Looking back on 2025 and plans for the New Year

For this last show of 2025, Steve and Nick look back on 2025 and their respective year of professional photography. They also pay tribute to Martin Parr, who passed away recently, with Steve sharing personal reflections including a much treasured photo Martin took of Steve's now late brother at the Black Country Living Museum.  The guys also discuss their plans for 2026, before the obligatory Christmas Quiz. 

The Black Country Living Museum https://bclm.com/

Martin Parr's photograph of Steve's Brother https://www.instagram.com/p/DRPq8LhEauk/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

Transcript

Steve Vaughan (00:01.134)
 So hello again to the photography part with me, Steve Vaughan and my good mate, Nick Church. Nick, how are you, sir?

Nick Church (00:14.681)
Great. Thank you, Steve. Yeah. Looking forward to, um, well, I say looking forward to a break over Christmas, but there is no such thing as though, or maybe like one, one day, one day break. Although we are going away between Christmas and New Year for a couple of days. So, um, down to Thirlstone in Devon with Dawn's parents. So, um, yeah, so that that'd be a nice, a nice bit of downtime.

Steve Vaughan (00:20.204)
No, isn't. No, not when you work for yourself, is there? No. Yeah.

That's good to hear. You going somewhere nice?

Steve Vaughan (00:31.892)
lovely. Yeah. Good. It's important. think, we're not planning to do much. We're going to visit kids and things around the country and visit my sister and my elderly aunt up in Staffordshire where I'm from. We normally start the show with a bit of banter and a bit of mickey take and that's going to come, I'm sure. But I thought we'd perhaps start on a slightly more serious note or a more somber note it needs. And that is really just to note the fact that one of my photography heroes, Martin Parr, passed away.

last week. And I know he's probably more somebody that I've followed than perhaps yourself, Nick, but he was a Bristolian, of course. And he has the foundation of, you know, his charitable foundation in Bristol, which I guess isn't too far away from yourself really.

Nick Church (01:15.947)
No, it's the Martin Parr Foundation, yeah, in Paintworks in Bristol. Yes, that's got all of his archives, all of his photos and books and yeah, so it's definitely somewhere people should check out and go and visit.

Steve Vaughan (01:29.262)
Well, I've never been, although I am a member. I've been a member of the foundation for a couple of years. So I got into Martin Pahl's photography through Kevin Mullins, really, the well-known documentary, and Fuji, well, he was an ambassador not anymore. And I've absolutely loved Martin Pahl's photography. So he's got over hundred books published, of which I've got about six, well, exactly six in fact. 145. Wow.

Nick Church (01:40.707)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Church (01:51.468)
145, 145 books, yeah. Can you imagine, I'm still thinking, I think I could do a book one day. It's like, it's on 145, yeah.

Steve Vaughan (01:57.888)
Wow, 145. That's incredible. incredible. So the ones I've got here, the ones that there's two that are my particular favourite, which are personal collections, there's one just called The Black Country, which is my neck of the woods. And there's one just called Oxford and the Oxford one is very much a book, you know, showing the contrast between the town of the gown, as they say, you know, the university and the city really. But the Black Country one is one that's very close to my heart. And I wrote about this in the

Nick Church (02:20.515)
Mm.

Steve Vaughan (02:26.094)
the Facebook group recently. So my brother was a police officer and worked his way to inspect and retired when he was 50 because you can do that when you've got a police pension. And then went to work at the Black Country Museum, which is a open-air museum where they effectively rebuild like a Black Country Victorian town, although they have a 60s and 40s street there as well. And he used to dress up as a Victorian policeman.

Nick Church (02:27.513)
Right,

Nick Church (02:53.365)
Alright.

Steve Vaughan (02:55.446)
And he loved it. Yeah. And when Martin Parr was doing his piece on the black country, he took some photos there. And I only realized recently actually that the photo that I'd seen of my brother was taken by Martin Parr. it's in the photography group and the Facebook group, but basically it's my brother as a Victorian policeman looking off into the distance and all of these, all the kids sort of running around playing with him. This classic Martin Parr really.

