I've had enough of the blog on this site so i've set up a new one seperately thats lots easier to use and hopefully nicer for you guys to look at. See you on the other side http://samueljohnbuttblog.blogspot.com/

I've had loads going on the last few weeks which would usually mean that i'm blogging like crazy but spending time in front of the computer is one of my least favourite things to do at the moment so I' trying to avoid it. Got back from finishing university, had a couple days to unpack then headed to london fasion week. Saw my first live catwalk show which was really good, got a lot of friends from manchester who were showing work. I'd never really seen any of their clothes before so it was great to finally get to see it, some really great pieces and styling in there. The day dragged on a bit and I opted to head home for a family meal rather than stay out and party, how geriatric of me.
Since then I went to NASS in Bath and i've had family and my lovely girlfriend Heather visiting for a few days which has been brilliant. Went to Madam Tussauds, not been there in years and now I know why. It costs an arm and a leg to get in, no idea how they justify the rediculous entry fee.
Did the first part of my first freelance photography booking today, went really well despite a few people that really were not up for being photographed. It was pretty nerve-racking but its the time when your under pressure that you learn the most and really prove that you've got what it takes. Thankfully i've got the man upstairs on my side to keep me calm no matter whether things go well or not.
Decided to stay up late to check my university degree results. Got a 2.1 so all the work has finally paid off, I feel a lot better and realise that all those times when I thought I was gunna go crazy were worth it in the end. I'm busy working amongst other things so I haven't had time to do too many updates recently but i'll get some new stuff up here asap. As per usual got a big backlong of images that need to go up including a loads of polaroids that i'm really excited about.
Off to brighton on Saturday to shoot a smll feature for kingdom magazine, not been there in a while and its one of my favourite places in England so i'm really looking forward to it.
Tata for now, i'll add picures to this tomorrow.

For the last 3 days i've been trying to get together all my material to completely update this website and give a better idea of the work I like doing but each time I try to something goes wrong. First I couldn't get access to various scanners, when I did I found they all had a software problem so were useless to me, next  I tried to scan some negatives which I thought was a success but i've returned home to find all of the files are corrupt, even though they were fine when I scanned then yesterday, very frustrating. On the flipside spent a couple of very satisfying hours in the darkroom printing some promotional material for my degree show next friday,  which i'm really happy with. I was sure I'd finished uni last week but i'm still working hard sending emails and preparing myself for graduate fashion week  where hopefully i'll win a prize or make some useful contacts for the future, or maybe both? Who knows.  Not very exciting today, I keep making promises I think I can keep but electrical goods are hindering my progress, ah well, i'm sure its all for a reason.

I know, I know, I haven't put anything up here in ages but I've got a great excuse. In the last 6 weeks I've completed a 10000 word dissertation and i've completed my year-long final degree show exhibition project. I'm not completely happy with it, but uni has pretty much sucked out everything that I love about photography so its a miracle i've managed to produce anything i'm half happy with. Annoyances aside uni has been so much more than getting a degree, I'm so happy with where i'm at right now. 

Had quite a busy but particularly successful day. Lotsa good feedback from my lecturer about some images for the portfolio part of my degree and also about a fashion campaign brief for  Karrimor I shot at the end of last week. Also found out about more of my pictures getting used in various publications which is really encouraging. I'm really tired i've having to deal with all the formalities that university brings and eager to get out into the real world, even if it does seem a bit daunting I welcome the challenge. All I wanna do is take photo's and not have to constantly write about why i've taken them! Gunna make the most of free equipment and rinse the facilities here before the year is out, get a huge amount of pictures to take round to clients when I move back to London.
In my constant browsing for interesting photography I was introduced to this photograper by my friend Dave.  I really REALLY like the look of this book and its been added to my wishlist.  
http://denis.darzacq.revue.com/actualite.shtml

It was the result of a collaboration with a group of french break dancers to create the most realistic images of someone looking as if they have fallen from a great height. Definitly worth checking out i'd say. Enough for today, i'm off to read in bed before sleep, its my new thing.  Not very rock 'n' roll at all, but I like it.

Sorry for the lack of bloggage over the past few days. Was busy doing the mammoth coach journey from London to Preston, had a shoot the next day and then when I finally had some time to write on here my internet got cut off TYPICAL.
On the wednesday before I left London myself and my brother-from-another-mother Aylwin headed into town to meet his brother George for a drink and a Nando's after work.  Before that we went to check out an exhibition called Exactitudes at Selfridges run by the Photographers Gallery.

Really great show documenting soceities pursuit of looking different but still trying to conform to some area of society. Watched the boring performance by the English football team against France, then headed to Notting Hill ARts Club to meet some friends of his playing a gig there. We missed the bands so waited around for a while outside then went off to a club called Moonlight in Soho. It was sardine-esque sweatbox so we only stayed for a few hours before having a long chat on the nightbus about how frustrating it is having to work with people that don't have any passion or pride about what they do.

