KidsCan Campaign 2010

We're thrilled to announce our charity fund-raising offer for 2010. This year we're supporting KidsCan, the children's cancer charity based at Salford University.

The offer works like this : for just a £25.00 donation to KidsCan you'll receive a gift invitation for a Michael Turner photoshoot plus £75.00 towards your order. Now that's an offer you can't refuse! You can download an application form from the KidsCan website www.kidscan.org.uk or contact the studio for more information. http://www.kidscan.org.uk/?pid=72

Smile for St. Ann's

A huge THANK YOU to the families that contributed to our Smile for St Ann's campaign over the past eighteen months. Together we raised well over two and a half thousand pounds for the Heald Green based hospice. Like many worthy causes the hospice relies totally on charitable donations and their running costs are colossal. Every little helps! St Ann's do a fantastic job for the community and most people know someone who has been touched by the amazing care and support they provide. Their web site is http://www.sah.org.uk/

Each participating family received a family lifestyle photoshoot that they'd "been meaning to get around to for ages"!. A tiny selection of the images :

And finally....pull the other one!

Circus with a Purpose

I was privileged recently to photograph the touring charity Circus Starr. The organisers gave me freedom to roam which was a great for candids during the warm-up and informal portraits. That said, the lighting backstage consisted of one glaring spotlight, which was challenging to say the least. I didn't want to destroy the atmosphere with flash, so I shot at 800 iso on my Nikon D200s with Nikkor 105 VR and Sigma 30mm f1.4 lenses.

Circus Starr tour the country every summer doing charity big top circus events to raise money for local charities. They do a fantastic job and the circus is brilliant fun. You can visit their web site at http://www.circus-starr.co.uk/ On this occasion they were raising money for St Ann's Hospice in Heald Green, a charity that we at Michael Turner Photography have worked closely with over the past couple of years.

Argentinian gaucho Gabriel...

Bring on the clowns....Duo Delbosque

Duo Delbosque entertained with this comedy western...Ouch!

Well the audience ceratinly enjoyed it.....who said the circus was only for kids!

Be Happy!

At a business meeting recently I attended a seminar by Debra Stevens from Sold Out Trainers in Milton Keynes. Entitled Red Dirt, in recognition of the fact that once the red soil of Africa gets under your finger nails you are hooked for life, the seminar wasn't about business as such, but about what she has learned from setting up a children's charity in Gambia, http://www.schools4schools.co.uk/ Debra's theme was simply that in the UK we live life at such a fast pace that we lose sight of the simple things that make us happy - friends and family, appreciation of the beauty in the things around us and time for relaxation and contemplation. We're always planning ahead and rushing on to the next thing. What Debra soon realised on her trips to Gambia was that the African people live for the present, and even though they don't have the material things that we in the Western world have, they really apreciate and enjoy what they do have. Amusingly she pointed out that children under 3 live that way too, it's only as we get older that we learn to worry about everything. Dogs live in the here and now too.....and if our dog Tara is anything to go by they never grow up!
Debra's best suggestion was to stop watching the news and reading the papers - it's always too depressing and they only tell us the bad news. Instead you can try http://www.positivenews.com/ where bad news is banned.
Keep smiling!