Nick Church (03:24.419)
So very vibrant in colour, lots of, a touch of humour in there, but a social message as well, yeah.

Steve Vaughan (03:26.826)
And that's insane, isn't it? Absolutely. Yeah. Cause he kind of made the switch from black and white photography to colour in the mid eighties, I think, or the early eighties. And his colour photography is very vibrant, almost sort of turned to 11, if you know what I mean, on that really. But I was delighted. mean, that picture of Martin Paz, my brother's on my wall here, right opposite my office, cause my brother passed away a couple of years ago.

Nick Church (03:41.209)
Mm.

Nick Church (03:51.203)
Yeah, I bet.

Steve Vaughan (03:53.881)
But I was delighted to see it's actually going to be on the membership card for the foundation this year as well, which I must admit brought a tear to my eye. my personal favorite thing about Martin Parr actually isn't a photo, it's a video. So if you go on YouTube and I'll link to it in the show notes, there's a video he made of a very famous in the black country sweet shop called Teddy Graze. So you know the sweet shop used to go to any kids with all the jars. You used to get like, I know you're younger than me, but you must have had this.

Nick Church (03:58.326)
amazing. Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (04:23.49)
All the jars. Well, Teddy Graze is that kind of sweet shop. All of those black and true black country, black, current rhubarb and all those ones and yeah, brilliant stuff. So this factory's Teddy Graze is in Dudley and he, Martin Pile made a short video about 20 minutes in 2008 and it's brilliant to watch on YouTube because you see them like carrying this great big snake-like piece of rock across the factory and rolling it all out.

Nick Church (04:24.217)
We still have, yeah, I can remember that. you'd have your sherbet lemons in a jar and you'd ask for a quarter of pound of it.

Nick Church (04:36.323)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (04:53.154)
But the best bit is that the brother and sister that ran the company, descendants of the regional grey family, are in this office and they're absolutely surrounded by paper. I mean, you can't see anything for paper. they're going, and now forgive the accent, but I am from the Black Country so I can get away with it. And I can't remember which of them says it, but they're going, no, we don't need a fax machine. We don't got a computer either. No, don't need them at all. No, everything we need is here. We can find anything we need.

And it's so funny. it's classic Martin Parr. So if you get a chance to check it out,

Nick Church (05:23.257)
So within 35, within 45 minutes we can find anything we need in this office.

Steve Vaughan (05:28.878)
Well that's what they claim. So brilliant stuff. Loved it and know very sad to see one of your photography heroes move on.

Nick Church (05:38.47)
no doubt. And did Martin Pard do much work with off-camera flash, or was it mostly natural light?

Steve Vaughan (05:44.175)
I think he did a lot of flash work. think kind of Bruce Gildan kind of vibes really. If you see again, there lots of videos you can find of him. I'm not anywhere near a Martin Carr expert. Kevin would be the better example there. But you can see pictures and videos of him with a Gary Fong-like diffuser on top of a flash gun going everywhere with that really. I don't think he... He was a documentary photographer. I don't think he ever tried to hide the fact that he was taking pictures of people. I think he interacted with people.

Nick Church (06:03.993)
Well, okay. Yeah. All right.

Nick Church (06:11.221)
No, it's from what I've seen it. That was his part of part of his process was to be very upfront, get people not to smile at the cameras. His only kind of interaction really was to tell people not to smile because he wanted much more interesting portraits and people smiling. And then, you know, and he would look for these scenes and get really quite close in and get, get that life in there. The there's the, if people are looking for video as well, there's that documentary last year, which is on the BBC I player. And that's supposed to be very good. So that's definitely on my list. I might even watch that tonight.

Steve Vaughan (06:15.564)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (06:20.888)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (06:27.811)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (06:36.556)
Yeah, it's wonderful. Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (06:41.098)
Yeah, I guess unfortunately for not in the UK, won't be able to watch that unless you've got a VPN or some sort. yeah, so yeah, sad day, but lots of photographic memories to look back on on thousands and thousands and thousands of images for sure.

