I felt a lot better today and I'm pleased to report that my cold has almost gone - hooray!.

The shoot with Amy went very well at the studio this morning and I tried to come up with three new looks based upon some lighting techniques I've been toying with lately. First we did some shots on the leather sofa based loosely on a Rankin picture from his book Beauty. For anyone new to photography Rankin is the new David Bailey and is very much the in-vogue photographer at the moment. I really like his work and his new book Beauty is well worth buying for inspiration and also it makes a great coffee table book.

Then we moved on to some shots on the white backdrop with a flash bounced off the rear wall to give a nice even fill and a flash with a small soft box over head to add some butterfly lighting effect. I like this technique (although I don't think it's a recognised method) as I find the bounced fill flash gives a nice light and even feel to the pictures whilst the over head soft box just adds some nice soft shadow under the tip of the nose (butterfly lighting!).

We then moved on to some rock chic shots against the white breeze block wall with a flash behind Amy bouncing off the wall behind her to bring a big highlight to her blonde hair and a main light on front fitted with a beauty dish. Again this is a technique I've made up and it works for me.

Lastly we did some shots of Amy smoking a ciggy against a black velvet backdrop with a main light overhead in front with a beauty dish and a flash behind to pick out her blonde hair and to edge light her black leather jacket.

After the shoot it took me 10 minutes to skid my car out of the car park and I finally headed off to my client meeting to discuss some creative ideas for some upcoming product photography.

You'd think a Volvo would be OK in the snow considering they're made in Sweden but mine is a real bugger in snow and slush and it slides all over the place even a really low speeds.

I've attached a shot of Amy from today's shoot.