During those tacky company excursions for middle management, men roar like lions, howl like monkeys, and tippy-toe barefoot across glowing embers and hot coals. All under the pretence that it will make them better men. More efficient men. More productive men.

They should’ve just bought iMacs.

I write this now from one such contraption. This new-fangled mass of technical wizardry enshrined in its elegant aluminium sarcophagus has stolen my heart and won my love. Eschewing the merest notion of tenterhooks, I unequivocally state right now that I will never own another Windows release as long as I live. This machine, this beautiful piece of design-possibly the only candidate for proof of irreducible complexity-and, as a result, God himself, has changed my life in ways I cannot describe.

Now, before I cut to the bone of this update, let no man tell you that John Godwin is fickle. True, after reading and finishing the book “Born To Run” by Chris Macdougal just two weeks ago, I instantaneously quit my decade-long love affair with bodybuilding in order to take up distance running. Similarly, any rumour that may be floating around about me folding my bodybuilding clothing company in order to be a photographer after someone made the throwaway comment “Hey, you take pretty good pictures” could also be argued as true. However, the author sharing this update with you today is a hardened Windows user, steeled to the core by 13 years of Microsoft oppression. The switch didn’t happen overnight.

Like Kim Jong Il’s Arduous March campaign of the late 1980′s and the desolate North Korean souls forced to endure it, my Windows journey has been largely comprised of desperate hardship, unaccountable loss, and near-perpetual hopelessness. The path to salvation during these harsh winters can only end with a regime change.

Now, you understand, I hope, that expecting Elisabeth Fritzl to recount each individual piece of abuse levied against her by Herr Joseph is big ask. After a while, such disturbances to the equilibrium become so routine that on a long enough time line the recalled ordeal becomes nothing more than a relentless collage of misery containing very few specific details. Such is my experience of windows. I can’t recall every single problem I had with Windows, but it’s fair to say that I can’t think of a single redeemable feature it has over OS X if you are involved in any way in media production. I’ve endured every single irritation and niggle that can be gleaned from the Windows operating system, and the “upgrade” to Windows 7 is finally what pushed me over the edge.

It’s no exaggeration to say that using Windows 7 is the digital equivalent of repeatedly slamming a door on your genitals. Never in my entire life has anything ever confused, irritated and angered me more; that’s no lie. That title did originally belonged to my girlfriend who remained undefeated, but she’s a weekend break at Champney’s compared to windows-fucking-seven.

Even Monsieur’s of a calibre as hefty as my own will struggle to discuss the object of their unyielding hatred for too long, and since listing every problem with Windows 7 will make sequencing the genome look like a quick Haiku, I’ll just get straight onto the iMac.

I’ll go right from the start.

First arrives the box. You open it, inside there are four parts of concern to you. A screen, a wireless keyboard, a wireless mouse, and a single lead. You place the screen on a table, you drink in it’s beauty, you plug the lead in the back and the other end into the plug socket. You press a power button. Moments later, you stare in divine awe at what can only be described as the modern day equivalent of the Virgin Birth as iMary goes through her start-up sequence. The first start up is longer than the others, because of the short intro it plays you welcoming you to your new iMac. From this point on, get ready for 20 second boot times from cold.

The OS X interface is, without a doubt, the nicest GUI I have ever used. The first thing that strikes you is how little effort it takes to get used to it; you instantly forget your years of Windows brainwashing, and you forget it easily, because you don’t have to relearn anything-OS X isn’t a learned platform-it’s intuitive; everything is instinctively where you expect it to be. It’s at this point you realise what a God-awful shit-pustule Windows is, and you vow to one day take an M-16 to Microsoft’s Redmond office for the 14 years of abuse you’ve suffered at the hands of their inept, sadist programmers.

Everything about OS X is simply “right”; everything makes sense. That’s the only explanation I can give when you use it. It doesn’t have a start menu, because the entire concept of a start menu is fucking stupid. What is the desktop if the start menu is the start? Some kind of digital pre-birth? Why not just place all the programs where you’d place the taskbar? That’s what OS X does. Now when I open a program, a little light appears under the icon to tell me the program is running. Simple!

If I’ve got 20 program windows open and I want to choose between them, I just put my mouse in the bottom-left corner and all of my windows effortlessly shrink down and line up for me to view next to each other. All without the slightest delay. If I want to view the desktop, all I do is put my mouse in the bottom-right and all of the windows jump off the screen, leaving my desktop visible.

Everything you need is on the program bar. There’s a settings panel for settings. An applications folder for applications. A “finder” which is basically like Windows search, except it actually searches for you, finding programs and files instantaneously. We’ve all been there with Windows. We put in a search term, then we sit and wait while the hard drive grinds like a 200 decibel pepper mill as Windows does precisely fuck all. When you search in OS X, the last result appears at the same time as the first result, which, incidentally, appeared the moment you pressed the final letter.

I’ve had my iMac for about a month now, and so far, I have not experienced one single piece of instability. Not a single window freeze, program crash, not an error of any kind. Nothing ever slows down, fails to respond, everything just works smoothly. By comparison, Windows was as reliable as a smackheads rent.

