Hey, I'm Marc, it's really nice to meet you!

I thought I’d say hello so you know who I am.

I know what it’s like when you search for things online and you’re faced with a brand name, a name of a business and you’re left wondering who’s behind it (quite honestly, it infuriates me). My brand name is One Big Picture Photography, but behind that is little old me, the guy you’ll meet when I take your photographs.

I chose the name so long ago now (2004 to be precise) that it’s kinda stuck. From time to time I’ve toyed with the idea of changing it to my actual name, but here we are still under the banner of One Big Picture. But I think photography can be such a personal thing, especially a wedding. So I wanted you to know my name and see who I am. For reassurance? Who knows? For peace of mind? Not sure. But hopefully it’ll help you put a face to the brand name so you know who exactly who it is you’re getting in touch with when you get in touch.

Image by Rosie Woodhouse (a good friend of mine who happens to be a photographer)

Image by Kristin Sharp (another good friend of mine who is a photographer)

Choose your attitude

Sometimes we wake up feeling crap about ourselves which then rubs off on to the day ahead and we end up having a crap day. We have a crap day because we woke up thinking we were going to have a crap day.

Sometimes we wake up with a spring in our step with a huge can do attitude and we have a kick ass day where we're extremely productive achieving two days work in just one day.

A long long time ago in my corporate blue chip company days, I remember doing one of 'those' courses/workshops. But what it taught me has stuck with me ever since. When you wake up in the morning, you have to choose your attitude. By doing so, it will directly influence the type of day you'll have.

Now I'm always extremely sceptical of all that kind of jazz, but it's true. Sometimes if you wake up feeling crap, by taking five minutes out of your morning routine and choosing you attitude, you can sometimes overcome all the negativity and turn it into a positive.

Don't get me wrong, even I have down days. And when I do, I tend to be quiet online, keep myself to myself and just battle on through, because when you're self employed you just have to. I'm an extremely positive person, but sure, I have down days. You can't possibly be positive all of the time. I have rants. I have moans. But I try and moan a little less than I used to these days, refusing to become a stereotypical 'grumpy old man'!

Most of the time though, I try my best to remain positive about things. And whenever I'm feeling positive about myself and what I'm doing, I think it's really important to rub some of that positivity off on to somebody else. Because everybody could use some positivity from time to time.

So if you're feeling a little low today, due to the weather, due to life's problems, due to whatever the hell has landed at your feet today unexpectedly, don't worry. Either have a down day and go and hide yourself away and come back fighting tomorrow, or choose your attitude to overcome today.

Yesterday I took photos of lots of cats. So below, you have 'grumpy cat' and you also have 'get out of my face' cat. You can be either, nobody will mind.

Happy Friday everyone.

Make yourself a cuppa, the blog is back!

In the past 10 months lots of you have started following me on social media and/or taken a look on my website. In other words, you're probably new to One Big Picture Photography. For everybody else, you may remember that I used to blog about everything! Yes, it's been a whole 10 months since I wrote a blog, crikey!

A lot has happened in the last 10 months and one of the main reasons the blogging came to an abrupt halt is because we lost a member of our family. It was something that changed everything and it had a huge knock on effect to this little business that you see here. It was hard enough to keep it going let alone find the time to write blogs for you all to enjoy.

In October I made the massive and risky decision to shut my website down, for a month! A photographer without a website is just plain ridiculous and that was me. I decided to change everything, out with the old and in with the new and all that jazz. And so, on 30 November 2014 at precisely 8pm, I launched a brand new website and you could say, a brand new me. A whole new look and feel. At that precise time, going live with the new site was one of the scariest things I've done in recent times. Looking back, I realise it was because I had built it up so much in the days leading up to that night, expectations were high, but the rewards were plenty.

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And here we are, finally, a brand new location for my blog, my ramblings and my sheer delight and being able to share with you my latest pieces of work. I've wanted to launch this for so many months now and do you know what was holding me back? Something so silly, so trivial and one of those mountains you build up in your head that really are nothing but a tiny hill. I'd originally planned to migrate my entire collection of former blog posts and place them here in the archives for you to look back on. But in an instant of spontaneous and combustive insanity, I thought what the hell, I'm just going to start afresh, from scratch and from the very beginning where you have a blank sheet of paper and a pen (or a keyboard, a screen and some fingers).

What you can expect

I'm going to try and write a blog at least once a week but hopefully more. I want blogging to become like second nature to me. For those of you who follow me on Facebook, you'll know that I post there, a lot. But I want the blog to be so much more.

I'll make every effort to blog about absolutely every piece of work I do, be it a wedding, a pre-wedding shoot, a Lifestyle family shoot or some of the amazing small businesses I work with.

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In between sharing with you my latest work, I'm going to try and write about things that are important to me that I think you'll enjoy. My family, my kids, our adventures or just life in general and whatever takes my fancy. Why? Because I was, I am and I could be your photographer. But behind that camera? I'm me. Marc, a human being, a good old laugh a guy who is just like you. And I always get to know everyone I work with a little bit more, either before, during or after the shoot. So why shouldn't you get to know me a bit better too? If you haven't already, I can highly recommend you take a look at 'My Story' to give you a head start.

So sit back, make yourself a cuppa and enjoy because the blog is most definitely back!