Anyway, had a really successful shoot on Friday, was chucking it down when the day began and then brightened up as we got to the location and was incredible then on.  Everyone was really pleased with how the pictures turned out, especially the person I was working for which is always good. They'll be up here once i've got some more of the mountain of uni work out of the way.
Aside from that i've been trying to keep a low profile so that I can get on with my work all of this week before everyone returns from easter. Wouldn't wanna be constantly trapped inside working for the last months of my time with uni friends now would I?! I've also put a new picture up in the rollerblading section, nothing spectacular, just kinda cool. More will be appearing soon after its been in various magazines.

 

Its  2 AM and i'm sat up watching orlando magic VS san antonio spurs on Five with my brother, something pretty out of character for me. For a long time i've had no love for sport, be it watching any of it on tv or really playing it that much either, but since my trip to America at Christmas my love for basketball has been re-kindled. Played a bit with my brother while we were on holiday and plan to play a lot more at the court up the road from my house when I move home. In the meantime i've been enjoying the top ten dunks from basketball's undisputed best player in history, Mr 23 himself.

Headed into town to meet my friend Heather and her friend Doug at the National Portrait Gallery but  on finding out they were gunna be a bit late I headed to Leicester Square to grab a snack and find something to amuse myself, and amused I was.  I arrived to find a 300 people+  pillow fight going on right in the centre, feathers going everywhere and  lots  of confused passers-by. Here's a picture of my feet surrounded by feathers and a small insight into the organised feather war.

After that brief excitement had a quick blast round the NPG, the Vanity Fair exhibition was sold out for the day so we headed to the Photographers Gallery to check out the shortlisted work for the Deutsche Borse photo prize.
 
Some not so interesting stuff in there but Jacob Holdt's arresting slideshow really stuck out and is worth a look at. I hope he wins it.
After this had an amazing chicken dish at bella italia and had a short discussion about what it is that gives a creation the title of a valid piece of art. Took a nice walk down the Strand and over the bridge and to the national theatre where Heather and Doug were watching Shakespeare's 'Much ado about nothing'. I was planning to tag along but there were no decent tickets left and I wanted to head to borders anyway to catch up with all the magazines i'd been missing out on in my absence from London. I passed American Apparel and thought it'd be rude not to drop in so had a quick look round at all the new stuff and bought a good magazine that i'd not seen before. Suprisingly managed to not buy any clothes, have to try and practice that more often.

Following this headed over to my friend max's house in bromley and spent the rest of the evening getting frustrated over long 6 player games of HALO 3. Got another good story from today but i'm gunna save it for another day as it needs its own blog entry I feel.

 

Check out this website. Once I get more money i'm definitly investing in some of these badboys.  Considering the rediculous amount of images that we see every day wouldn't it be good  to mix it up a little and add a tache to some of those,  think about how many new looks you could give kate moss. If you get into it, email me the pictures, i'd love to see them.



www.moustacheme.com


Also check out the recent supreme collaboration with terry richardson and kermit the frog. I'm not really into all of terry richardson's typically pornographic photo's but these are a lot more tame and fun. Only supreme could come up with an idea like this and make it sell so well.
If you fancy getting your mits on one of the t-shirts, good luck. They've been sold out for ages and currently retail at about £100 if you can find one on ebay. Here's a video of the shoot.

 

Having arrived back in London it was only a matter of hours before I was in the company of rollerbladers and finding myself in yet another part of England hardly anyone will ever visit. On tuesday we drove out to a skatepark in the middle of a country park, really amazing setup,  definitly a spot to return to in the summers months.
Spent an unnecessary amount of time shooting a 'how to' with oli short for a free rollerblading supplement, probably the most unrewarding pictures i've taken in a long time. Managed to delete the shots halfway through so we had to re-shoot, typical!
Spent most of wednesday driving round west london looking for new skatespots. Didn't find anything that exciting apart from the rail in the picture below, which was really small but myself and oli proceeded to make the most of it and a really nice new photo for my desktop came out of it.
 
This picture is the view from my current bedroom window soon to be replaced with the incredible loft conversion that will be waiting for me when I return home for good in June.
I'll be putting up all the polaroids from the kingdom launch party later today, LONG overdue. Look out for more after the London launch party.
 

Once again i've slacked and now i'm back on the case with the 'ole blog. University work is the main barrier getting in the way, althoiugh it would be unfair to say this is the only reason as prolonged periods on facebook, various fashion photographers/magazine webistes and rollerblading websites have hindered the growth of my blog, but do not fear, today it begins again!  Here's a short overview of whats happened since I last blogged.

Went to Germany for 4 days , Mulhausen to be precise, for the annual Winterclash. Winterclash is a huge skate competition that saw people from all over the world and had a nice tradeshow too. Check out www.winterclash.com for more info. Had a really great time, met lots of cool people, made some useful contacts for work in the future  (hopefully). Here's a pictues of my friends nick and tom asleep on the back seat of our luxurious ride for the weekend,  Merc and that.

The next picture is the merc in all its glory somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Germany on the way back to the airport.

Didn't take too many photographs that weekend for one reason or another,  mostly frustration, got a few new polaroids though that'll appear up here soon.
Considering the nazi-reputation that the town we visited in Germany  has I shouldn't have been surprised to see the name of this well known ice cream to be very similar to a popular term amongst the  G community to describe black people., but I felt it was worth taking a picture of anyway.

