK but especially in Hertfordshire and Norfolk

We have recently launched a new website for Davis & Co and have several weekends this wedding season when we are not booked. We are offering a number of special offers too including either a free engagement shoot or trash/cherish the dress session so if you are looking for a pair of wonderful photographers for your summer 2010 wedding please stop by at our website or get in touch so we can tailor a package just for you

New webiste - Davis & Co Photographers


Antonella 07748 197522 or Paul 07866 719730


Email us at contact@davisandcophotographers.co.uk

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