And so I get to the speed of this thing. Photoshop CS5 loads in 4 seconds(I just timed it). Compared with 18 seconds in Windows(I just timed it). In digital terms, that is the distance in time between the first strands of RNA emerging in the primordial clay, and the first time machine being built that went back and witnessed it. Lightroom loads equally as fast, and unlike Windows, actually allows you to browse through photos. Advancing through pictures in Windows was a soul destroying nightmare. Click picture. Wait ten seconds for Lightroom to respond. Wait further 7 seconds for picture to load. Wait further 5 seconds for picture to load full detail. Click next picture, restart program because Lightroom just locked up. Self harm. Repeat process.

In OS X it’s completely different. Everything is super-responsive, and not once does the program stall. Photoshop is the same–filters, adjustment layers, smart objects load almost instantly. Oh, and file saving.. A 3gb Tiff file used to take around 2-3 minutes to save in Windows. On this iMac it’s so fast it can’t realistically be timed. It’s finished milliseconds after you click the save button.

Sleep mode is amazing. It takes 2-3 seconds to “wake up”. Whereas trying to get Windows to turn back on was like trying to rouse a meths-sodden tramp.

Oh, and iTunes actually works as well.

And that last sentence actually sums up OS X perfectly. It has all the same features as Windows, the only difference is that they actually work. They are fun to use because of that. My keyboard is a lump of exquisite brushed aluminium, with tactile, perfectly spaced keys. The Magic Mouse has a small sensitive pad that can be used to navigate pages with just the brush of a finger. The screen is the most visually stunning display technology I’ve ever seen. The image quality is not even worth describing. Go to an Apple outlet and see for yourself.

I bought iWork and iLife, now I have an entire business package at my fingertips. I can make movies with iMovie, I can plan my days using iCal, send out invoices and keep track of expenses/taxes/earnings using Numbers, and I can create fliers, business cards, letters and posters using Pages. Everything feels like it’s seamlessly integrated, and as a result, you find yourself actually using it. By comparison, Windows and the programs that run on it are about as cohesive as the competing residents of Gaza.

In summary, this computer has changed by life. I’ll get planning permission for a synagogue in Mecca before I get another Microsoft product.

The pictures above are from Guildford Cathedral. I took them ages ago, but reprocessed them recently just because of how fast everything happens on a Mac. I’ve literally cut my post-processing times in half, which is amazing when you consider that this iMac is the same spec as my old Windows machine.

Buy Apple.

For the last month or more, this intrepid lensman has waded knee-deep in the murky slurry of web design and has emerged weary, skin flaking, weather-beaten, and infested with those apocryphal creatures that swim up your urine stream and attach themselves to the inside of your urethra. An expedition of a calibre that makes a barefoot trek across the Copper Canyons look like bank holiday in Brighton. I speak of course, of SEO.

SEO, or Search Engine Optimisation is the art–in my case, at least–of attracting you to my site, even if you don’t give a shit about my photography or the drivel I write on here that I mockingly pass off as an update. The concept is very simple: You search; I appear.

Optimising my site to work with Google also led to an unintended redesign of the entire blog and the addition of several other features. Most of these features are server-side, but a few are visible. I’ve now added tags that you can click that don’t really help you. I’ve also added a related posts feature that basically picks previous articles with an erratic and wild randomness. Chief among my accomplishments, though, is the addition of a thumbnail preview of articles on the front page. I think the blog looks much cleaner as a result.

What would be great though, is some content. I’ve been extremely busy lately. Unfortunately it was photographic work I wouldn’t normally be inclined to post on my blog. I’ve got a lot of personal time towards the end of September, so hopefully I’ll be getting out and shooting new portraits, new dereliction, and new landscapes.

I’ve also got a couple of great personal projects coming up. I’m going to be following the professional fighter Nick Chapman as he prepares for one of his fights. I’ve also got landscapes to visit, and a couple of derelict buildings to bring to you.

Also, in a rather cynical attempt to procure free stuff, I have decided that I will be starting a review section on this blog. I’m using it as an excuse to practice product photography, but also with the intention of providing helpful information, since this blog is arguably, nay, obviously redundant.

Anyway, that’s all coming. Now it’s back to work. Shooting a model on Wednesday (personal work for once), and on Saturday I’m covering the final of Surrey’s Next Top Model!

In the meantime, please feel free to admire my awesome new blog, or, better yet, just me.

PS. I want to do more personal work over the next few months, so if you are a model, a stylist, or a make-up artist and you would like to collaborate with me, please get in touch. Thanks!

I’ll be back shortly with an in-depth review of the new 27″ iMac, just purchased by yours truly.

Goodbye for now.

Let’s be honest. The world just isn’t a very nice place anymore, is it? I know that’s a common proposition, but I feel my cliché is slightly less obvious. I’m not talking about international relations, or foreign policy, the war on Darwin, Islamic cavemen cutting off the clitorides of young girls and then sewing up their labia so that the grown men they are gifted to in wedlock may forcefully break them during the consummation of their marriage.

I’m not talking about any of that. I’m talking about something far worse, in fact. Have you ever considered the amount of stress you go through in one day in order to complete what should be the simplest of tasks?

Take this example from my life, for instance. Recently, I noticed that my Internet wasn’t working as expected. This being Britain, I obviously expected the usual dog shit Internet service we are forced to put up with, but recently standards were slipping, and the faecal tang of my current Internet experience was from a far less handsome creature.