Nick Church (06:44.109)
That's true.

Nick Church (06:54.169)
I wonder what happened to the, I presumably the foundation will continue as it is for its benefit. Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (06:58.979)
It's a charitable trust, I think. So yes, I think it will. Yeah, I think it will. Well, I'm sure it will. So yeah, as I say.

Nick Church (07:04.185)
They're looking for a couple of trustees at the moment, so if anyone's interested. Yeah, for somebody with photography knowledge and business and finance skills as well that's got a bit of time that would like to get on board and sort of work from within that organization.

Steve Vaughan (07:07.377)
is that right?

Steve Vaughan (07:19.732)
In the words of Meatloaf, two out of three ain't bad. I've got the photography knowledge and the business knowledge, but I don't have as the time, Otherwise, I'd love to do that. You haven't got time, no. Not with the Academy and everything else. So what else are we going to talk about? So obviously it is the end of the year. So it's a time of year when people look back and look forward. So photographically, Nick, business-wise as well, was 2025 a good year for you? Has it been a good year for you?

Nick Church (07:24.761)
So it's a shame I got time, but the others know, and I've got the time actually.

Nick Church (07:48.601)
It has been a very good year in terms of fulfilling more long-term goals and setting up the Academy. Nitro-H Creative Academy was being something on the cards for a long, long time. And we were planning to do it back in before COVID and then, it was, it was going to move more towards tours and things like that, you know, sort of that kind of thing. Then COVID hit and there's no travel. we just sort of knocked it on the head and it came back to life late last year. about this time last year, I decided, right, I'm going to do it next year. I'm going to, um,

Steve Vaughan (08:17.849)
So if anybody hasn't listened to previous episodes, just explain Nick what it is, what it is you've been working on.

Nick Church (08:21.849)
So the Academy is, is as a result of doing quite a lot of in-person one-to-one and group coaching for photographers on Lightroom and photography and flash and things like that. And there's, there was a few things that the websites that it was all hosted on, which is my photography website. was kind of not great kind of from a branding perspective, cause was sort of a sub area of the website. So I did want it to be a bit more front and center. Also the Squarespace website doesn't support online courses. And that was something that I was really passionate about creating.

Steve Vaughan (08:48.69)
I didn't know that. Okay. Yeah.

Nick Church (08:50.669)
or it does, but it's not really geared up for that. know, you could probably make it work, but I think if you want a premium offering and you want to make it look as slick as possible, you know, like Netflix type experience, then you dedicated platforms. So I moved all over there, so still all the same stuff in terms of the one-to-one coaching and group stuff, but there's mentoring. there's, there's subscriptions and things that you just can't do in these other platforms. It's a, you know, a platform designed for online education, basically.

but yeah, so it supports natively online courses and having really good quality video courses structured and that kind of thing. And there's, cause I was finding as well that when I speak to beginners, there's a lot of, if they head to YouTube, you have to know either what you're looking for. So you know, what's a search for, you need to know what's search for to find it, which often you don't when you're starting out. Or there's a sea of content that's all unstructured and you don't have got no clue at what order to learn things. So.

Steve Vaughan (09:24.429)
Which is super important if people are paying for it, yeah.

Steve Vaughan (09:36.399)
Hmm.

Steve Vaughan (09:45.389)
Yeah.

Nick Church (09:45.945)
And if you had to Facebook and ask in a Facebook group, then basically put your hand over your ears and duck for cover because that's a pretty negative place. So it was to solve those. There's a community aspect as well. So all the members of the, of the Nick Church creative Academy, which is free to be a member, also get access to the community and, know, a place to sort of communicate and share images and get feedback. And I'm knocking about on there all the time, so I can sort of contribute as well.

Steve Vaughan (09:48.102)
damn go there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Not much.

Steve Vaughan (09:59.791)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Vaughan (10:08.983)
And I can vouch for that because I spent a bit of time in there as well. So yeah, brilliant. So it's a labor of love, but obviously it's a business venture as well.

