On a changeable day the tennis, and practice, was interrupted by several rain showers but the evening cleared and produced some excellent doubles and beautiful light.

I was stationed on court 9 with a view over to court 10 and had the pleasure of photographing the matches between Richard Gasquet and Rajeev Ram and then the doubles match between Novak Djokovic / Jonathan Erlich and the British pairing of Jamie Delgado and Jonathan Marray with some glimpses of Marin Cilic and Andre Sa playing another British pairing on 10.

When the clouds broke and the dry spells long enough the practice courts also saw a lot of players either warming up or getting a good hit for tomorrows play – notably Rafa Nadal who played for over an hour with a huge crowd in attendance so much so I couldn’t get anywhere close.

Here are some images from the matches. Click on an image to view and then step through the gallery…

This year both Pat Cash and Andrew Castle visited the tennis club to be part of this well prepared, and executed event.As with last year my brief was fairly straightforward. Capture the day, photograph some PR images of the celebrities with the sponsors and their families, and then shoot the tennis matches.

The day started wet, very wet but the tennis clinics still took place with heavy rain visible in the images. Some came prepared for the rain, and some didn’t. I was beginning to rue not having a change of clothes. Even the balloon man was making umbrellas. However almost to the minute the rain ended at about 1pm, and apart from a short shower the weather improved and the crowds arrived to watch a feast of doubles matches including the main event Pat Cash and Andrew Castle vs Chris Wilkinson (director of tennis) and Michael Privett (mens club champion).

For those who came to the day a gallery of all of the images will be available from Monday 31st May (planned) for you to view and if you wish to purchase prints. You will have details on the back of your open day programme, on an A5 flyer from inside the club or I’m sure someone at the club will help you. The gallery can be accessed from the Open day page on the website which can be seen here.

Here are a few taster images from the day (and yes the younger brother is licking rainwater of his siblings back !). Click the main image to start the slideshow or pick from the thumbnails.

This year the club has Pat Cash and Andrew Castle returning to do battle in some exhibition tennis with Chris Wilkinson, the club’s Director of Tennis, and commenter/umpire Matt Chilton also there – it promises to be bigger and better than last years amazing event.

There will be tuition from the morning for kids through to adults and then the matches take place mid-afternoon, which means I’ll be shooting a mixture of photojournalism, PR images, portraits, sports photography, and some good old fashioned “grip and grins” over the course of several hours.

Images will be available to view, and purchase, from an online gallery shortly after the open day – details including the password will be provided in the event programmes and in loose flyers at the club reception and in the bar. There will also be some feature images here on the blog over the weekend as well.

We have a landing page already for the event, which also has links to last years gallery, blog entry and a highlights slideshow so if you want to see what happened last year and to get a flavour of what it should be like on Saturday do take a look here: Open Day page.

The tennis club has it’s own website which will have details of all the activities and the schedule for the day.

Finally an image of the exhibition match last year taken from the fitness suite to keep you going until the weekend.

Whilst I’m more likely to be shooting lifestyle portraits of horses with their owners than equestrian events some tips from Martin got me started and I warmed up my horse-sense, timing, and positioning at a dressage ring before needing to head off to the lower cross country field where I parked, kitted up and got my bearings, thanks to one of the very helpful judges at the event.

Three classes of over 140 riders followed over a period of about six hours working a minimum of two jumps per class – some not at all each other. It was a great day, hard work, good fun, and I got some great images – some of which are below.

Images from the event are only available for purchase through Martin’s website the details of which are on the Wey Valley Riding Club website, on leaflets at the event and of course linked here. You simply need to go to the ordering section of the website as they are now available for purchase for a limited time. I can’t sell them to you or provide any images myself. If you are looking for an equestrian events photographer then you should also contact Martin.

Each catwalk show was divided into four set of clothing – three different looks, and the entire Betty Jackson collection and the show was repeated in it’s entirety. Very much different from the September show with it’s amazing Manish Arora couture collection this was full of more accessible looks for the visitors and much more subtle pastel colours in evidence – which actually made it harder to shoot.

Here are some of the first cut of images from Friday – I have another set to look through and I might add some more up here next week but wanted to get some up early while the shows are still on.

We were working for the organiser Laura Swetman capturing some PR images for her business and also had our own exhibitor stand in one of the offices which we had transformed into a studio space. We used it to shoot business portraits for the attendees and some of the exhibitors as well as being somewhere we could talk to people about their commercial photography requirements.

With both responsibilities it was a long and busy day but it was great to meet a large number of people, and to have some good discussions about how we can work with their businesses to produce some corporate PR images for use in websites and brochures, and to shoot over 20 business portraits which will be delivered over the weekend.

Here are some of the images taken on the day. Click on a thumbnail to view a larger version.

Whilst there I had the opportunity to talk to several businesses about their corporate PR and commercial photography requirements and I’m looking forward to potentially working on some exciting projects with them next year including some food photography, product photography and some corporate PR photography.

I was also asked to take a corporate PR image for West Country Catering as they have just won an award and needed an image for publication in the local paper and county magazine, which of course I was only to happy to work with them on.

Here are a few images from the day, including the PR image for the caterers.

Networking in the atrium of the Regus office

John Cade Pemberton gives a seminar at the event

We are definitely not winding down. It looks like we will have two weddings in December to cover (waiting on the second booking), as well as a large masked ball which will be our fourth year of covering. Portrait sessions for newborns, toddlers and families – typically favourite christmas presents for families are getting booked right up with enquiries coming in daily and some large sessions already booked for November. We literally have less than 10 more sessions available.

We are also very busy with commercial work and are in the middle of a couple of jobs, and scheduling one more in a couple of weeks after which we have some availability before Christmas.

The rest of the time is taken up with meeting couples for 2010 and 2011 weddings, and taking their bookings and also completing albums and associated family orders from our 2009 weddings – especially as the deadline for albums looms on the 5th November. Finally we are preparing to create and order some new display albums ready for the January wedding fairs and pre-Christmas for some of the venues which recommend us, and an update to the website in time for 2010.

As such here are some of our key dates for the rest of the year:

5th November 2009: Deadline for album designs to be confirmed to have guaranteed completion prior to Christmas

1st December 2009: Deadline for framed prints, canvas wraps, and parents albums/portrait books to have guaranteed delivery for Christmas

10th December 2009: Deadline for reprint orders from weddings and portrait sessions to have guaranteed delivery for Christmas

18th December 2009: Deadline for portrait vouchers to be sent out and be delivered in time to be sent as Christmas presents

21st December 2009: Deadline for collection of albums, framed products, reprints and portrait vouchers from the studio

22nd December 2009: Studio closes for the Christmas period (email monitored and answered where possible through to 24th December 2009)

4th January 2010: Studio reopens (email monitored and answered where possible from the 28th December 2009)

The evening started with some junior coaching followed by an exhibition match of doubles racketball with Tim and Daryl partnering two of the clubs seasoned players. it was a close match watched by a large number of people crowding the exhibition court and spilling onto the neighbouring courts seating. Having completed this match, and after a short break Tim and Daryl faced up for the main event of the evening a 5-game match which went down to the wire.

I spent most of the evening pressed against the glass at the back of the court looking for interesting angles as well as eye level action and of course capturing the crowd, reaction and the training.

Here are some images from the evening (select more to see them all). The club have the full set of images for their own PR and internal use.