Last time I talked about a new project I was working on, nothing to do with photography, I can now reveal it is a lifesize replica of a baretta made from wood.  I brought it back with me from America, It reminded me of the lego I used t play with in a slightly more mature manner ( VERY slightly maturer). Bought some PVA glue to start sticking it together yesterday, gunna have another go at it later or tommorow.
Been spending almost as much time in front of the camera as I have behind the camera recently which I've had enough of now. Themes have included tribal wear and a food fight, pictures to follow. Spent most of yesterday washing mustard, ketchup, rice krispies and prawn out of my hair, NOT a good culinary combination I can assure you.

Got tons of new pictures to put up, I can never put them up gradually as I usually work on them in bursts so thats how they appear here. Issue 5 of Kingdom Magazine will be on the shelves in the next few weeks. My friend Matt Chilvers has a profile with some pictures by me in there, check that out. I'm told there will be a load of polaroids from the first kingdom launch party in there too, they'll all appear on here once the magazine is out, sorry for the long wait. Got some pretty exciting shoots planned for the next week, one by the beach for camp america ( gunna be interesting with the great british weather we're having!) and a campaign for climbing shoes in a few weeks too.
Been making TONS of visits to the cinema recently, sometimes twice a week for about the last 2 months or so, more consitently than I ever have in my life, and i'm loving it apart from how expensive it is. Juno is really worth seeing as well as Be kind Rewind, Mos Def and Jack Black are a really great comedy duo. May go and see Vantage Point but i'm a little unsure of how good it'll be, the next one I'm excited about is the Dark Knight the new batman film. Anyway's as per usual i'm rambling, I figure its better to ramble on here than in person. Come back soon for a more reports of my daily activities, oh yeah and have a look at those pictures that are on this site too, you know, if you get a chance ;)

Ok so its been just over a week back up north and I'm getting settled in again pretty well. Not gunna be able to do daily updates so thought i'd give a little overview of the past 6 days instead. Went for a skate wednesday night last week with my good friends Al, Tom, Neil, Scott and Nick in Blackpool which was AMAZING. Only got an hour at the park  but it felt great as i'd not had a roll in months, due to bad weather and needing to be behind the camera instead.  Watched  'This Is England' at the weekend, really thought provoking film, definately gunna buy it in the near future. Big up to Shane Meadows for making that and Tom Turgoose for playing his character so well, reminded me of being young and the NF rallys that used to go on near our house in Tulse Hill. EEEEK! Also went to see an ice hockey game in Blackburn, really good fun. The 2 teams playing were pretty low quality so myself and my 7 companions compensated by cheering as loud as we could whenever someone went down on the ice or took a big slam into the wall. There were only about 60 or so other people watching so we were always heard ;). The scanning room at uni is finally in order so I've taken full advantage of this and scanned as many of my old negatives as possible. Look out mainly in the travel, rollerblading and the This is art? sections for those over the next few weeks, LOTS of stuff that i've had waiting patiently since last summer to go on here is up now, will be up soon.
I was a bit worried about how I was doing with my uni work having had a pretty hard time with depression last year but thankfully i'm still on track to get the 2:1 that I set out for, an answer to prayer fo shizzle.
Over the Christmas period visited the MA fashion show at the Royal Foundation of the Arts as one my lecturers, Adam, had work displayed. I had mixed feelings about the show but Adam's work was really incredible. The picture of me comes from a swanky toilet at the show. Check out his website at www.adammurray.co.uk. He's helped me out a lot over the past few years with uni/personal work and made me push my interest in the fashion genre further in a big way.
With not being able to go out so much over the next few months due to work commitments and needing to save funds for getting exhibition images printed I have an exciting new evening project, Project b-retta. I can't reveal everything about it now but check back over the next few weeks for new developments.
Oh yeah I almost forgot, i'm off to Germany in two weeks for a 4 day business/pleasure trip, Mulhausen to be specific to the annual Winterclash, its gunna be BIGTIME. Check out www.winterclash.com for more info, i'll do a day by day update while i'm there as I doubt i'll be taking too much uni work with me.
TTFN,  tata for now

Today was our last and probably best day in miami. Hit up a few more shops in sunset place to start off with, bought another copy of Nylon for guys magazine in urban outfitters which i'm really liking, hopefully it'll be avaliable in England when I get back. Next stop was the best ice cream restaurant ever called Walls , not the big corportate giants though. Allthe ice cream is hand made on the premises and there is even special ice cream for dogs. The flavours of choice for me today were cinnamon and choc chip cookie dough. I've agreed with my cousin Keisha that this will be the location of our "last supper" everytime we visit miami from now on. Following this we drove to downtown miami to the american airlines arena for one of the holiday highlights, a miami heat vs orlando magics basketball game. My uncle had got hold of great seats for us, all we had to do was turn up and then meet him when he arrived from work during the game. I was hoping to have taken loads pictures when we got in but apparently my camera was too proffessional to be allowed inside so it had to be left in the car, I wasn't happy at all. I've come to the conclusion that i'm really not a fan of watching sport on tv but as soon as i'm there watching it live I absolutely love it, so i'm gunna try and see basketball everytime I go to america from now on. The game was really close with heat losing by only a couple of points. The majority of people left before the game had finished because they were certain that they're home side were going to lose, even with plenty of time left on the clock, waste of money doing that if you ask me. After this did the 3 hour drive back to okeechobee for the last time and picked up some crab on the way to have for lunch the next day.