Nick Church (10:16.057)
Yeah. So that, so that was a plus this year to get that up and running. I did do it really quickly in, in between, know, you get these natural lulls between our photography work. There's just time where things bunch together and things don't think it's caught the, um, cherry pie model in mathematics. If you put a of things into a, into a, um, cherry cake and bake it, the cherries will tend to club together. It's just random events tend to come together and there's big gaps of none at all.

Steve Vaughan (10:25.187)
Yeah, yeah.

Steve Vaughan (10:40.182)
okay.

Nick Church (10:42.615)
So in one of these big gaps with no cherries in, I designed this platform. what, what I didn't fully appreciate. Yeah. Well, what I didn't appreciate was the amount of effort it needed. And once I started, had, I had to do it and I want it to be the best quality, which is taking loads of time. You know, I could do it more quickly, but then it's not going to be as good. And it is something really, really proud of. So I wanted to do that, but it has taken a lot of effort to do that.

Steve Vaughan (10:46.031)
You

I'm sure we haven't dialed into bake-off by mistake.

Steve Vaughan (10:57.55)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (11:04.045)
Yeah. No.

Steve Vaughan (11:11.011)
But time will spend certainly, yeah.

Nick Church (11:12.343)
Yeah, yeah, no, feels so that feels really, really positive thing from this year. And I've loved that. Doing quite a few had quite a few wedding films this year. So film doing films is something that I don't do as often. I still don't shoot that many, but I do produce them. You know, the editing, all the coloring and grading, color grading and stuff. And I've got a few partners that work with me very, very generous, like film converts.

nitrates so that they provide their nitrate plugins for me free of charge. And their Cinematch plugin, which they've just given me as well is absolutely, it's such a time saver. What it does is you've got all your different camera sources. might have, let's say an Osmo Pocket in S-Log, you've got a camera in, let's say just plain, no profile and you've got another camera with S-Log 3, a Sony camera. Then what I used to do was put my film nitrate

Steve Vaughan (11:40.399)
Yeah. That's a super app. like using that. Yeah. Yeah.

Nick Church (12:07.489)
for the Sony cameras, drop that into the clips for Sony and then do get one for, because with film nitrate, you basically tell it what the camera you've got. You tell it what the format is S log and it will just convert everything and also apply a film look is brilliant. But yeah, with Cinematch, just do that, selecting the camera stuff on each clip. And then you just got one grade across the whole top, the look. it sort of consolidates all of your different sources into the same look. And then you just apply the look that you want with the film.

Steve Vaughan (12:20.675)
Yeah, that's right. I've got it. Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (12:36.961)
It's a super big bit of software. It's a great way of so in simplistic terms, it's a great way of making it look like you used one camera for everything really. You know, making your, I don't know, your A74 look like a Osmo Pocket 3 or probably the other way around actually. But yeah. And then as you say, putting a LUT on top of it, it's super. Remind me again what video software you're using. Is it Premiere? Okay.

Nick Church (12:37.011)
yeah, yeah, really good. A real time saver and.

Nick Church (12:45.815)
Yeah, totally, yeah.

Nick Church (12:54.892)
Mm, put it.

A bit of both. I get the timeline often created by a subcontractor that I use in the Philippines. he, he used to use his premier. So it comes back to the premium project. So I use that half the time for all the Academy stuff. I use final cut. Just, I don't know why I think initially I was more, okay. We final cut, but now I use them both as often as each other's, but I always use final cut for stuff.

Steve Vaughan (13:04.111)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (13:16.568)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (13:20.175)
I think Final Cut is, if you get into the Final Cut mindset of working, it's the quickest, think. Particularly in terms of ins and outs and all that stuff. The only problem I find with Final Cut is the file management. You're not careful. The library becomes enormous very quickly.

Nick Church (13:27.436)
I agree, yeah.

