Note: At home I have Home Assistant, a smart home system that enables me to control the house lights, smart plugs and all sorts of things over the internet. Following an incident of frozen pipes in 2021 I added the boat into this via a Zerotier network node so that I can remotely monitor the boat’s temperature and humidity so that I can switch on an oil filled radiator and a dehumidifier via smart plugs on the boat as the situation dictates.

Note: At home I have Home Assistant, a smart home system that enables me to control the house lights, smart plugs and all sorts of things over the internet. Following an incident of frozen pipes in 2021 I added the boat into this via a Zerotier network node so that I can remotely monitor the boat’s temperature and humidity so that I can switch on an oil filled radiator and a dehumidifier via smart plugs on the boat as the situation dictates.

Christmas was as busy as usual and we start the new year with my parents visiting and so on the 2nd January (a bank holiday in the UK) about 2:30 we sit down to have our 3rd (or even perhaps 4th) “Christmas dinner” of the season. As usual was cooking and so I missed the multiple phone calls from an unknown mobile number. However as the meal was complete and the others tidy away the mains to get space for desert I check my phone and notice the multiple calls and a voicemail… Multiple calls from the same number on a bank holiday (or indeed any day are not usual) and as there was a voicemail I decide to listen to it and I hear the words that will remain with me for some time…

“Hi Simon, it’s Colin, your boat is on the bottom”.

I think that can’t be true so I quickly check Home Assistant and confirm the boat is not reporting home and hadn’t been since about 7am that morning… fortunately I hadn’t had more than a glass of wine at that point so Dad and I jump into my car and drive to the marina and indeed the boat is sat on the bottom of the marina. The light was going so nothing we could do that night but set an alarm and ring the insurance company the next morning and work out what to do next.

It stayed in the Devizes Area with me being a regular visitor through the start of 2017, where I took her down the famous Caen Hill flight of locks, one of the longest continuous lock flights. In the summer of 2017, Mum and Dad took the boat on a long summer cruise up the Kennet and Avon canal, on the the Thames and on to the Oxford canal to Cropredy music festival. At the same time Dad got a contract near Birmingham and the decision was made to move the boat up to Fazeley Marina on the Birmingham and Fazeley canal where Mum and Dad lived on board during the week. Apart from the odd couple of weeks where I took the boat out for short breaks this is where it stayed until May 2019 when Dad finished the contract and retired (for the first time).

At that point I was living in a house in Marple, that backed onto the towpath of the Macclesfield canal and as they live in deepest Somerset, an hour and a half away from the closest Canal, it was decided that I was best placed to keep an eye on the boat and use her. So the trip north started and she would be based in Marple’s Top Lock marina whilst they focused on refitting another boat; a wooden river cruiser, down near London.

Whilst the boat has been in Marple I made various internal improvements including replacing 2 chairs my parents liked with a sofa I made from 2 Kelax units as the base and some custom foam cushions (I even sewed the the cushion covers myself). Whilst under my loco-parentis she’s been taken it on various trips including the Cheshire Ring in summer 2020 and to explore the Silver Propeller locations at the ends of the Leek and Cauldon canals in summer 2021.

In October 2021, delayed by Covid-19, the boat received blacking and a fresh coat of paint and she also had a new survey giving her a good bill of health for the years to come.

Summer 2022 was marked with the Marple and Bosley lock flights being closed so due to a lack of water so she was restricted to going on local trips. She regularly visited the local hot spots of Bollington on the Macclesfield canal and Bugsworth Basin on the Upper Peak Forest canal and the odd night in the marina and hopes were high for a summer trip in 2023

However, fate had other plans and that’s where the story will continue.

In preparation for this launch I need to capture some real examples that I can use on this website, so if you are an online dater in Manchester, Stockport, Macclesfield or the wider Cheshire area and would like to refresh your dating profile with some FREE professional photographs and are happy to provide me a copy of your current online dating profile photographs that I can use as a before alongside your fantastic new professional online dating profile pictures in my marketing then please get in contact. I need to find 8 online daters (4 men and 4 women) to invite to attend their own personal sessions at a location near Stockport in Late May / Early June, the exact venue and date is being finalised but will likely be a Saturday.

To register your interest please contact me using my Contact Form

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Bride and groom left with no snaps of their wedding day after photographer lost memory card in boozy brawl

The headline looks bad but when you read beyond the headlines it appears that Mr & Mrs Sanderson decided to save some money for their reception and honeymoon by asking a friend to photograph one of the most important days of their lives. It appears that the photographer, Ben Fagan, was wanting to build his portfolio but following the wedding rather than backing up the images immediately he put the memory card in his wallet. When he lost the wallet a week later after a fight in a pub he still hadn’t backed up the images. We will probably never know how good a photographer the friend was but what can be certain of is that he failed to follow what Professional Wedding Photographers in Cheshire would deem standard practice.