Never let it be said that John Godwin is a friend of numbers, but the math in this equation was penetrable by even the densest of noggins. I, foolishly, in retrospect, conjectured that since my Internet was running intermittently, it would be wise to call o2, my service provider, and have them take grasp of the situation. Upon reaching the customer support team, and getting through to a very affable Scottish chap named Henry, a divine comedy of sorts ensued, in which each act added on a whole new layer of complexity, until eventually arriving at the juncture I sit poised at now. Eyeballing the phone with a finger cocked, a heartbeat away from involving United Nations.

Wait, that’s right, my phone doesn’t work and I don’t have any Internet, I forgot. Let me explain…
I spoke to Henry, the friendly Scot, and explained my predicament. He was as sympathetic as a man who didn’t want to listen to a moaning Brit could be, and his manner was, I must admit, rather engaging. Oh how we chatted! We danced merrily around the subject of dropped connections, line tests, which modem lights were what colour, and even what I got up to at the weekend (I was forced to attend a wedding by my Stalinist girlfriend, if you must know, but that’s another update).

Eventually, Henry hit a wall and informed me he could not assail this parapet until I had spoken to BT, as he wasn’t able to ascertain what the fault was, but was able to detect an unacceptable amount of interference on my line. I did my own tests, and indeed he was right – the earpiece sounded like centre spot at Rustenburg. He told me to give BT a call so that they could run some line tests, as they ultimately owned the line and were the only people who were able to call out engineers in the extreme event that I had a fault on my line.

On the surface, this sounds like a very reasonable request, but it presented some problems. Firstly, BT are morons. Not only are they morons, and I mean that in the dictionary sense, not the pejorative, but they are also – to put it mildly – scum. I knew that calling them would eventually lead to me adding yet another person to the list of people I plan to furiously stab in the event of martial law, and frankly, the amount of call centre staff on that list was getting out of hand. It was looking less like a death list and more like a temp sheet from Adecco. My useless brain failed to provide a contingency, so I was forced to call the dunderhead-ed clods who so ably rile my skittish blood pressure. I got through to the robot lady, and after 15 or so button presses, she asked for my full telephone number before informing me that this wasn’t BT’s problem because they didn’t own the number. Essentially, I’d just had a recorded voice tell me to fuck off. That’s when I remembered that I wasn’t even with BT, I’m with Sky Talk. Aaaaaaaaand breeeeeathhhhhhhh.

Don’t get me started on Sky. In the back of my mind, I had known all along that this would be Sky’s issue, but if there’s one company worse than BT, like fleeing the hell hole that is Milton Keynes for the greener pastures of 1940′s Birkenau, it’s Sky. My bruxism in full swing, I stabbed the touchscreen keypad of my iPhone with a crooked digit while tooth enamel fired from my mouth in all directions.

Robot lady answered. No I’m not calling about Sky’s “Award Winning Broadband”. Nor am I calling about the exciting world of HDTV. I’m calling to complain about your shocking fucking telephone service and the fact that you cozen me to the tune of twelve quid a month for a telephone that hasn’t worked properly since you installed it.

Actually, if I can change lanes for a minute, I just realised there is an extra element to this story. When I first moved into this apartment, some six months ago now, I did what every possessor of a Y chromosome does – I Immediately arranged for Sky TV to fleece me like the fucking bandits they are, in return for a bunch of channels I’d never watch, Top Gear repeats on Dave and poorly produced documentaries about Hitler and the never-before-seen footage that you’ve seen twenty-times-before. For the first few months, Sky and I were like flies in a pie. Oh how we dined! Have I Got News For You from 2003, midnight reruns of Family Guy, so many memories. Bad ones, actually, because this was costing me £600 a year.

Eventually, summer came, bringing with it the usual explosion of photosynthesis. Flowers bloomed, Ivy crept, leaves multiplied and new life sprouted into existence! Unfortunately for me, this entire phenomena seemed localised to the three square feet that surrounded my Sky Dish. The Dish being at the end of the garden owned by the parents of the Satan child I have alluded to in previous updates ensured an impossibility of any kind of personal intervention. Besides, the dish was set atop a ten foot brick wall and impossible to get to without a ladder.

I would have called them, but since they operate on a premium rate number, I was reticent to use my mobile.

“But John, you beautiful, humble genius, why didn’t you call from your land line?”

Good question; simple answer. It didn’t work. It hadn’t worked since Sky came to install it. The engineer, in his infinite knowledge, had decided that being able to actually use the telephone was completely overrated, and fixed the line so that I could hear people, but not speak back, essentially mirroring the same dynamic I share with my wonderful girlfriend. Hello honey!

A second engineer was called out to inspect the problem, and his claims at having fixed the line, I found out later, were vastly exaggerated. His presence in my home that afternoon cost me one hour and two cups of Earl Grey, but my phone situation remained the same, and the chance of ever carrying out a telephone conversation seemed ever more bleak.

So, you can probably understand my decision to just leave the Sky dish and it’s cursed jungle Bastille to the elements, rather than have to suffer another engineer arrive, urinate in my shoe, and tell me it’s raining.

But I digress. It was in this climate that I was currently navigating through the myriad options presented by Robot-Lady. Several button presses later, I arrived at the relevant department, the same department I would’ve arrived at with any other combination of button presses.

“John” answered. An open book if there ever was one, the first thing that struck me about “John” was that his name definitely wasn’t John. In dubious English with a distinct Indian lacquer, I doubted this mans credentials from the outset.