Nick Church (13:37.529)
You've got a bit of process around it. Not and leave the files where they are referenced and rather than, Whereas Premiere doesn't seem to do all of that. just, think it by default is just, it just references them rather than, you know, it sucks them into this great big monolithic library file, which before you know it, it's filled up your two gig drive, a two terabyte drive. Yeah. Yeah. I want to try that. Yeah. I've heard that's very good. I've heard good things about that.

Steve Vaughan (13:41.976)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (13:53.923)
Yeah, very quickly. Very quickly. Yeah. I tend to use Da Vinci these days to be honest as a, as like a best of both really. Yeah. But that's a, yeah, that's another story. So, so it's been a good year for, for yourself and anything you'd look, looking back, you think, I wish that would have been better or anything you'd have done differently or any, not regrets or such, anything disappointments perhaps or.

Nick Church (14:04.057)
Yeah, yeah, very good.

Nick Church (14:12.307)
Well, I think probably midway through the year was the point that we've talked about before in the pod about thinking I need to start doing some more photography just for me. So, know, to get that passion for actually for photography as an art form, rather than as a media that I'd earn from, know, which is quite a different thing. And I wish I'd done that a bit sooner. I think I should have kept that up. But with the Fuji kit that I've now got, I am much more likely to take it out. So I out.

Steve Vaughan (14:22.349)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (14:32.441)
Yeah.

Nick Church (14:41.337)
with friends in into bath, over the weekend. So I took the camera just a couple of shots just, know, silly little shots, but yeah, it's just getting back into that. So that's definitely something in terms of next year, I would definitely want to do lots more stuff around that. You know, and I was going through some of the courses on the on my photography course, the photographer unleashed course, I went back through some of my early photos and just use those examples just so it's easy to use your own pictures as examples, because and I don't want to always use weddings.

Steve Vaughan (14:46.977)
Yeah, but that's all that's all you have to do is that yeah, yeah.

Steve Vaughan (14:54.457)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (15:07.223)
Of course, yeah. Here's what I got wrong last time. Yeah.

Nick Church (15:10.745)
Yeah. So, so I can go back through my old stuff and I think, God, when I used just knock about before I was a professional photographer with the, with the camera, I was taking some really bloody good pictures of like street, you know, just street photography and just some interesting architecture and stuff. And obviously I do that more now and probably to a more skilled ability, but it's all about, you know, right. What do I need to do for this particular client? And rather than thinking, Oh, I really like that. I don't know why I'm just going to take a picture of it and, and, know, go for it, which I did much more of then. So yeah, I'll be getting back to that,

Steve Vaughan (15:18.489)
Yeah.

It's difficult, it?

Steve Vaughan (15:37.794)
Yeah, Good, good. So 2025 is the year that we, as everybody knows, you've listened to us, we said we were going to finish doing wedding photography, know, sort of 400 plus weddings behind us. So 2026 will be our last full year. We have a few bookings in 2027, but we won't take any more. We'll certainly no more after August anyway. so that's good.

Nick Church (15:40.675)
What about you, Steve?

Steve Vaughan (16:03.191)
It's sad in some respects because it's been a massive part of life. It's always been Sam's income rather than mine. It's never been a big enough business by design to pay two salaries because we'd have had to come flying through the VAT threshold and all the hassle that creates really. So yeah, I shall miss the wedding photography community. I won't leave the photography community, which is why I this podcast of course, but you know, and the wedding industry, you know, there's some really nice people we know in the wedding industry in this area. Good friends.

Nick Church (16:06.115)
Yeah.

Nick Church (16:14.008)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Steve Vaughan (16:32.077)
We have been asked again to be the guides for brides, photography judges, not, to this right, being judges that are photographers for their awards next year. We won't be judging the photography because that would be unfair. But we'll be customer service awards judges for other things, which is quite fun actually to be on that side of, yeah, we did it last year, yeah. So we'll see a lot of good friends at their awards in March typically, which normally means I have to try and breathe into my dinner jacket one more time at Sab.

Nick Church (16:40.769)
Okay.

Nick Church (16:49.591)
You did that before, you? did that last year? Yeah, great. You obviously did a good job.