Today didn't feel like a normal Christmas day and initially I thought this was a bad thing but in hindsight I think its a lot better that its been completely different as it will stick in my mind for a long time for all the right reasons. It was a big one for me for a number of reasons. Firstly and most importantly because it was the day that Jesus was born some 2007 years ago and also the first Christmas that I've ever spent without my parents, which reminded me of the importance of being with them at this time of year. Being in a different country and with entirely black family mixed things up a little, the turkey was seasoned with the family jerk recipe rather than rammed with sage and onion stuffing, roast potatoes were switched for rice and peas plus some other christmas meal team substitutions which have slipped my mind already. All the food was amazing and I wanna give mad love to my aunt Yesenia and Grandma Theresa for all the cooking, it was incredible.
 I can't carry on without mentioning how stupid the situation in society has gotten with the amount of different religions that want to be represented at Christmas. I've seen so many news stories and read quite a few articles arguing that nativity scenes should not be put up in public and disputes over what this time of year should be called with names like 'the holiday season' and 'winterfest' being suggested to replace Christmas. I won't go into it too much as I could probably go on forever but I guess its just the next step after the consumerist wave that has almost completely ruined Christmas already, just goes to show what a bad state the world we live in has reached.
For some reason my mind would not switch off last night, in the past it would be due to me worrying about work or pondering something I had considered early in the day but nothing of the sort on this occasion, just pure annoying completely awakeness. I finally managed to get off to sleep about 5.30 having listened to a long playlist of VERY chilled and relaxing songs on my ipod, but still only managed about 2 hours shut-eye before the rest of the household were alive and kicking. I also have to mention my brothers loud talking in his sleep, an experience which I don't wish on anyone as he regularly will have conversations with himself and they can be quite prolonged. On this occasion it wasn't that keeping me awake at all though so I could just laugh about it.  As a result of my sleep deprivation I could not function aside from eating and the odd bit of small talk, a less than ideal state of mind considering I was around lots of family that I hadn't seen in 4 years and probably wouldn't for another 4. Despite it being slightly frustrating having not slept much I had a really great day and it reminded me of how important it is to spend time with family and how fun it can be.
P.S. For everyone that thought I would be spending Christmas Day in the sun it chucked it down here which ruined the plans of paintballing and motorbike time trials.

So on the eve of one of the most anticipated days of the year I spent quite a lot of time cramped between rafters in the roof of my Uncle's house, screwing drilling and measuring to make sure that the 8 by 5 foot projector screen was up ready for everyone to watch films and the Christmas Basketball games the following day. Myself and my grandpa took charge of all the work that needed to be done in the roof while my brother and uncle sorted out the slightly easier and much more spacious job of fitting the projector and screen up in the front room. It wasn't too hard work and it was good fun to spend some quality time with my grandpa as he is constantly busy doing one thing or another and its rare I get a chance to have a talk to him when we visit.
Over the course of the day various family members arrived up from Miami which is about a 3 hour drive away and we all sat down in the evening to eat my favourite meal of lasagne. For whatever reason my body decided it was going to give me heartburn, so I couldn't eat as much as I would have liked, VERY frustrating. Probably a combination of having not eaten for most of the day and the amount of dodgy american food i've been consuming over the last week or so. Had a bit of a nap on the sofa as it was raining so my plans of getting a bit blacker in the sun went down the drain. Bed fairly early as I know its gunna be a long one tommorow.

Not so much to report from today. We packed up all our shopping ready to drive back up to my Uncle Neal's in Okeechobee for Christmas. Stopped by my Uncle Dennis' and also my aunt Hazel  for a quick visit which was really good. Hadn't spoken to Dennis since our last visit and we always have great conversations no matter the time-passed so I was pleased we had time to stop by. He used to own a jamaican food shop/cafe which is where we'd usually visit him and his family but some government lease issue forced them to sell up and they haven't found another location yet. A lot of my family have worked there at one time or another and it was a really successful business so its sad to know its not going anymore because of small problem but hopefully it'll start again in the future.
The rest of the day was spent in the van, not very exciting until we stopped for gas ( there I go again, I meant petrol) and had to leave straight away as there was a bomb threat at the station, once again confirming all of those fears people have about coming to America.
I want to give a an angry shout out to the guy who claimed to need money for petrol but in actual fact was just scamming people out of their hard earned dollars. Watch out mate as it may come back to bite you one day.
Finished the day watching balls of fury on the 'Sullivan cinema' which is the name for my Uncles latest addition to his house, an impressive projector and screen setup, pictures to follow.
Todays main shout out goes to the owl we hit whilst driving, hope that lil guy is gunna be alright. Sorry mate, but you flew out of nowhere.

