Jonathon Wardman

Wedding

Now I know I haven’t finished with the second half of the stag weekend posts so forgive me, but I wanted to write this now before I go away.

I’m heading back from Scott and Jess’ wedding this weekend. They had a handfasting ceremony and asked me to do their photos for them. While I was, of course, honoured that they would ask me and trust me to shoot such an important event, I was more than a little nervous. While I’m comfortable shooting live events and theatre, I had actually never previously shot a wedding. Wedding photography is not something that I have ever really wanted to get into, but I have known Scott since we were very young and Jess a few years now, so I agreed on the understanding that they know my style and they knew what they were getting.

I travelled up on Friday morning and stayed with my dad for the weekend. (I’m not sure how long I will have that luxuary now my mum has started her new job. Their house is up for sale and I guess it all depends on how long that takes to sell.) [read more]

Scott’s Stag at The Bunkhouse (part 1)

Excuse me if this doesn’t read too well, I’ve had around 5 hours sleep since I woke up on Friday at 8am. It’s not like I didn’t expect it but it’s really on just catching up on me sitting here on the train. The past two days I’ve the pleasure of watching the sun make it’s early morning crawl across the sky over rural north Wales.

Judging by the posts on Facebook Scott’s stag weekend seems to have been a success. In all honesty I thought that perhaps this little review would be a little less positive after the first night but in my opinion things got better the second night even if I did end up falling into my (not uncommon) “responsible adult” role at three in the morning.

The weekend started off when the advanced party, Ben the best man, Neil Ben’s father, Alyx who we met in Chester because he lives there, and myself arrived at the Bunkhouse to the news that the other building had been let for the weekend to a Hen party.

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A Foreign Visitor

It’s kind of a tradition to write blog entries while I’m on the train it seems only now it’s gone a little more high-tech. Rather than writing offline on a rickety old laptop I’m writing online thanks to my Three dongle on my new Samsung nettop (courtesy of The Sun and Prince William).

Today my journey is to Chester to meet up with a group of friends to celebrate Scott’s impending marriage. The weekend will be spent in rural North Wales, the rest of the journey from Chester to the bunkhouse in which we’re staying will in Ben’s dad’s car.

I was thinking I might try to get this blog up-to-date while I was on the train, but it’s been so long since I last wrote I can’t think how I should start. In all honesty, from day to day, not an awful lot has changed. work is still the same, and I’m still living with Dana in our little flat. The biggest difference, I suppose, is there might be some romance on the horizon. [read more]

Race for Life

On the 26th June 2010 one of my friends, Laura, ran the Race for Life in Richmond park.  I went in support and took my camera with me. These few photos have been sitting around on my desktop for a while, so I thought it was about time I posted them here. [read more]

Friendly hugging

Something’s been eating at me for the last month.  Something someone said at my friend’s housewarming party.  Just as she was leaving, Jess, who I haven’t known all that long, said “I won’t hug you, I know you don’t like it”.  I know she was just trying to do the right thing — she didn’t want to invade my personal space if I didn’t like it — but it made me start thinking.  It’s not true and don’t want people to think that about me. [read more]

Friends' House Warming

Tiara: £10; return train ticket: £62.75; party supplies: £33.00.  Total: £105.75.  Not really too bad for a weekend spent at the other end of the country with my friends, although I could have saved the £33 given none of the supplies were actually used.

Last weekend a couple of friends, Ben and Emma, had their house warming party.  They’ve been living together for a couple of months now, but hadn’t had chance to get around to having a party until now.  When I first found out about them moving in I asked when the party was going to be.  I was told they weren’t having one.  Of course that meant that when I received the invitation I couldn’t exactly say no.

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A Week in the Grim North

It all went off pretty well really, all in all.  And, as I said in a slightly drunken state at the time, “New friends, that’s what it’s all about. There was a play in there somewhere too, but that’s what I’ll come away with in the end.”

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The Year of the Tiger

The following weekend saw the annual Chinese New Year celebrations in London and another day out with my camera.  This one proved to be much more successful and significantly less painful.

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Resolutions for 2010

It’s that time of year again when I can look back at what I said at the start of last year, see how I faired with the resolutions I made way back then, and have a think about what I’m going to try to do this year.  Last year’s post is here.  I know I was supposed to come up with more than the one resolution last year, but never ended up putting anything down. So that’s the only one I can look at. [read more]

25

I turned 25 in November.  I’m getting old.  Just before my birthday Dana, Phil, Cecile and I went out for a meal.  It wasn’t related, just an evening out with friends, but we did talk about it a bit.  Last year I removed my birthday from Facebook to see who would remember, without being reminded, that it was my birthday.  Very few people did.  I think I sometimes go out of my way to make myself miserable – this seems to be a good example. [read more]