“Where is your office based, John”

“Wales, Sir”

I couldn’t be bothered to argue. I waited while he fumbled around his desk for the relevant English script and calmly went through the actions as he read them out to me. For the second time that day, I was put through the process of ritual intellectual humiliation. I pulled on leads, poked things in holes, gave further information regarding the colour of lights on the router, and did the same again with the other telephone sockets in the apartment. The process lasted over an hour. Bored to tears, defeated, I prayed for an aneurysm. Him or me, it didn’t matter, whatever ended this farce quicker.

As it turned out, I was being rather harsh on John. After putting me on hold for 15 minutes to run “tests”, he returned, telling me that he had raised the issue to the 2nd Line Support team. If just for the fact that it meant this part of the ordeal was at a close, I was elated at this respite. Not child-in-a-sweet-shop elated, more released-from-Russian-Gulag elated. I remained a man in flesh, but the spirit was weak and spongy, I feared many killings and street rampages would be meted before a full recovery could be made.
Before John let me go, he asked me to quickly run a test call to check the line once more. I let out an involuntary groan that reminded me of a clubbed seal and put the receiver to my ear. No interference! The vuvuzela’s that had occupied the earpiece for the last six months had vanished! I ran to my laptop to check my Internet, Lord! It was back to speed! I couldn’t believe it. I don’t know what John did, and truth me told, neither did John, but I thanked him profusely. Straying off the script, he probably didn’t understand a word I was saying, but everyone knows the international language of love, and I showered him with it.

I bid that wonderful man adieu and scurried back to my computer to browse the net at lightning speed. No dropped connections, no page-not-responding, no time outs, just delicious pornogr… I mean BBC IPlayer, and at full speed!

Coincidentally, o2 then called, and Henry, the urbane Scotsman, asked if I had spoken with Sky yet. I jubilantly informed him that the problem was entirely fixed, thanked him for his impeccable manner and exceptional service, and told him that the matter no longer required his attention. He wished me a good day, and I, likewise, then we parted. Maybe to never speak again. A single tear cut a path down my cheek coming to a rest at the corner of my trembling lip, er, what?

The felicity, however, was fleeting; twenty minutes later my Internet was dead. Dead as leotards with leg-warmers and big hair. No green lights. I went to my phone, still no interference, and now no dial tone. The entire line was completely dead.

Fuck you, John, fuck you.. I craved Henry’s embrace.

Shaking the rage, I refrained from packing my assassins suitcase and boarding the next flight to India, I mean Wales, and immediately called o2.

To cut a long story short, I explained the situation, and after a quick line test, they told me that the line was now completely dead and throwing up a flag at the exchange as being faulty. I would have to call Sky back..

..my world crashed.

There have been a few times in history when all men of fibre agree that hope is lost. When no single act of heroism, cunning, grit or moxie can restore a broken spirit. I cite Jesus atop Golgotha, he knew his time was up, his lambasting of God during his final moments on the cross is quoted in the book of Psalms. I imagine Napoleon was struck with a similar cynicism as he knelt broken before the feet of Wellington at Hougoumont after being soundly thrashed by the British/Prussian armies at the battle of Waterloo. I feel it’s no exaggeration, nor do I speak with a hint of arrogance when I say that having to make a second call to Sky was EXACTLY on the level of the two events just mentioned. If anything, it was even worse.
My feeble ivory-ticklers barely contained the strength to grip my phone, but enchanted with resolute steely Britishness, I soldiered on. At Robot-Lady’s request, I performed the staccato keypad finger dance with the grace of an old master. Mercifully, my call was answered quickly. A man of distinct Indian origin introduced himself as “James”, and I noted that his accent was slightly softer. Maybe he was a bit further east of “Wales”, say, Bristol.

I explained my situation for the fourth time that day, and I swore to Zeus, Allah and Ironman that if he asked me the colour of any lights, I was going to Derek Bird the sleepy town of Guildford as a prelude to the Guy Fawkes-ing of the nearest Sky call centre.

Savings the lives of hundreds, James told me that he was going to put me straight through to the 2nd line support team, as they were better equipped to help me with my problem. The good thing about 2nd line is that they are like 1st line, but with a key difference: This time it’s not an Indian man pretending to be an English man, it’s an English man pretending he gives the slightest, vaguest, steamiest shit about you or your meagre phone issues. With no provocation of any kind, James assured me that I would be on hold for no longer than 20 seconds as he bid me farewell and pressed the button, seamlessly swapping that now familiar Delhi twang with “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” by Cindy Lauper…

…twenty minutes later, the 80′s ballads abruptly ended with the distinct *click* of a call being cut off… Cindy just flatlined.

My apartment has no internet, no television, no telephone. Services that cost me a combined £940 per year.

Fuck you Sky, fuck you.

PS. Just kidding about the wedding, it was excellent!

In what is becoming a common theme with this blog, the update bears absolutely no relation to the picture. The picture in question is from the Thames Water pumping station that someone foolishly left unattended recently, allowing me to slip and snap this shot.

Ta Ta Chicas!

In 2005, my at-the-time girlfriend used to live at the top of a long, steep, main road. It was a conduit between areas, and as such, attracted a lot of traffic. One particular road-goer at the time would catch my eye, and has, subsequently, changed my life in a way that affects how I interact with and view the world to this day.

He was an old man, no younger than 80, and he used to cycle up the road most days. It was the kind of sight most people take no notice of, but there was a life message contained in this geriatric pedalist, and I spotted it straight away.

