That’s how the story usually starts anyway. This time, thanks to Google and Panoramio it is more like “An Englishman, a Bulgarian, a couple of Russians, a Lithuanian, an Argentinian, a Catalonian, a Dutchman, a Ukrainian, a Turk, a Hungarian, a Norwegian, a Romanian, an Italian, a couple of Czechs, a Swiss family and a Chinese fly into Rome…” (with apologies to anyone I’ve missed, or perhaps worse – mis-located).

British Airways has a very generous policy with regards to hand luggage (at least on some flights), which meant I could use my Lowepro roller fully loaded with camera gear, and take my wash-bag and clothes in my ThinkTank Retrospective – once the clothes were hung away in the wardrobe, I was left with an empty shoulder bag for the equipme…

This past weekend, I had 3 E-Types in a 48 hour period. Why? It’s all in my blog

I’ve just posted a two-part blog entry about carting my gear around when I go on holiday. What started off with a small shoulder bag and migrated to a rucksack has now become roll-on hand luggage and day bag.

Part One

Part Two

A couple of months ago, I was lucky enough to get a tax refund. This isn’t something that happens often, as HMRC are very careful to retain as much of my income as they can, and so – like any responsible adult in times of austerity and recession, I decided to spend it, and spend it quickly before they changed their mind.

Fortunately, I remembered seeing an advert from Great Escape Classic Car Hire; something to do with a rally to the Welsh Borders from their base not far from my home. “Great”, I thought “I can help the local economy, whilst having a good time driving around the countryside in some desirable classic cars.”

Saturday, July 14th, somewhere in rural Worcestershire

On arrival at Great Escape’s garage, I’m greeted by a small body o…

I’ve just started a blog. I don’t know how long it will last, or how regularly it will get updated. I read recently that some people spend 9 hours per day on Google+ – I find it difficult to spend any time at all hanging around, by the time you take out 10 hours of the day for work, a couple of hours for moderating here on RedBubble and at Panoramio, some time for an evening meal and catch up with my wife.

Anyway, my second blog post is all about how I have Jail-breaked (Jail-broken?) my Kindle to add my own photos to replace the standard wallpaper. The images are free for anyone to use and download – some work better than others.

A Mr Baxter just sent me an email, and this time it wasn’t someone telling me I’d inherited £60m (as long as I wire them my bank details…)

I’ve sold my first iPhone case, espresso Thanks indeed to the mystery buyer.

My two books are now available on the iPad – at just £1.99 each!

I recently received an interesting email from one of my Twitter follower/followees. They’d seen a comment and come along to my RedBubble profile – they quite liked my style of photograph and would I be interested in doing some promotional shots for them.

A brief exchange of emails and a couple of telephone conversations later and I’m off shooting on behalf of Visit Worcestershire. This is a local organisation promoting the county throughout the country and through their web site, around the world.

So far I’ve actively photographed for them on three occasions and I’m hoping that some of the shots make their promotional material next year and their new web site later this year.

The most exciting ‘assignment’ was on Saturday, when I went to the West …

No, not a form of tummy upset but a song by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, written by Graham Nash.

Join me on my trip through Marrakesh (and slightly further afield) on my Panoramio site – see the photos in context within Google Earth.

http://www.panoramio.com/user/1295/tags/Morocco

http://www.panoramio.com/kml/?user=1295

Is it ironic to find one of your images being used to advertise a gathering of IP lawyers, without permission and without attribution?