Never a dull day in Miami and this day wasn't any different. Got up early (10am as i'm on holiday) to a typical american breakfast but I'm really not feeling all the sugar right now so I took a raincheck and stuck to just a good cup of tea with a drop of the most normal milk I could get my hands on. All the food here either has tons of sugar in it, has been processed beyond belief or in most cases, both. Can't wait for some normal non-sweetened cereal, although I'll definitely be bringing back a few boxes of Lucky Charms for special occasions. Started todays shopping adventure looking for trainers for my dad with no joy, managed to get a nice grey bath mat for the new living space that is being built for me in London, more about that in the future.
Richard carried on the spree with some purchases from Abercrombie and another injection into Nike's already bursting account with the addition to his collection of some running sunglasses. Apparently they have curved arms to make sure they stay attached to your head more efficiently, I'm more of a fashion than function man myself, but if I can work the two I try.
After reluctantly agreeing to a Burger King lunch we drove back to Miracle Mile in Coral Gables to pick up my cousin Alyx from a birthday party and to meet our cousins Keisha and Ashley. Much to my delight I spotted an American Apparel on the way, turns out it was right across the street ( sorry I mean road, gotta remember I'm a LONDONER) from where we were picking up Alyx. Spent a very large sum of money and felt guilt setting in a bit more, but I need most of it and it makes sense with the current crazy rate of exchange.
Next stop was the most amazing supermarket i've ever been to. EVERYTHING is special in some way with particularly outstanding offers like making your own butter, Naked crisps ( not sure what made them naked) and a restaurant which serves Oriental, Mediterranean and a whole host of other foods. This supermarket would be perfect to take a girl on a 'shopping' date with a difference.
Shortly after we hit up niketown and urban outfitters. Surprisingly niketown had something that really interested me in the form of a complete collection of all the old Jordan trainers signed by Mr. 23 himself, pretty impressive I thought. Other things which excited me were the toys I picked up in U.O. which included an official thumb wrestling ring.
We headed back home, dropped off the days finds and my cousin Jonathan and his mum Pat came over, had a long talk about how much better Europe is than America and agreed that I'd be seeing him in the big smoke again really soon.
The highlight of the day and possibly the trip so far was the restaurant that Keisha took us to tonight called Taverna Opas. They have the most incredible greek food, we had a huge kebab platter and to top it all off bellydancers strutting their stuff on the tables between courses. Unfortunately this also gives warrant to the other diners to dance on the tables too. Much to my disgust a woman probably older than my mum but not nearly as tasteful in her dress sense or demeanor and not nearly as attractive ( just in case your reading mum ;) decided to start shaking and bouncing all over the place on the table in front of me. Despite loud shouts from me of "put it away love!" she continued but I didn't let it put me off the feast before me.
After this took a walk along South Beach, spotted some of the Miami Heat players out for a celebratory meal and drinks following a big win earlier in the day. Drove back to downtown Miami, fell asleep in the car just in case anyone thought this trend might have stopped. Straight to bed when we got in, tired but stuffed and satisfied.

Having surprised our grandparents with our presence in America for the Christmas period the plan was to head down to Miami with them for the last leg of their journey from Tennesee. We knew we wouldn't have a lot of time to tick off all the items on our shopping list so me and Richard got on it immediately in a BIG way. In about 4 or so hours we'd spent about $400 between us on things for ourselves and presents including some original wayfarers by Ray Ban for myself, Puma trainers for Richard and the latest Nike heart rate monitoring watch, plus massive amounts of socks and underwear, a standard purchase on every trip seeing as everything is usually half price or less in comparison to England.
While walking round the shopping mall ( wait shouldn't that be shopping centre?) I was reminded of how many Americans conform to stereotypes, there are only about 3 different types of people in Miami, and you can instantly tell which category someone fits into when you look at them. In the UK and Europe in general people seem to be a lot harder to define, where as here once you see how someone is dressed you can be pretty certain of how they speak, what sort of car they drive, music they listen to etc. I'd always put it down to me being a typical narrow-minded englishman when I put most Americans in a box put looking around its obvious to see its not just a case of a judgmental attitude on my part.
 Anyway enough of that, gunna make friends with the pillow and duvet in preparation for hitting more shops in the morrow.

So today me and my brother flew out to Orlando, but not without a run in with US customs and border control. We got held up for almost 2 hours, so they could ask me nothing more than what model my ipod was and what university I went to, hardly matters of national security but obviously necessary for the  advancement of George Bush's IQ. Consequently we missed our connecting flight in Washington so we had to chill in the airport there for a few hours, I was hoping to write this update from there but apparently you have to pay for all the wireless acess there, cheers George. Finally arrived in Orlando about 4 hours after we were expecting to to find that our bags were still in Washington and wouldn't be arriving till about 12 at night, so no clean clothes for us. Headed back to my Uncles place in Okeechobee, had a quick look round his new place, its got a fishtank in the wall and a handful of MASSIVE tv's, shouldn't expect anything less in America I guess. No pictures yet as I can't use the internet on my brothers mac which means no bluetooth action between his laptop and my phone, hopefully sort that soon. Hitting the sack now, really tired after all the travelling and general lack of sleep over the last 2 months. Peace out