To say the old man struggled up that hill is an understatement. He was about the same age as Noah, and looked in about the same physical condition as a first edition Bible. Hunched over the bike at such an extremity, he could practically see underneath the saddle. He used to meander left and right on account of it being impossible to stay in a straight line at such a slow speed. His face was always contorted and locked in a permanent painful grimace as he made the climb past where I used to stand and watch him. This was almost every single day, and every time I watched this spectacle, the more I learned about him, and more importantly, the more I learned about life.

I cannot describe to you how slow he used to peddle. It was slow to the point where I could break down his individual strides. As he stepped his entire weight onto the peddle, so long was the delay between that and the next rotation that I could note the acceleration and deceleration that occurred between each turn of the crank. It’s not an exaggeration to say that it would have been, even at his age, faster to just get off the bike and push it up the hill. Indeed, and this is not invented for effect, I once watched a woman on the pavement overtake him as she walked – with a pram.

However, I quickly began to understand what I was witnessing, and I would call my girlfriend outside to watch him climb the hill with me. She didn’t seem to see what I saw, but I kept explaining it to her; she used to just say he was sweet.

There was nothing sweet about this old man, though. Nothing at all.

What I was witnessing was, I believe, the one and only time in my life I have ever, and likely will ever, see someone giving 100%.

I’m not talking 99.9%, I’m talking everything. Nothing in the tank. Out of reserves. No contingency, no backup, no plan B.

Now, if I may change the subject for a second, I have been a bodybuilder for ten years, and any bodybuilder will tell you that at a certain point, the gains slow, and that is when the real journey starts. What proceeds from that point is a 24/7 battle to add the next 1lb of muscle. Waking up at 3am to drink a protein shake and swig walnut oil from the bottle is a daily ritual. Eating every two hours, day in day out. 6000 calories a day. Training sessions so intense that you have, on more than one occasion, vomited in the bin between sets. Any real bodybuilder reading this knows what I’m talking about, and he knows I’m not exaggerating. At this level, there are few things in life more demanding, more taxing, more spirit-draining than bodybuilding.

I cried in Nando’s once while eating a half chicken. My spirit was broken from forking bits of poultry into my gob, and then swigging a mouthful of water so that I could swallow it whole without chewing it and feeling sick. I couldn’t handle anymore fucking food and tears started streaming down my face.

I still finished the chicken.

Anyway, that embarrassing admission has a point. Even when I was at my biggest, well, WELL over 200lbs (I’m only 5’6), even when I was squatting 250kg for three reps (“arse to grass”, as we say), even then, I cannot confidently sit here now and tell you I gave 100%.

I look back on my life, and I can’t really think of a time I couldn’t have given a little bit more. Argued more, defended more, lifted more, spent more, pushed more, pulled harder, shouted louder, ran faster, studied harder, thrown further, thought smarter. I don’t have the ability to draw that kind of inner strength. I just don’t have it in me. No matter what, no matter how far I get in life, it’ll have been achieved by giving no more than 99%. That’s all I’m capable of in most situations, and I accept that.

But this old man, I’m telling you, day in, day out, he gave everything. Every single day for him was potentially the final assent. I can’t accurately describe to you how much effort he put in to get up that hill, and he did it every single day. Giving 100% was nothing more than normal for him. What requires superhuman levels of willpower in most mortals is nothing more than the journey home for some people.

I digress. He used to peddle so slowly it looked like he would have to put a foot down to stop the bike from toppling, but every time it looked like he was going over, he’d snake the bike left or right to pull himself straight again.

Why put himself through that every day? Why not get the bus; it’s free to pensioners..? I personally think it’s because he knew it’s the only thing keeping him alive. Every day he made it up the hill is one more day he enjoyed; a middle finger to the reaper. He knew that one foot on that curb was two feet in the grave.

And so I get to my rather long winded sub-point: England are fucking shit. Why are they shit? Because none of them gave 100% on the day. At the times it was most important, they couldn’t rise to the occasion and give it everything because they were weak.

But my main point is that while this old man has changed the way I view life, and how I perceive maximum effort, I had assumed he had since passed on. I was leaving the gym earlier today, waiting at the traffic lights in my car, and imagine my surprise when up he pulls right alongside me on the very same bike. I smiled at him, he didn’t know me from Adam, and I’d have looked like an imbecile if I’d have told him how much of an effect on my life his daily commute has.

When he looked away, I laughed to myself, because there and then I realised I couldn’t honestly guarantee I could beat him off the lights. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if in the ensuing rush from the starting line, his superhuman exertion of sheer will caused the laws of physics to melt around him, leaving me in the dust.

So yeah, he’s still alive. And what the hell am I going on about?

The pictures above are from various places I’ve visited recently. I forget the names.

I get irritated quite a lot in life. The tiniest things really send me over the edge. Take headphone chords for instance. If anything catches them and pops the buds from my ears, I can, for a split second, become irrationally mad. Some might say slightly psychotic. It’s an inward manifestation that lasts only a few seconds, but that few seconds contains the anger of twenty illegal wars. Few are privy to that information.

Few things, though, I’ve realised, irritate me quite as much as motivational slogans. You know the ones: “greatness is within”, “to believe is to achieve”, “overcome the obstacles before they overcome you” etc.. You can pretty much make them up. All of them are meaningless, all of them are stupid, and some are even potentially dangerous..