As a Professional Cheshire Wedding Photographer I know that wedding photographs are precious and I follow a 5-point plan to ensure that my clients always receive their images.

1) Use multiple cameras during the day.

2) Use multiple cards during the day, typically one 4GB or 8GB card per camera for each of the main stages of the wedding; the preps, the ceremony, the reception, and the first dance.

3) Have a system of recognising a used & blank card – this eliminates the possibility of using a card twice and overwriting images from earlier in the day.

4) Backup all the images to the laptop BEFORE leaving the venue.

5) Backup all images from the laptop to an external hard drive BEFORE going to bed (even if this means staying up until 3am)

This means that by the time I go to bed on a wedding day I will have at least 3 copies of all images (1 on the cards, 1 on the laptop and 1 on the external hard drive)

Tight Wedding Budget? You can still get a Professional Cheshire Wedding Photographer

It is clear that this wedding was done on a budget; 60 Guests and a UK honeymoon is not exactly extravagant but then neither is Professional Wedding Photography.

Remember; once the cake has been eaten, the flowers have died and you’ve returned from your honeymoon all you have left is your memories and your photographs.

As a Cheshire Wedding Photographer my standard 8hr coverage starts at £575 and is spread over the months before the wedding. To put this in comparison this is just £75 more than a 2 night stay in the Loft Suite at Upton House; the 5* B&B the couple in the article chose to spend the start of their honeymoon before spending a further 6 days in the Cotswolds. Looking at it another way when you add in the time spent processing the images and the time spent on the day this works out at less per hour than a typical garage charges to service your car. If you are on a really tight budget a professional Cheshire Wedding Photographer is likely to be open to negotiation for late booking or reduced coverage deals.

Professional Wedding Photography is really a small price to pay to ensure you get stunning images of your Wedding Day.

Related Blog Posts:

Cheshire Wedding Photographer – What to watch out for…

N.B. The prices of Upton House were checked on 15/06/2012 and was for a 2 night stay starting on 30/06/2012. Other rooms were available at prices ranging from £300 and this may not be representative of the price paid by the Sandersons.

Cheshire Baby Photographer – Jubilee Photograph

If you are wanting a Cheshire Baby Photographer or Wedding Photographer in Cheshire to help you celebrate the new addition to life or your new life together and would like more information about the services I offer then either use the Contact Me page or ring me on 07968 853 639. Whilst I’m based in Poynton, nr Wilmslow I use studios in Trafford Park and Stockport, I am happy locally such as Macclesfield, Marple or Bramhall and further afield across the North West including Chester, Buxton, Liverpool and Manchester.

God Save the Queen

Well this story is slightly different as back in late 2011 I was very pleased to photograph the Wedding of Clare and Damien at Bolton School where during the speeches Damien announced Clare was expecting. A few weeks later after they had seen their wedding photographs Clare and Damien asked me to photograph the baby once it arrived. So when their little bundle of joy was welcomed to the world in May 2012 they included me on their list of people to tell and just nine days after the birth, Clare and Damien visited me with  at a Stockport studio to capture those magical images of their newborn child.

A few selected images from the Photoshoot are below and if you are expecting yourself and would like your newborn baby photographs with Cheshire Baby Photographer in Wilmslow or the surrounding areas just like Clare and Damien then please Contact Me as soon as possible to register your expected arrival date as the best newborn photographs happen in the first 10 days of birth.

It is always a delight to meet responsible Staffie owners who clearly care about their dogs and take pride in showing them at the fun dog show on the Saturday and delight in taking part on the sponsored walk on the Sunday.

Photographs of the event by Stockport Pet Photographer, SimonH are available to view and order HERE

Through selling Pet Portraits and photographs at the event over the last 5 years I have helped raise many hundreds of pounds for the rescue but with attendance down this year I was not able to raise as much as previous years. I would very much like to increase this to enable more of the fabulous dogs find good homes so any on line orders received before 30th June 2012 10% of the total sale value will go to the NSBTR to help them keep doing their great work.

Stockport Pet Photographer Offers

To help raise more funds for the NSBTR Stockport Pet Photographer, SimonH is making the following offers where the NSBTR is mentioned at the time of booking.

Book a Level 1 Studio Portrait Session or Level 1 Location Portrait Session before 30th August 2012 the NSBTR will received £5

Book a Level 5 Studio Portrait Session or Level 5 Location Portrait Session  before 30th August 2012 the NSBTR will receive £40.