Apologies for the massive gap between now and the last time I let everyone know what I'd been up to. Had  quite a troublesome last few months, don't wanna go into too much detail but the main thing is i'm back on track now and feeling a lot better. I've put a few new pictures up in the rollerblading section and a couple other sections too. On the subject of rollerblading the previously only digital kingdom magazine is now avaliable in all its printed glory from many newsagents, WHSmiths and Borders all over England, Europe and parts of America too I think. Everyone go and pick up a copy or even better hit up www.kingdom-mag.co.uk and get a subscription. The Kingdom launch party went down last Saturday at Saki Bar in Manchester and there was a really good turn out from rollerbladers and non rollerbladers alike. The latest flick by the Clip videographers from Germany, Lukas and Jochen, was shown, with an impressive section from Kingdom's own Oli Short., well worth getting your hands on that dvd.  I took a huge amount of polaroids on the now infamous BIG SHOT, so for all you reading this that knocked back a few too many drinks and need your memory jogging, the mystery shall be revealed soon.
Right now i'm really wanting to take a break from photography, VERY tired of having to constantly write down why i've done this and why i've done that in my sketchbooks for university, its completely ruining one of my favourite things to do, not good at all. Almost wish i'd chosen something else to study and carried on with photography on the side as i've not been taught very much on the technical side  On the flipside  i'll be flying out to Florida in about 4 days time with my brother Richard to spend Christmas with my mum's family. Gunna be our first Christmas where the whole family isn't together so it'll be a bit weird, but amazing no doubt. As much as i'm looking forward to America I can't wait to spend some time at home in London, its long overdue.
The uni deadlines clock is ticking so I better get on, look out for lots of pictures and the like over the christmas period.

Today started extremely early for me. Actually to be more accurate it started last night. My friend Chris stayed over as well as my good friend from home, Aylwin and his flat mate Tiff (Also a Chris). We had a couple drinks and ate some of the lasagne I'd cooked earlier in the day then got into bed for about 2 with the intent of being up at 5 to drive to Burnley and film a promotional video for a new Spa thats opened there. Aylwin and Tiffs music production company, Forfeit, http://www.forfeitproductions.co.uk/ are doing all the sound design and myself and Chris are taking care of the visuals side of things. Finally set off from mine after about 2 hours sleep around 6 arrived in Burnley to find the location of our full english fry-up dreams to be closed so we had to retreat to Mcdonalds, not nearly a worthy contender in the breakfast battle. After a swift mcmistake breakfast, we arrived at the spa before anything was turned on and had a look round. Really amazing place, massage rooms, sauna, Monsoon showers amongst other things. Check out http://www.insidespa.co.uk/ for a closer look. After a long days filming  we were faced with a dilemma. Do we drive back to preston straight away so that Chris can get to work on time OR do we stick around for a few more hours and use all of the facilities for free. Needless to say I spent half an hour with my feet in a small massage pool, as well as prolonged periods in the salt aromatherapy room and Saunarium, plus bobbing around for ages in the hydrotherapy pool. The ideal end to a successful working day. Drove back to Preston to find my internet isn't working so I'm writing this all from the library, hence the lack of pictures. Still haven't been able to scan all the film i've got sitting in my room due to lazy builders , what a surprise! Really wanting to change the site around as i'm tired of the layout but my html skills are lacking, should be remedying this soon. Big ups to Tiffs dad for hooking us all day while we were shooting the video, made everything go a lot smoother.

So after a really successful/productive week in London I've arrived back up north to find our new building at uni isn't finished yet which means all that film I was going to scan of pictures from over the summer I was hoping to put up can't be. Current mood : frustrated, unmotivated with a bit of something else I'm not sure about. I'm getting tired of people never keeping to what they say, how hard can it be to get a building finished in whats been over a year?!!! On a higher note, bought myself an electric shaver which I'm quite looking forward to using. All about the small things eh!  Haven't taken any pictures the last few days here as I've been messing around with internet connections, student loans and all that stuff. Nothing exciting to report, hopefully have something worth reading to talk about soooooooon.

This last week has  probably been my busiest photomagraphing week ever. Been out pretty much every day shooting pics while my friend Oli finishes his profile for a skate video called Clip 4. Check those guys out at www.clipeurope.com there videos are super duper good to say the least. Had quite a lot of run-in's with security guards, some were hilarious others were a bit more serious, can't believe how crazy some people can get about things they don't understand.  Unfortunatly its meant i've been staying out late and getting up early so i've fallen behind with updates again, put a few new skating pictures up though. DO NOT FRET! I'm back at uni next week when I will have only an hour or so of lecture time a week so i'll have more than enough time to update the site and finally make all the changes i've been wanting to for what seems like ages. Spotted loadsa low-class celebrities over the past week, didn't take pictures coz I HATE  the papparazi, or papanazi's as i've heard them so appropriately called. Sightings have included Edmund from Narnia,  a former doctor from casualty, who incidentally has taken up fashion photography, (he was shooting at a location we were getting skate footage at) a guy whose in the bill and one of the computer operators from The Fifth Element with Milla Jovovich. Really eventful week that I'm rounding off with a couple days in the office shuffling paper for a bit of cash, all the spending has finally caught up with me.

I realise i've been pretty sparadic with my updates on this, I've been trying to spend less time on the computer while we are having some sunny days and just less time on it in general. not doing as well as I would like to. Had some really great days seeing all my southern friends . Activities have included gallery visits, BBQ's, boat trips on lakes in castle gardens and rollerblading. In an attempt to make up for my lack of attention to the blog i've  got lots of pictures from the various days out i've been having to try and make up for it.

Went to see a Stephen Shore exhibition of his pictures from Andy Warhols factory in Green Park. Embarassed myself on the way out by turning off the lights, I thought it was the release button for the door. The weather was horrible that day, my shoes were squeaking with all the water that was in them as I walked round on the polished wooden floor. Combined with that and the light incident I probably looked like a complete idiot to the woman sat at the desk and the american family also looking round.
 
 
Saw this guy playing the drums as I took a walk along the embankment on my way to the tate on a seperate gallery visit day. Saw an amazing Banksy VS Warhol exhibition that was comparing the similarities of their work, loving all the Andy Warhol stuff that's going on at the moment.
 
Couldn't go all the way into Central London without doing a bit of shopping so I had a look round covent garden for a bit, spied these velvet numbers, not really my thing but pretty pimpin none the less.


With the weather finally picking up myself and a few friends (Jack, Aylwin, Max, Leone, Adam, Laurie, Amy, Jonny and Adam) all drove out to Hever Castle in Edenbridge for a pinic and a walk round the castle grounds. Such a nice relaxing day, my good friend Milhouse aka Matt works there and hooked us up with free entry tickets to the maze and also free ice-cream/lollies, big up Milhouse. We hired out some boats to take out on the lake and had fun trying out rowing, much harder than it looks I found out, got it in the end though. Jonny wanted to swap boats half way but Laurie had other ideas for fear the boat would capsize. VERY funny dispute happened over this, I just sat back and took it in rather than getting involved. Not usually into taking pictures of myself but it was such a nice day and Jack is moving away so figured I could make an allowance.

Apologies for the lack of love i've been giving to the site since I've returned from china. Having gone from lots of busy, eventful days and sleepless nights to not so exciting days but staying up really late and re-claiming all that sleep  and then to busy days and no sleep i've not found time to  write about what i've been doing, just actually do stuff. Once i'm back at uni i'll scan all of the film i've shot recently, got some cool stuff from china amongst other things. Gunna give the site a re-vamp, add in a few new sections and maybe other stuff, i'll see how it goes. What I have been doing over the past couple weeks is skating/snapping a lot for kingdom magazine as the thumbs up has been given for the magazine to go to print, really excited about this. It will be avaliable in WHSmiths as well as other shops but everyone whose interested should log onto www.kingdom-mag.co.uk and get a subscription. Other than that i've been spending lots of money on going to exhibitions as there's loadsa good stuff on at the moment and trying to come up with a title /subject for my dissertation and final year of uni. Not letting it get to me, just reading as much as I can about stuff i'm interested in and eventually it'll just jump out at me.  If anyone has any old polaroid cameras they wanna get rid of, gimme a holla, might even be able to give you some money for them.

Today, for me, hands down, most definitly, without a doubt, i'm certain, completely, with the upmost assurance was the best day of the holiday so far. Got up early again as we had a pretty long drive ahead of us. The near flooding that had occured the night before meant that beijing was looking the clearest and sunniest i've een it the whole time we've been here which was perfect considering we were about to re-visit the great wall but this time a different part of it slightly further away called Se-ma-tai. Left the house at half 7 and the drive took about 3 hours as there was an overturned lorry on the way but this didn't stop the best schoffer in the world. Instead we took a detour through a corn field, and joined the road further along. I have no idea how this guy know's beijing so well but he's really got some talent, considering the amount of remote places he's driven us too, never using a map and only occasionally phoning a friend for extra hard journeys. I can't stress how perfect the weather was, blue skies, a slight breeze and blazing sun, it was perfect.

The clearing of all the pollution meant we could enjoy the views of the wall and scenery properly so I made sure to takes lots of photos. We took cable cars and a kinda vertical train most of the way up as its near impossible to walk it, then walked down part of wall where we had another mini disaster.

My brother managed to lave the camera in one of the towers on the wall and it wasn't there when he went back to get it. He asked around but no one had seen it apparently, until a huge(tonx if you will) african guy who was around at the time said that one of them must have it and he'd explain to them in mandarin that they we were gunna call the police when we got down so whether they had it or not we would get it back. Due to the olympics the police don't want any bad press about china so they seem to be favouring tourists a lot meaning they wouldn't hesitate to go after the people working on the wall, especially as they were selling goods illegally.

They obviously got shook up by this as one of them ran down the wall towards us almost instantly the magically appeared saying he'd found the camera, didn't see it come out of his pocket but as well have done. He then proceeded to press us to buy something from as a reward for finding the camera, no one had any intention, so he replied saying 'I shoulda thrown it off the f****** (gotta censor) side' thinking we didn't know what he was saying but our new african brother understood and responded accordingly. The next thing that happened was one of the best experiences of my short life. To get the rest of the way down we took a zip line which runs about 300 feet above a lake and over part of the wall. Takes about a minute to get down it and i'd guess it was about half a mile long. We'd left grandma at the bottom but everyone else went on it, including mum which I was surprised about and secretly really pround of her for doing as I know she's not into heights or danger at all. Couldn't get any pics actually on it as I didn't wanna drop my camera and plus I needed both hands to hold on as I don't trust chinese safety regulations. Took a short boat ride back to the car park then drove back to the house and went out for dinner as usual, this time eating for a pound each and everyone being stuffed at the end. Walking up and down the wall is a pretty intense, most of it are near vertical sets of stairs on just sheer slopes and this particular part has very little in terms of barriers at the side,crazy to think people walk it in the winter when it snows and is icy.