The first slogan is what actually inspired this blog update. I’ve suffered from a bad back of late, my nocturnal photoshop activities combined with a woeful piece of shit folding computer chair have led to me developing a posture akin to what can only be imagined as a 90 year old man indiscreetly thumbing through newsagent pornography (just to clarify, I’ve undertaken only the posture and appearance of this apocryphal wrong’un, not the activities; I shop online). Just imagine that kind of sloping, Notre Dame-esque posture, remove the seedy raincoat, slap some underpants on, and you have accurately conceptualised me as I write this now.

Being a man of action, I believed I could achieve my dream of a Queens Guard brace, and immediately set about the task of correcting my attenuated gait.

In a moment of brilliant clarity, I threw that fucking chair in the bin and went and bought myself one of those inflatable balls–the kind you see in every gymnasium. My massage therapist had previously recommended one to me, and since his idea of spinal correction was essentially 30 minutes of unbearable wincing agony, of which he then dealt the final deathblow by charging me thirty quid, I decided that this initial outlay of £14.99 was naught but a flutter.

I took the ball home, momentarily sneering at the bin which held the offending chair, and opened the packaging. The ball, like everything, came with a CD. Why does everything come with a CD these days? What is going to be on this CD that isn’t immediately apparent having made a cursory inspection of the ball, which is nothing more than a piece of deflated rubber with a hole in it? What is this CD going to teach me? I bet it’s blank.

Anyway, on the CD was the slogan “GREATNESS IS WITHIN”

Fuck me… Assuming the slogan wasn’t referring to the greatness that could be found within the CD, I have to really point out how low we are setting the bar for ourselves these days..

Let’s picture the scene..

A humble stay-at-home mother, who, for an uncountable amount of years has put her children first, and as a result, has a big arse. She knows change is on the cards, so she sheepishly heads up to Argos and potters over to the catalogue, where she fingers through the fitness section. She can’t fit a multi-gym in her home, and doesn’t know what to do with a set of free weights, so, faced with little option, she purchases a fitness ball. Heading home, she promises herself that she’ll stay motivated, that she’ll do sit ups and crunches every single day until her belly and bum are but distant private cringes never to be uttered aloud again. She doesn’t believe it, mind you, deep down she knows she’ll keep it up for a week before it bores her senseless, and ultimately ends up in the loft with her ab-blaster and her StairMaster.

But the fitness ball has a trick up it’s sleeve…

Tearing open the packaging with a rare vigour, the CD goes flying across the room. She picks it up, immediately focusing on that very slogan…

GREATNESS IS WITHIN

She pauses for a few seconds while it sinks in. The camera switches views, her eyes rise and look forward with a steely gaze. That’s when the music starts..

DU-NA DUN DUN DUN
DUN DUN DUN
DUN DUUN DUNNNNNNNN
It’s the, eye of the tiger…

What a load of shit. Incidentally, and I must digress again, the ball actually came with it’s own pump. I assume the pump is to blow smoke up my arse in the event that the stupid slogan fails to do so.

Nobody ever achieved greatness with this fucking ball. It’s a lump of grey rubber. It’s not even an interesting colour. It’s the least inspirational colour you could possibly choose. Paint some bloody flames on it or something..

What adjectives are left to describe the hyper-achievements in life, when “greatness” can be unlocked with a few sit ups?

Alexander The Really Awesome, just doesn’t sound right.

And that is what pisses me off about motivational slogans. They cheapen everything else around them in the futile attempt to build confidence in people who don’t need it.

Another of my favourites is “pain is weakness leaving the body”.

No, no it’s not. Pain is an evolutionary defense system that compels us to withdraw from or avoid whatever activity is creating the sensation. Pain doesn’t make you stronger, in fact, it’s quite the opposite. That is the entire premise behind torture.

Nobody in Abu Ghraib ever said “HAHA, with every volt that courses through my testicles, I grow STRONGER!”

No no no.

So yeah, motivational slogans are bollocks.

In a rare twist, the picture accompanying this blog update is actually related to the update, how cool is that? The link is tenuous, but I’ll explain in a sec.. The person above is Nick Chapman, a good friend of mine, and my most recent client. He is the creator and owner of Fight Science, a personal training organisation with a few tricks that separate it from the rest of the bodies out there. Nick applies the latest in scientific sports technology to accurately measure the physical abilities of his clients, and then uses that same technology to chart their progress in a way that allows them to see where they’re benefiting from the training. Some of his equipment really is excellent.

Nick is also a fighter, and the two pictures above were taken ahead of his first professional bout in July.

Don’t let the tattoos and extremely offensive mouth protection fool you. Nick is switched on, intelligent, and extremely knowledgeable when it comes to training. Anyone looking to correct their posture should throw that fucking ball in the bin and give him a call.

Oh, I forgot.. The inspiration for this update came when I posted “I hate motivational slogans” on Facebook, and Nick replied with a couple to make fun of me. I then realised I had something to write about. This was about 40 minutes ago, just in case you ever got the impression that I actually spent time coming up with this crap.

Ta-ta Mademoiselles!

This is Lillesden School for Girls in Kent. Originally a private residence built in 1855 by the banker Edward Lloyd, it was sold after The Great War and turned into Bedgebury Girls Public School where it played host to myriad games of pattycake and hopscotch until finally closing in 1999 and reopening seconds later as a joyous little deathtrap for explorers like me.

This building nearly took my life, were it not for the steely British pluck I have alluded to in previous updates, I may very well have not been here to write this today.