Book your Wedding Photography with Cheshire Wedding Photographer, SimonH before 30th August 2012 the NSBTR will receive £60

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2132578/Are-Britains-worst-wedding-pictures-Newlyweds-devastated-photographer-failed-couple-frame-took-blurry-shots.html

Now the big question for any couple currently looking for a wedding photographer is

” How do I assure that I get a good professional Cheshire Wedding Photographer?”

Fortunately this is a relatively easy question to answer and I have produced a detailed guide for choosing your Cheshire Wedding Photographer which I email to all wedding enquiries with my Pricing Schedule.

In the mean time here are just a few things to think about when choosing a Wedding Photographer in Cheshire

1) You tend to get what you pay for – from reading the article it appears that the photographer was charging £750 for all day coverage with 2 photographers including a disc of images. This is definitely on the low side for all day coverage with the disc of images for one photographer let alone 2. Wedding magazines and websites usually recommend that 10-15% of the budget is reserved for quality photography. When you consider that the couple’s budget was £14000 they spent just over 5% on their photographer. Remember that after the food is eaten by your guests, your flowers have long since died and your honeymoon tan has faded it is the photographs which remain to help relive your perfect day.

2) Ask what backup equipment the photographer uses – in the article the photographer used the excuse that “one of their cameras broke”. This would suggest to me that the 2 photographers only had 1 camera each. Part of being a professional wedding photographer is looking at what could go wrong and planning in advance on how to minimise the impact. This is why I always carry a plethora of professional level equipment as well as a complete set of backup equipment to every wedding and all the Cheshire Wedding Photographers I use as seconds have at least 2 professional level cameras each. If you select me as your wedding photographer and choose the option to have a 2nd photographer there will be at least 5 cameras between the two  of us.

3) Full time does not mean quality – So many photographers advertise the fact they are full time as an important thing, there are even “professional bodies” which are only open to full time photographers but as this article shows you can’t rely on a photographer’s full time status being a sign of quality. This is especially true in the current economic climate where the recently redundant are setting themselves up as photographers because they think that wedding photography is easy money when the truth is far from it. In my experience whether a photographer has another job or nor does it make a difference to the quality of their images or their professionalism.

4) Look at a whole wedding of images – Portfolios and demo albums are only a selection of a photographer’s favourite images they have taken across a number of weddings. The only way to get a true understanding of a Cheshire Wedding Photographer‘s ability is to look at a whole wedding of images. When couples contact me about Wedding Photography in Cheshire I insist on a meeting so that I can show them a number of whole weddings using my iPad.

5) Ask how long the photographer how much experience they have – a quick check on the LinkedIn site for the photographer in the Daily Mail article shows that the photographer in question only started the business in September 2010 and the wedding in question was in August 2011 so simple maths suggest that the photographer had less than a year of experience at the time of the wedding.  I have been shooting weddings professionally for the last 4 years and have both shot weddings for my own clients and have also been a paid second photographer to a number of other Wedding Photographers in Cheshire, Lancashire and Yorkshire.

6) Make sure the photographer has professional indemnity insurance – There is not indication in the Daily Mail article that the Photographer was insured and whilst it is not a Legal Requirement all professional photographers should have Professional Indemnity Insurance. The purpose of this is so that in the rare event that the photographer fails to meet their contract you can make a claim.

If you are currently looking for a Wedding Photographer in Cheshire and would like me to show you what I can offer and advise you on more tips on how to appraise another Cheshire Wedding Photographer so that you pick me and get the Wedding Photography you deserve please Click Here to Contact Me.

I know that whoever it was who told me that the Ultrasound Image is the most life changing image was right and that my life and that of my partner, Elizabeth, will never be that same again. I am quite sure that come Mid October 2012 the long days of a Wilmslow Baby Photographer and late nights I experience as a Cheshire Wedding Photographer will come in handy practice for the sleepless nights.

With their son being just under two the search was constrained to the garden where eggs of all sizes and other chocolate treats such as bunny faces, chocolate footballs and hollow chocolate bunnies were hidden in various places. Wilmslow Family Photographer SimonH then joined Mum & Dad to capture natural photographs of their son George’s reaction to finding the “brown stuff”, so referred to because even though he is still over a month away from his 2nd birthday he already knows the word chocolate.

The chocolate treats were hidden across the garden, in trees, bushes, on benches and in the flower beds; all places where George could easily spot them. Spot them he did, but it took him a few moments to figure out that the brightly coloured foil contained his favourite chocolate but once he realised what was in store he raced Wilmslow Family Photographer, SimonH to find the next hidden treat and store it safely away in his special red watering can (“away from Daddy, because daddy likes chocolate” apparently).  Below are a few selected images from the Outdoor Family Portrait Session showing the fun that was had by George and his family during the hunt.

If you would like Wilmslow Family Photographer, SimonH to capture natural, relaxed and fun photographs of your family over the summer at your own home or in the great outdoors you can Contact Me for more details.