We'd only covered a really small part of it and we were all super tired both trip so its amazing to think people have walked the whole thing. Another great thing was the sun allowed me to get my tan on, another highlight. Finished the day with a trip to the cd/dvd shop, all fake but I think I can deal with a few knockoff films when they cost a couple quid each. Fairly early to bed as I wanna do quite a few things tommorow as we only have 2 days left and xiao wang the genius driver needs saturday off.

Having had a pretty disasterous past 2 days today was a huge improvement. After a good sleep headed out to the tailors AGAIN to have a fitting for a jacket I'm getting made for my birthday, had to make sure any problems were sorted before the final thing is made. I'll put pics up when its finished. After this we headed off to the summer palace, a place of relaxation built by one of the empresses. (no idea which one so sorry to all you history lovers) Anothe great feat of indulgence. We took a boat ride over to the main temple, where there was a huge marble boat amogns other things to see. I'd kinda had enough of looking round temples and courtyards so climed really high up to one of the temples then just sat and enjoyed the warm weather and breeze while mym brother and dad carried going up. Gran stayed at the bottom as her legs were starting to feel there age after all the walking a lot the day before and mum disappeared for a while then walked back down with me. Did take quite a few pictures but all on film as i've got bored of taking digital shots and didn't wanna carry a heavy bag so you'll have to wait till I get them developed and scanned. Gotta remember sometimes its ok not to take photos. After this went out for dinner with oe ofmy cousins whose livng over here for a year and on leaving the restaurant it started raining again. Myself my brother and ben got home before the worst of it but everyone else got completely soaked. In england its depressing to see rain, in china its one of the best things that can happen. My cousin robert had intended to head home that evening but the rain was so heavy none of the taxi's would stop. The usual firework show of iodine rockets were fired making it rain even heavier, beautiful. Got a big trip planned for tommorow and hopefully the heavy rainfall tonight is gunna make it even better. Early to bed again.

Got woken up today at 7 by a phone call from motherest-dearest. Wasn't best pleased as I was real tired from the day before but figured a long hot shower would sort it all out. WRONG. Got in the shower then heard a shout from my brother saying we had to have eaten breakfast and be downstairs and in less then 20 minutes, I wasn't happy at all. Rushed my shower only to find out the tour didn't actually leave at 8, left at 9, so I figured it was as good a time as any to take some not-too -vain self portraits as the hotel was really nice and had a big mirror.

At this point I was thinking that whatever this terracotta army was it better be good as it had already taken a lot of effort and we wern't even there yet. The hotel tour was quite cool, took us to a place called the large wild goose pagoda, saw a few monks, they had a mobile phones which didn't really fit with the idea of monks that I hd in my head. Visited some old ruins of a chinese village that was the beginning of the province that Xi'an is in. At this point I was really starting to lose interest, all I could see were loadsa holes in the floor, contained in really hot plane-hanger-like buildings. I was more interested in trying to figure out where other people who were there were from just be what they were wearing, much better game. Saw some cool paintings done by farmers from the local area, got told they were a lot more pop-artish than traditional chinese art. I just think they wern't as accurate as they were really bright and colourful implying that there is lots of sunshine here, blatent lie. Visited the factory where they make the official replica terracotta warriors, was quite interesting but no one was actually working seemed like they were all on noodle break. All of the other places we had seen selling them on the way kinda took the edge away. Next stop was a restaurant which we were all really happy to see. I should also mention that at every stop there was a huge souvenir shop, very clever, but they wern't getting any of my money. Final stop of the day was the terracotta army, explained a bit of the history so I won't go any further into that. The sheer scale of the room that they were in was amazing, its about 300 hundred metres long and about half as wide. This was only part of what they have excavated. Last thing we saw there was a 360 degree movie that showed the history of the army, they even had one of the farmers who discovered the first warriors signing books at the end. Apparently he signed a contact for 50 years where he gets picked up from home every day writes his name a few times then home, pretty good deal i'd say. After this had another ordeal, first there was torrential rain so it took us about 3 hours to get to the airport. After sipping an overpriced coffee that tasted like burnt soil went through the relaxed chinese to find that our flight had been delayed, by an unknown period of time for unspecified reasons. Having not being able to land for an extra hour due to more bad weather in beijing we found out our driver had gone home because we were so late, taxi's instead. Arrived home at 12, 2 or so hours later than expected, frustrated tired and really wishing I was back in England, not a good two days.

Today we were supposed to fly out to xi'an at half 2, but the beijing weather had other ideas. The plan was to go an visit the terracotta army which is, yep you guessed it, an army made of ter