Photography On a Budget

We have three fantastic children. Gorgeous, talented, brilliant and extremely expensive.

My oldest son is due to go up to secondary school in the autumn. The local high school (the only state school in the area) is one of these “super-schools”. Very very large and very druggy. There are numerous knife attacks there. The playgrounds are fenced in by security fencing that they use in prisons (I’m not exaggerating here) and all classrooms and playgrounds are monitored by CCTV. All years are kept separate from each other. We enrolled our two boys on a self defence course (now an orange belt, allow me a maternal “glowing with pride” moment) in preparation, but the oldest was really dreading starting there in September.

So in the end we simply couldn’t face putting him there and have opted for a private school instead, which is going to be mind-blowingly expensive for 3 kids. But at least I know they will be happy there. It’s the best I can do for them. Not sure how we’re going to pay for it though. Let’s hope Richard’s photography takes off big time !

So we are faced with the unfortunate task of budgeting the photography. Mercifully we have just finished kitting out and upgrading the studio, which is now looking very plush.. Yes I could bore you with details of camera upgrades, new lenses, lighting, backdrops, props etc, but I find that immensely boring, so I’ll leave Richard to blog about that. Suffice to say we are several thousand pounds lighter of pocket, but the studio rocks !

However, I rather do like booking beautiful and talented models for him to photograph. We are certainly getting some lovely models who wish to be photographed by him (income, at last !) but as we view this primarily an art project, we do believe in booking (and paying for) some fantastic models which catch my eye. I do love to scout for models….call it my hobby, if you will. I see a beautiful model, and think wow, Richard could really do something fabulous with her (photographically I mean. If he tries anything else, let’s say I have a considerably history with martial arts. But no he’s far too professional to even consider anything like that)

Anyway, I am setting myself a strict budget for additional photographic equipment/props/models etc. Whether I stick to it, we’ll have to see. We accountants are notoriously bad at blowing our budgets.

Before I sign off, here is the latest picture of ME, ME, ME looking like the accountant that I actually am. This was his first attempt at fashion…..not bad at all !