This is one of those situations where something great comes out of something that looked like it was going to go horribly wrong. For several months my day job took me to Sheffield in the middle of every week. This kind of sucked, but it was the only work I could find at the time and as ever I needed the money. I decided to try and brighten things up a bit bit by fitting a shoot in while I was there. The logistics were going to be tough since the people I was working with had given me a laptop to work on that appeared to be made out of cast iron. It was three and a half kilograms with its stupid chunky power adapter. Add in my own laptop, camera, lenses and the portable flash gear and I was carrying about as much as I physically could around the underground in London and various train stations. Not fun. It was all going to be worth it though! Instead of sitting around in my cheap hotel room I was going to be doing what I love! Then the model cancelled on me, and by cancelled I mean forgot we were going to be shooting and didn't bother to turn up or let me know. I'd confirmed with her a few days before by email but somehow between then and when I got to Sheffield it slipped her mind. I'm normally pretty chilled out when crap things happen, but I wasted several hours in pointless fury and useless facebook status updates at that point. Getting the gear to Sheffield really hadn't been fun and the idea that it was all going to be in vain wasn't acceptable. I did have one more evening when I could shoot before I had to head back to London though, and eventually I pulled myself together and started looking for someone else to work with. That's when I found that Cassie Jade, one of my favourite models and someone I know is very reliable, lives in Derby which isn't too far from Sheffield. A deal was struck and the next evening we had a great shoot. Working in the small hotel room was challenging, but I felt like I learned quite a lot and the results seemed to come out well. Cassie is one of the most fun people I know to work with so from that perspective it was always going to be good. I hope you like the results.

Vicki is a friend and also an excellent photographer. I'd wanted to do a shoot with her for a while and somehow we'd never managed to make it happen. Eventually we found a date we could both do, and settled on the idea of doing a shoot that was bold and colourful rather than the more muted natural shades that are so in vogue as the moment. It felt like something we could have some fun with. The day got off to a horrible start as there was some kind of cycle race going on in London which meant Vicki got stuck in traffic for ages. Eventually we were all at the studio and ready to shoot though, and Vicki managed to put all the frustrations of the drive behind her and look fantastic for the camera. I hope you like the results.