Golly Gosh! Gorgeous girls at Miss Mansfield & Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire

Miss Mansfield & Sherwood Forest - Alicia Caley was the happy winner, with Jade Hawkins (left) as first runner up and Nicola Bailey as second runner-up.

What a fabulous, glamourous evening at Miss Mansfield and Sherwood Forest last night!

As official photographer I had my work cut out snapping away at all the gorgeous girls in the final dozen.

Well done to all the girls for doing so well, it takes a lot of bottle to step up on stage and strut your stuff, as well as get grilled on the mike in front of over 250 people!

Eventually the eight judges decided Alicia Caley, my pick for Miss Photogenic was the winner, closely follwed by Jade Hawkins and Nicole ‘Cola’ Bailey – pictured here.

Nottinghamshire Business Awards finalist pictured by Spike Photography in Nottingham POST

As a former Nottingham Evening Post photographer (I started snapping back in 1983, in the days of black & white film) I always like to see my photos in the newspaper. Here’s one from tonight’s paper.

Malcolm Hall, owner of super-successful fastening firm Hall-Fast has only been in business for five years – but his firm is a finalist in the Nottingham Post’s EMB-sponsored Nottinghamshire Small Business of the Year Award.

Naturally, as a discerning businessman, Malcolm chose Spike to have him looking his best for the paper’s promotional picture, modeling some of the latest in bespoke builder’s fashion available from their trade counter.

You’ll find all the good looking people in Nottingham

All ready to celebrate Abel's 21st birthday party are this smattering of stunning students from Nottingham University

With a rumoured ratio of four good-looking gals to every guy, there’s no wonder Nottingham’s two universities attract attractive folk from all over the country.

I was fortunate to be commissioned to photograph a chap called Abel, who celebrated his 21st along with a bunch of student pals at top restaurant, Harts.

Very tasty!

Click here to see the pictures…

What’s the story, your Royal Highness?

Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall visits First Story's launch in the East Midlands at Nottingham

It was a pleasure to snap Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall at Nottingham’s grand Council House in the Market Square today. Her Royal Highness was visiting First Story, a charity with the noble aim of inspiring students who might not otherwise get the opportunity to write, and get their story published.

London based First Story were launching in the East Mi

dlands with the aim of fostering creativity, literacy and talent in the region and naturally picked the best photographer in Nottingham for the job

The Duchess arrived behind schedule after three other visits in the region, however she made time to sit and have an unhurried chat with the young students and also left time to meet the dignitaries and VIPs afterwards.

Potentially some budding journalists for the Nottingham POST newspaper, methinks?

Photograph of a 66 Million Year old Lady from Leicester

Is it rude to ask a lady her age?

I photographed a 66,000,011 year old lady the other day in Leicester University. Jane was pictured with Rod and John from Vertigo Creative who made her look her best with some creative lighting and a dynamic pose.

By the way, Jane is a Tyrannosaurus rex, found at Hell Creek, amid the arid badlands of Montana. She is a sub-adult, estimated to be around 11 years oldat the time of her death. Vital statistics, 7′ 6″  tall and 21 feet long – around half the size of a fully grown dinosaur.

Weight 110 stone – but would have become 5 tonnes if she had reached adulthood.

Dinosaurs are typically named after the archiologist who finds them – hence the name ‘Jane’.

Her lower jaw features a full set of razor-sharp teeth, ideal for tearing into flesh. I wonder if she was smiling for me?

Nottingham Hot Property

Singers from property companies throughout the Nottingham area joined forces at Oceana nightclub recently to make X-Factor look like a bunch of beginners.

Nottingham Hot Property was established in 2004 by Malcolm Wright to raise money for Nottingham based children’s charities and over the years it has raised over £180,000 for them. All the singers and musicians are from local property firms and spend weeks rehearsing to get the performances pitch-perfect.  See event photos (by me) here

Jasmin Choo (left) and Pauline Simpson, both from Shoosmiths sing ‘Rockin’ around the Christmas Tree’

It’s Snow joke when your portraiture person’s not there

Nottingham Photographer Paul 'Spike' Reddington battles through the snow, only to find the door padlocked and no-one in the office to take a picture of.

We’ve been having our usual ‘fall of snow so the country grinds to a halt’ fun and games this week. As a professional photographer, I’m like a ‘Photographic Mountie’ in that I always get a photo of my man. Or woman. Or not, as in this case.