I speak of course, of floorboards. It’s been my experience for some time now, that one thing liable to spell certain death to an explorer is a rotten floorboard. Few things define ‘trepidation’ like purposefully sliding your feet inch by inch across a room while the entire floor sags and strains under your quivering clodhoppers. Dodgy floors are pretty much par for the course in these buildings, because the everlasting truth about Urbex is that no matter how early you discover a new site, Gypsies will have been there first, and the roof will have left with them.

For years to follow, the infinite British rain pours through the hole left by wily Romanies, beating mercilessly down on the woodworm-infested oak floorboards until they are little stronger than that shitty cardboard thing McDonald’s mockingly try to pass off as a drinks holder. There the water-sodden boards wait to claim their first victim.

Having already received a warning about the state of floors in this place, I was proceeding with some caution. Extra caution again was being taken, as I’d happened across a fellow walking his dog within the grounds of the school who had warned me of entering the building, and told of a swarthy fellow who had fallen to his death only two years ago whilst trying to liberate the roof of its few remaining slates.

So there I was on the third floor, making my way carefully across a room, when the worst case scenario occurred. As I was making a large footstep to move over a particularly dodgy looking piece of damp, my leg pierced the floorboards like a skewer through meat. Luckily, luckily, as I was taking a footstep at the time, I had transferred most of my weight to my front leg, and as my back leg punctured the floor up to my knee, I was able to step out of the hole and proceed to calmly and safely urinate myself.

I continued the explore for as long as possible, but left soon after, because in the echoey vastness of this empty building, my own pitiful whimpering was, frankly, doing my head in. It is, however, a testament to my unyielding adamantine chutzpah that I was able to continue exploring those extra 35 seconds at all.

Ta Ta Ragazzas!

That is a picture of a moo cow. You can tell it’s a cow by the way it looks. Just got back from a two day getaway to Dorset. Weather was lovely, did lots of walking, etc..

We stayed in a small town called Lulworth which is just on the coast near Durdle Door. I took quite a few shots from the trip, but unfortunately, most of the landscape shots occured during midday, which anyone will tell you is a bit crap for landscaping, on account of the sun being directly overhead. Dorset has some of the most beautiful countryside I’ve ever seen in my life. Spectacular rolling hills that give way to endless crystal clear blue water. In the height of summer, it must be an amazing place for a getaway. I’ll definitely go back at some point. Dorset also, rather inexplicably, has Hoodies. I saw groups of roaming youths dressed like Moss Side truants randomly wandering this otherwise idyllic town. It looked a bit out of place amongst the infinite amount of old people and never ending lines of children exiting coaches on School trips. It was a bit odd. There can’t have been anywhere selling Adidas for 40 miles, but these kids obviously had some good contacts.

Dorset also has cows randomly dotted everywhere. That is a Dorset cow.

I’m going to say Dorset one more time for SEO purposes.

Thanks (Dorset).

I shot a wedding recently, my last one, as a matter of fact. I don’t need the money anymore, and to be honest, I find them way too stressful. I don’t mind pressure, but weddings cause emotional pressure, which isn’t very conducive to a normal sleeping pattern in the run up to the big day.

And so I dedicate this blog post to anyone who shoots weddings for a living–you are a better man or woman than I (Definitely a better man, though I do look great in a dress).

Wedding photography, is, pressure wise, the photographic equivalent of invasive surgery. Were it not for my steely spirit and stalwart British resolve, I very well may have floundered during this most recent yomp through the salt mines.

Imagine, if you will, the myriad nuances that go into a successful wedding shoot. At the beginning we have the Bride and the Groom. Their day is to be celebrated by them and their family and documented by the photographer in a way that is (generally) in keeping with whatever wedding fantasy the Bride had when she was 12. They’ve looked at your photographs, and they like your “style”. Job booked; deposit paid–Let’s get drunk!

I arrived at the church early, since I know the importance of giving yourself enough time to set your equipment up. I had been there a few minutes when a lady arrived and introduced herself as the verger. I gave her a warm smile and informed her that I was the photographer for the day.

“Not during the service, I hope?”

“wha?”

I’d imagine there was some Christian bravado on her part for this (Possibly the same bravado that put 50,000 woman to death during the middle ages for the crime of photography, er, I mean witchcraft), but I just couldn’t help feeling slightly unwelcome. I couldn’t be bothered to argue, since I knew there was nay ‘a chance in Old Nick’s boudoir that she would, or even could, stop the service. Still, were it not for my aforementioned British moxie, I may very well have had cause for insult.

More from her later.

Cue the guests arriving, cur everyone else, blah blah, cue the British rain, the British cold, and cue that most rare and beautiful celestial phenomenon–thick gray clouds. Wonderful, we officially have a wedding!

The service went off without a hitch. The Bride entered through the door looking radiant and immaculate; the Groom didn’t scrub up too badly either. I was situated at the back of the church in the shadowy recesses behind the organist, and there I stayed, purposefully snapping away, being sure to conserve my battery and memory cards for the day that lay ahead.

The Bride and Groom had just been officially married, and were kneeling at the alter in receipt of their blessing, when the verger approached me again. Now, before I write the dialogue that occurred between us, note that I was tucked in between two rows of seats, in semi darkness, not moving an inch, completely silent, and invisible to everyone, since they were 15 feet in front of me with their backs showing.

