Shooting For: Total Ales

Some of you may know, I cohabitate with a silly man who writes about beer. That is right, gentle readers, he drinks beer - then he writes long and quite eloquent passages about its "mouth-feel" and "aroma". I can't quite work out how it happened, but it is his hobby. I take photographs, he drinks - sorry - writes about - beer.

He is actually quite good though and this month has just had a magazine that he wrote a lot of words for come out in the shops. The shops!

As we cohabitate, I am generally here when he is doing the drinking part of this hobby, so he kindly asked me to take over the photograph taking part of his blog, Total Ales.

I've only done a few so far, but its quite fun.  Sometimes, he even lets me drink the beer. I'm looking forward to seeing how many creative ways one can take photographs of beer - hopefully I'll get to go on some interesting day trips (pub crawls) in the future.

If you like "craft beers", you can follow Matthew on Twitter, Instagram and of course, enjoy my photographs whilst reading his blog. The magazine he contributed to (pictured above) is available in paper form from WH Smith and digitally online.

Oh Squirrel Christmas Shoot

It all got a little bit early Christmas in my little flat last weekend while I had a wonderful time shooting stock for Oh Squirrel, my favourite, hilarious stationery store. I've shot stock for, and blogged about Oh Squirrel before, but I wanted to show off some of the wonderful new things Katie has created for the Christmas season.

Cute decorations, gift bags made from old, old books, hilarious greetings cards -

Look at these notebooks!

These travel card cases are the perfect stocking filler you guys, get me one?

As well as new Christmassy things, Katie has been busy working on her frightfully successful custom Bridal and Hen Party line. If you are getting married you should give her a call fo sho.

Katie will be hocking her wares down at Renegade this weekend in case you want to see her face and buy her things. Which you should.

If anyone else out there is looking for some help with photographs for their etsy store (I know I was when I made jewellery before I discovered how to do it properly), give me a shout! I'm happy to help and don't charge much. Also, its hellz fun.

Also don't forget, you can follow the blog/store on Facebook for regular updates and secret sneak peeks.

Harringay Market in Autumn.

I spent almost every Sunday afternoon in September this year taking photographs down at the ever wonderful Harringay Market.

I drank nice coffee and ate nice pasta.

I marvelled at this Autumn's magnificent harvest.

I discovered cronuts and met some nice dogs.

I enjoyed many new cheeses.

And meats.

And other treats.

(I think these guys did too.)

And so should you!

It was such a pleasure shooting for them (and taking over their instagram account!) and I think this Sunday I will visit again for some pumpkin flavoured cakes.

Harringay Market
Every Sunday 10-3
South Harringay School
Mattison Road, N4.
@harringaymarket

Harringay Market

These are all a bit out of date now, but it seemed a shame to not share the rest of the photographs from my day spent shooting (and eating) at Harringay Market back in the colder months of this year.

Portuguese delights from Silmar's Taste

Bell & Brisket make incredible salt beef sandwiches, if you ever fancy a reuben may I direct you here.

I'm pretty fussy about what meat I eat, and am over the moon to have found a proper meat supplier who can tell me all about their animals and how they live. Also, Marsh Produce are so much more affordable than the supermarket.

The freshest of freshly made pasta from Pasta e Basta.

They're adorable, lovely, and they sell incredible chocolate.

Harringay Market runs every Sunday from 11-3pm at South Harringay School, Mattison Road N4 1BD.

Meet the People @ Harringay Market - O Toma O Morte

Tell me a bit about your business, how long has your business been running, and how did it start?

One night involving a lot of drinking, three Scandinavian beauties and a piece of Grasso D'Alpe cheese we made a lifelong pact – O Toma O Morte  – its about three years later and its going well

O Toma O Morte - what does it mean! 
Cheese or death (Toma is a traditional type of Piedmont cheese)

Are there any other foodie markets people can visit you at in London if they can’t make it to Harringay?

Thu Berwick St Soho, Fri Lower Marsh Waterloo, Saturday North London Artisan Market Sunday Chatsworth Road & Harringay plus Shepherd markets bimonthly Weds in One New Change St Pauls & 55 Baker Street. 

I love that you guys source your cheese from smaller, independent producers. Where are most of these based, tell me a bit about some of them!
We'd like to mention here our friend the maverick cheese maker John Bourne at HS Bourne, whose Cheshire cheeses we stock date back to 1750. He's a true cheenius & his products are mindblowing.

Any other favourite markets anywhere else IN THE WORLD? 

Thieves market in Lisbon and la Boqueria in Barcelona. And this insane antiques place made entirely of wood in Moscow (can't remember the name).

Do you have any favourite small businesses you want to sing about from the rooftops?
Judy Wu is our work-neighbour, a young fashion designer is one of the nicest people we've met. Neil at Clean Bean in brick lane makes some of the best tofu in the world. JP at the Franconian Sausage company in Bermondsey & Luca of Pico salame represent London's new wave of gourmet charcuteries. Our soho neighbours Pizza Pilgrims are a nice bunch of chaps.

AND FINALLY - lay out your ideal cheese plate for me. What is on there, when would you serve it, and what would you drink with it.

Aha. Well, it depends on your needs, palate, guests, all that stuff. BUT generally we'd have an evening spent with some White Cheshire, Michael and Mary Davenport's Cote Hill blue, seasonal caprini from Piedmont, our special Gorgonzola dolce & some aged pecorino should do the job with a few bottles of Cotes du Rhone or Nebbiolo, a record player, some bits of paper to do origami in between mouthfuls and a selection of interesting degenerate nitwits for good conversation.

O Toma O Morte can be found on FACEBOOK and TWITTER

And of course every Sunday at Harringay Market.

You can see more in this series HERE!