My assignment was to photograph the MD of an engineering company in Derbyshire yesterday. We arranged the time earlier this week. I battled through blizzards and left my car parked precariously in half a snowdrift, as despite it being a four wheel drive Jag, it struggled to get up the lane to the company’s offices, which was both uphill and covered in two feet of snow.

So as I was hiking up the hill, one of the firm’s Transit vans returned to base, took a flyer at the lane and ground to a skiddy halt five yards later. I left them, wheels spinning, determined to reach the top on time.

Halfway up the hill, I found a firm of four-wheel drive mechanics, grinning at my hike and also the large flatbed truck belonging to the firm I was photographing. That too, was stuck and didn’t look like it was going to get to London that night, as planned. They advised that we should all get ‘proper vehicles’ like their custom Range Rovers and the like. They pointed me in the direction of where I could find my MD.

Imagine my disappointment then when I got to the door of the office and found it padlocked shut.

DRAT.

A solitary fitter, the sum total of the company’s workforce that day, informed me that the boss wasn’t in today, he’d been snowed in back home at Sheffield. On phoning the chap, he was most apologetic, had forgotton about me, and bearing in mind he had spent the morning shutting down his various site operations in Lincoln and Birmingham, I could almost forgive him.

So I set off back, pausing only for a photograph from the fitter to prove I’d been there. On arriving back at the car, I got a call from a different client who had booked me for a financial dinner that evening in Nottingham. Called off due to snow and postponed to January.

Not n’ice’ news eh?

Working with light

Photography is quite literally, ‘Writing with Light’. Phos is the Greek word for light and Graphy means ‘to write’

So I had a challenge when photographing an Indian restaurant in West Bridgford, Nottingham because the owners wanted a nice shot of the outside showing their posh illuminated sign. However, because the black perspex acted like a mirror, it was reflecting the two security lights positioned either side of the shop. The only angle to eliminate them was head on – OK, but not the most interesting of shots.

So with a bit of moving around, I found an angle where the reflection of one of the lights made it look like a fiery exclamation mark on the end of the Aziz Khan name, which summed up the fiery, spicy nature of Indian cuisine and looked good too. Job done!

In case of dazzle, wear sunglasses

Well, I got my iPhone 4 swapped for one where the camera does actually focus – see my post below and I’m pleased with how that works now. However, I am having trouble with the infamous reception issue where Apple’s response is to ‘hold the phone differently’ – well, their slogan of course was ‘Think Different’. Or use a case.

So I set about doing research to find a case that would solve the antenna bridging problem, look good and not get stuck in my pocket when the phone was ringing.

I came across a company called Ultra Case and they do a great selection, including one which whilst it’s for the iPhone 3G has to be the most gaudy, OTT, blinging, show-off in your face case – EVER.  See this vid:

iPhone 4 camera not a great job, Mr Jobs

I waited a while before getting my iPhone 4, I’ve had all of them since the original on the day of release.  Yeah, I know, I’m an Apple fanboy – like a magpie, I love their shiny stuff. They just do it better than other makers of tech kit – when they work as intended…

This time I wanted Apple to sort out the ‘Version One’ teething troubles first. Plus I wanted to ask a few real life users about the reception problems due to the aerial around the body. Although right handed, I use my phone in my left (so I can write,etc) and this apparantly makes the issue more noticable.   Friends said they were having no problems, although I did not they were all using a case, so better get one from Apple whilst they are still giving them out free.

So, I took the plunge and went with one from the 3 shop. Having just unboxed it, charged overnight and synced it, imagine my frustration to discover the autofocus on the front camera doesn’t work. The camera pointing to me does, however. The problem is there for both stills and video. Not very good for a photographer like me!

So, back to the shop for an exchange. I wouldn’t mind so much but it took that long to do all the blooming paperwork when I bought it, I got a parking ticket

UPDATE: After an hour out of my life including travelling time, the shop exchanged my phone for a new one. He’d not seen that problem before, although had one where the screen was totally black. My number ported just before I took it in to the shop, leaving my old iPhone 3 on O2 useless, and my replacement iPhone 4 useless, as even witht the sim in, it has to be synced with iTunes. . .

. . .Back home now, attempting to restore from the iTunes back-up. Frustratingly, the error message says:

“The software on the iPhone is too old to restore from the backup. Set up as a new iPhone and update the software before you can restore” Grrrr.