My original plan for today has been cancelled so I popped down to Notting Hill Gate at around midday to say hello to my fellas from the LPMG at the Tabernacle. There was a fotogym on Lightroom for beginners. And at 1pm I was in Borough Market to meet Dan Davies and few other London photographers for a photowalk. Lunch was a nice mexican wrap at Hobbs, it was just delicious! Today photowalk's subject was to take photographs as if we were shooting with a film SLR, so the rules were:

- choose an ISO setting and stick with it
- maximum 36 shots throughout the walk
- the LCD screen is masked out with electrical tape, no picture review

I thought it could be fun and challenging, but the other challenge was the cold!

My mate, Frank Williams called me few days ago as he wanted to go out for some evening photoshoot. So today we headed to St Paul's in the end of the afternoon and waited for the sun to set in order to get some nice pictures. As usual, the British weather wasn't very great, we were freezing! Lots of clouds, so no deep blue evening sky as a backdrop for the cathedral. But luckily by the end some of the clouds got a marvellous red tint that come up pretty nice. Another issue was image sharpness, eventhough we brought our tripod with us the issue didn't come from the camera stability, but more from the bridge itself. There was a lot of people crossing it and the bridge just kept moving which didn't help with the shoot when you are trying to get a slow shutter speed to blur the clouds. But I'm not too disappointed with the pictures and some of them came out pretty nicely, I think :-)

Over a year ago, I've been contacted by Andy and Jane. They wanted some photographs of their daughter Kimberly who was 4 months old at the time. My wife and I went to their flat for a great photo session. Kimberly was a lovely baby and she has now grown up into a cute little girl full of energy. Andy and Jane re-contacted me a month ago for a last minute photoshoot as it is rare they can have a free weekend when we can organise a shoot. Again my wife accompanied me, she's great helping me during the shoot, making the kids laugh, checking their hair, chatting with the parents... After fantastic brunch composed of Dim Sum, we started doing some environmental portrait in Kimberly's room and then went in a nearby park. It was such a great experience and you could see how much love there was between the parents and the child.

I have joined the SWPP less than a year for few of the advantages they offer to their members such as discounted insurance rates and discount on annual convention. But finally I submitted my work for assessment applying for the Licentiateship qualification. I wasn't rushing for this as I joined the Society as receiving distinctions or qualifications doesn't prove a lot, what's more important is that your customer are please with your work, receiving an email from them saying how please they are with your work is way more satisfying than any distinction from any society you can be member of. But nonetheless, after a while I just wanted to see how fellow photographers would perceive my work. So few weeks ago I submitted a set of photographs for appraisal and accreditation. This week I received a certificate attesting that I was awarded with the "Licentiateship of photography" distinction, this is recognising me as producing images of professional standards and of consistent quality.

Here is the set of photographs submitted in the Portrait category: