Last week I trekked to the Royal Albert Hall with my sister and niece for a great time travelling adventure. Our destination was the Doctor Who prom, for which we had to day queue for arena tickets. We arrived at the venue just before 5am, almost starting the queue but beaten to that award by a mere 30 seconds. We were sold tickets at 9:30 and entered the arena at 10:30, when we took a spot right at the front. Whilst waiting we experienced several types of rain, played games, watched ‘The Pandorica Opens’ on my iPad, met Arthur Darvill (Rory), waved at Karen Gillan (Amy) and met some great individuals, all of whom made the day wonderful.

The show itself was out of this World. Stunning music, monsters walking amongst us, stars of the show presenting and Matt Smith popped up in the middle of the arena as the Doctor himself, doing a ten minute skit that involved a child assistant from the audience – something I’m sure that lad won’t be forgetting for a long time!

Below are the photos I took at the event of a day to remember…

(direct flickr.com link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rocktographer/sets/72157624491153699/ )

Last weekend (Saturday 27th February 2010), I witnessed the marriage some close friends. I also took photos for the bride and groom before, during and after the ceremony – I’m sure something that will probably go down as one of the final photography jobs I’ll ever do. I’m now sharing a few of my favourite shots from the day, not too many as I see these as their personal photos, however the few I’ve published are just lovely, joyful images.

It’s worth pointing out that I was fairly ill all day. Still weak from one bout of flu-like illness, the night before I suffered the sudden onslaught of a nice bout of stomach flu. Great timing. I couldn’t let my friends down so dosed up on pain killers and stomach settlers, somehow I made it through most of the photos. My temperature spiked, I metaphorically collapsed and went home during the meal. So I must thank Jeff for taking over the camera duties for the speeches and dance along with Andy and Paul for propping me up throughout the day and running me round, holding my not-in-use equipment, etc.

Unboxing photos – yep, yawn… but it has to be done.

So I’m selling off the majority of my photography equipment. Why? I’m not doing as much (if any) photography work these days, and when I am, it’s not requiring the quality or speed of lenses that I mainly own through ten years of working as a gig photographer.

I’m listing these on my website as I’d much rather do a private sale. eBay fees are crippling and I’m not a fan of their ‘must offer one free p&p option’ – the majority of these items will need to be sent out being well padded and recorded/insured, so p&p will be quite pricey. Here’s a list of what I’m getting rid of, I’ve not got a set price in mind, please email or tweet (DM) me any offers. That said, I’m not going to give these away, so please don’t send anything other than a serious offer around the value they’re worth.

• Compact Flash cards (could be sold as a job lot or individually)
  - Jessops 2GB
  - Kingston 1024 MB (1GB)
  - Lexar 1GB Professional Grade
  - Kingston 16GB Elite Pro 133X
  - SanDisk 8GB Extreme III
• Nikon EN-EL3e Li-ion Battery 1500mAh
• Nikon 50mm 1.4D Lens AF NIKKOR
• Nikon 28mm 2.8D Lens AF NIKKOR
• Nikon 80-200mm 2.8D ED AF NIKKOR Zoom lens in Nikon CL-43A shoulder case
• Tamron 28-300mm 3.5-6.3D AF XR Di LD (IF)   (For Nikon body)

Lenses are all in pretty good condition, no scratches that I can see. All used as recently as last week, no problems. Email me offers on ian@rocktographer.co.uk or via twitter @ianmilleruk

Just read this article on The Register about the Met’s reaction to numerous media reports on officers stopping photographers from going about their work, citing the Terrorism Act of 2000.

It’s something that we’ve all heard about and probably signed countless petitions over and is something that I myself have been pulled up on whilst taking shots in and around town. The advice…

The guidance reminds officers that the public do not need a licence to take photographs in the street and the police have no power to stop people taking pictures of anything they like, including police officers.

…so if you get pulled up on this in the future, stand your ground, politely. Let coppers look through your photos, that’s their rights under the law, however they cannot delete shots or impound your camera – unless of course, you have been snapping things you shouldn’t have!

Full article here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/09/metropolitan_police_photo/

Everything’s still super-busy. Massive amount of work at the dayjob, setting up this site still and planing my photography exhibition – just over a week to go! The work on the next set of What’s On Stage films starts soon too. So haven’t had time to blog – not the best of starts with a new website.

So on here I’ve just setup the photography page, if you click on the link at the top right of this page you’ll see the high points of my ten years working as a live music and press photographer. Alternatively, I’ve archived my old asp site in glorious HTML here – ianmilleruk.com/OLD-IMP

Spent most of the weekend working on the photo album for the exhibition. My friends have been mounting the main pics, they sent me an MMS and they’re going to look beyond amazing. All the labels have now been written and printed, I’ve a rough idea of what I’m doing for finger foods and drinks too. Just got to sort out the remaining invites and write/print a welcome note before boarding up all the prints at the end of the week.

I’m also working on a surprise for the evening, not even 50% certain it’s going to happen, though it would be lovely if it did. So obviously won’t say any more!

Getting there.. slowly. Here’s to the week, I hope it’s going to be a darn sight cooler.