She approaches and takes a seat directly over me. She continued talking in a whisper, her manner suggested that she was merely picking up where we left off previously…

“But why must you take so many pictures?

“That was the wrong answer”, she replied, getting up and walking back to sit behind the organist…

My devilishly seductive personality be damned, I had a slight inkling that this lady didn’t like me! Me! I wondered upon my fate, were this to have happened back when the clergy manned the gallows; I closed my eyes and imagined the red hot embers tickling my feet as I thanked God for the Enlightenment, not forgetting to note the irony.

The Bride and Groom were now Mr and Mrs Groom, and everyone was happy, smiles filled the church from all vantage points, and the newlyweds lead the Bridesmaids out into the Church courtyard. Aside from the ego-maniacal rantings of a hysterical verger, the entire service appeared to have gone off without a hitch. My camera had obeyed the laws of incidence, and my settings appeared to have been in order.

And therein lies my problem with wedding photography….

But what it hadn’t obeyed, and what if the settings were wrong?

Think of all the things that need to be in order before you take a shot. What is your shutter speed? What is your aperture? Can you shoot handheld in this light at a low enough ISO to hold a clean file? Are you using a long lens, and if so, is there enough light to increase the shutter speed to eliminate camera shake? Can you afford to shoot in AV or TV, knowing the metering system isn’t perfect?

Shit, the Bride’s walking up the church path. Is she framed correctly? Are you actually picking a shot, or are you shooting randomly? You’ve only got another three shots maximum before she’s right on you. Get a couple of portraits shots and go for a landscape shot to get some of the church in. Get ahead of her again to catch her coming into the church.. Shit, the lights changed. The church is far darker. What camera setting do you use in here? You’ve chosen manual because it gives you the most control. You need a shutter speed of at least 1/100th to stop the camera from blurring faces. That means you’ve got to bump up the ISO, but ISO 2500 doesn’t create a very clean image, which means you won’t be able to increase the exposure in post-production without making the noise even worse. The exposure has to be as near perfect as it gets. The widest you can open the lens up to is f2.8, which means the depth of field is razor thin, still a lot softer than the f4.0 you were shooting with outside. Also, you have two cameras. The other camera is an older model. It doesn’t handle high ISO very well, and realistically, only 1600 is going to give you a usable image, but that means you’ve got to shoot at 1/40th. The Bride’s at the door, and you last tested the settings for this room an hour ago at 3pm. The light has changed, cloud has turned gray and the sun has moved lower in the sky. SHE’S IN THE ROOM, SHOOT SHOOT SHOOT. The Groom just looked back at her and smiled, but you know there’s no possible way you can handhold the camera at a high enough aperture to capture both of their faces in focus, they both have amazing expressions on their faces, which one do you pick? The focal depth means the other is going to be blurred beyond recognition. Every decision you make in situations like these are compromises. Meticulous planning and knowledge of your camera is the difference between giving the Bride and Groom a wonderful memory, or a mere snapshot of their big day.

Get any of this wrong, and you end up with a picture that’s too dark, a shot that’s too blurred, a scene that’s wrongly composed, sometimes even all three. Every time you click the shutter, it’s the one chance you have to give the couple a picture of the day they’ll remember for the rest of their lives. Often, aside from the craptastic happysnaps the aunts and uncles shoot on their sony handycams, your pictures will be their only lasting memory of this most auspicious event. What if you mess it up?

If you are getting into wedding photography, or you’ve toyed with the idea of starting a wedding photography business, bear these things in mind. For YOU it may be a business, but for the people who employ you, it’s a dream. A memory that will never fade. They are paying you to be perfect. To capture every single important moment of their day. When they open the book 40 years down the line, the day itself will have gone from their minds, and all that will remain to rebuild the memory are the photographs you took.

That’s too much responsibility for me…

The service was over, I’d taken the shots of the guests outside, and had the family pose for a big group shot in the garden. I walking back in the church to pick up the rest of my equipment to take to the reception area a couple of miles away. The Verger was in the Church when her phone rang. She fumbled with the handset and pressed the wrong button

“Sorry about that, I pressed the wrong button, it was the photographer’s fault!”

I shit you not..

Before I walked out, I turned to her and asked her if I was as bad as she assumed I’d be.

“I will admit, you were a lot better than the photographer yesterday”

A small victory.

“My camera isn’t as loud as your phone”, was the only mean thing I could think of saying. She was a nice lady really, we had a bit of a chat afterwards, and parted with smiles.

I don’t like shooting weddings, there’s too many unknowns. Too many ways to mess things up.

I make it sound like I didn’t have a good time, but I did. I really, really did. The couple who I watched get married are wonderful. You know, I mean seriously know, that they will be together forever. Both of them are lovely people, and I’m sure I’ll be seeing them for a drink in the future. It was a pleasure to see them wed, and an honour to be charged with documenting it. Also, I don’t think they read this blog, so none of this counts as sycophancy.

Ta Ta femmés!

Oh, and the shot from above is the last final shoot from the shoot with Marcus White, pictures twice below. New stuff to come.

And if you haven’t joined my facebook page, doing so would be much appreciated. Link below:

John Godwin Facebook Page

I can’t think of a blog update; my creative juices have been subdued of late. I’m not saying previous blog updates were great or anything, only that normally I have no problem talking utter nonense on this page.

But, I had to post these pictures, because I haven’t updated in a while. So yeah.