30th Birthday at Burton Albion Stadium

I was commissioned to cover a 30th Birthday Party at the Burton Albion Football stadium, which is just down the road from me. Quite a handy location really. It was a very relaxed party, but the kids were running around and loved making “swooshy” motion-blur photos! I had them all running at me with a wide-angle lens on, and on top of that they were pulling faces too which was great fun!
The Birthday girls’ Husband, Kev is a well-known local tiler and I invited him along to our BNI chapter. He loved the meeting and the whole BNI concept, but unfortunately couldn’t meet the commitment. Shame really as he’s quite a character!

Image Tiles / Pattern Maker

Maybe I’m missing something, perhaps being a bit dumb. I’ve never used the ‘Pattern Maker’ tool in Photoshop with any degree of success. I always presumed it was for making an image that when tiled would fit seamlessly together, for making backgrounds and the like.

Well, it sort of does. But, the image gets stirred around a bit. Quite a lot actually. If the image is important then this tool [unless I'm missing something!] is pretty much useless…

So, I had to spend a wee while in Photoshop masking and rubber-stamping to make this a tile-able image, and it now graces the background of Esteban’s MySpace page at http://www.myspace.com/estebanuk

I always LOVE a challenge

Load of Balloony

We covered the walls, ceiling and floor of the rehearsal room for the shooting of ‘Deep Breath’. We were glad of all the tungsten lighting because it was bloomin’ freezing. Seriously, it was snowing outside!

The video is in post production and already looks ace. Woohoo!

Oh, and the EP is now available on iTunes, which is nice

Hats off to Red!

Chris Redshaw from Revolver Revolver Ltd wins this week’s “Best 60 second presentation” award from the Dove Valley chapter of BNI..!

He assured us all that he has attempted to grow his own moustache, but the false one has more appeal. And it’s quicker to remove – rip, ouch!

Marston Weddings – new website

This has been in the pipeline for some time now, but the busy period up to Christmas was relentless. The hibernation period afterwards though was ideal for planning, designing, tweaking and thinking!!

We’re pleased with the look and feel of the site and it has been warmly received. I’m grateful to everyone whom has commented and offered suggestions during its build – thanks!

It’s still not finished though: We have to test, measure and adjust, and of course update the content as well as add a few links to strategic partners such as John Felix of http://www.foreverfilms.co.uk/

Head Chef Colin with a drawing of him

Head Chef Colin with a drawing of him, originally uploaded by CraigMarston.

One of the delegates, Paulene Allett, on Colin’s cookery demo drew a sketch of him which I thought was pretty darn good!

That’s Colin smiling by the way..!

Cookery Demo at the Old Vicarage, Branston

Cookery Demo at the Old Vicarage, Branston, originally uploaded by CraigMarston.

Pascal shows the freshly-made brandy-snap basket to delegates on the Cookery Demo at the Old Vicarage.

Colin made the mix and popped it into the oven on some sort of metal disc. It only needed a few minutes before he took it out and it resembled a large thin biscuit. It was quite soft, so he carefully draped it over a small upturned stainless-steel cup, allowing its own weight to flow down around the cup. When it had set, it was a little basket to hold the parfait – yum!!

Diners at The Old Vicarage

Diners at The Old Vicarage, originally uploaded by CraigMarston.

Candle-lit meal for two at the award-winning ‘Pascal at the Old Vicarage’ restaurant in Branston, Burton upon Trent. Sharon and Duncan model in photographs for Pascal’s new website, and they got to eat some great food too!!

It’s been great working with Pascal and Internet Essentials on this project as Duncan (different Dunc!) the designer is also deeply passionate about his job so we have a great synergy. Duncan and I were able to discuss ideas and Pascal was happy to leave us to create a fantastic product for him, which is nice

It goes without saying that Pascal, and his team, are passionate about what they do. They wouldn’t have been awarded Best Restaurant in Staffordshire if they weren’t! It’s great to be around people like that.

Very silly & very camp & very funny dancing!

Estedancing

While we were adjusting what lighting we had (with tin-foil etc.) on the film-set for Esteban’s Deep Breath music video, Andrew was positioning his camera for the best crop and angle. Obviously he needed someone in front of the backdrop to do this, and as the dancers hadn’t arrived yet Liam, Stephen and Ricky helped him out..!

I’m in a balloon room

I’m in a balloon room, originally uploaded by CraigMarston.

Well, this is me, taken by Muel just to show I was there really. Although, like everyone else I have a sore finger and thumb from tying several hundred balloons!!

This set was primarily for the video which is currently being edited by Andrew Corr. Behind-the-scenes footage by yours truly is available at www.youtube.com/estebantv

I didn’t actually take many stills throughout the day as I was concentrating on the lighting for the video, which was after all my primary task and we only had the lighting rigs for the weekend. Kindly provided by a lad known as ‘Vicar’…