Nick Church (17:00.771)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (17:02.017)
Sam gets a new outfit. yeah, ditto about the personal photography. I had all kinds of plans at the start this year. I was going to start my own website, do a lot more street photography and it's just finding time, particularly as I have another business, my training business, my sales training business, which is my main income now. So the time you get to do it is this time of year, but then of course you've got crappy weather and it's cold and it's miserable.

Nick Church (17:24.953)
Mm.

Steve Vaughan (17:31.403)
I will get out into London, I'm sure, over the Christmas period and spend a day walking in London to do some street.

Nick Church (17:37.453)
But I these goals are, are really important and having them, even if we don't quite meet them in the time that we hoped, having them in the distant horizon somewhere that you're aiming for means that you're on the way to getting there, aren't you? And, and, and as more time goes on, you know, that you haven't reached it yet. So you're more likely to do it. think having those things and having them pretty aspirational, fairly aggressive in timescales is a really good motivator to get, get things done. And yeah, so it's something I do, I do a lot of that. I saw a quote from Martin Pyle actually, which is a topic that

Steve Vaughan (17:50.125)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (18:01.455)
I think that's right. Yeah.

Nick Church (18:07.501)
that I feel very strongly about. There's a song called, have you heard of the band Presto Mico? I think they're from the South Coast, so anyway, band. There's an album called Transmute, which is just brilliant. And there's a song that they've got called Test of Our Resolve, and it's just got this line in it which says, there's a mountain to climb, but we're starting to look old. that really resonates with me about, the older you get, you've got so much more you want to do, and you want to, know, how much more time is there to do it?

Steve Vaughan (18:29.263)
Thank you.

Steve Vaughan (18:33.102)
Yeah.

Why quickly? mean...

Nick Church (18:36.609)
And Martin Parr had a really similar thing when he was interviewed in The Guardian where, when he was diagnosed with cancer in 2021, think, I think I've got it right. But yeah, he had this real feeling of, wow, I've got so much stuff I want to do. And bearing in mind, he's done 145 books, you know, he's obviously very prolific. And so he had so many things to do. And that was a real motivator to him, I for the last four or five years of his life.

Steve Vaughan (19:01.935)
I would say funnily enough, not funnily enough, but coincidentally, it's exactly what my brother said when he got diagnosed with his bowel cancer. There's so many more things I wanted to do. Yeah. And he was 69. So, well, I got a big birthday in January, you know, and it starts with a six, unfortunately. So, yeah, I'm acutely aware that there's less time ahead of me than there was behind me. So time to start doing a few more things. So what I do want to do if I get...

Nick Church (19:18.457)
600.

Nick Church (19:23.298)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (19:28.793)
The opportunity over Christmas is get back into some landscape photography. used to enjoy landscape photography. Again, don't claim to be any good at it. But, you know, getting out there with a tripod, being a bit more deliberate about the photos, you know, getting some filters out, thinking about the image I'm taking, possibly there's some focus stacking, all that kind of stuff. You know, I love watching like the Thomas Heaton stuff on YouTube and get inspired by that. So yeah, I think that.

Nick Church (19:32.729)
Mmm.

Nick Church (19:52.793)
Yeah, I love doing that. It's a very, it's very therapeutic, isn't it? Because, and it's definitely something that where street photography, could be out with Sam, like about with Dawn, you could grab a few shots, I think landscape photography is pretty much a solo activity because it's, you are taking much more time than one shot. And if you rush it, there's no point, you know, you do need to get those elements right. And you get right into the moment about making sure each of those elements are right. I think about, right, do I need a CPL here? going to, you know, reduce reflections or I get at what shutter speed do I actually want from this image? What's the scene looking like? And

Steve Vaughan (19:55.695)
I think so.

Steve Vaughan (20:18.571)
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

Nick Church (20:22.465)
It does all take a long time, but it is really lovely when you get those results.

Steve Vaughan (20:25.967)
I got, as they used to say in the Paddington books, a long hard stare from my wife Samantha a couple of days ago when I suggested possibly going up to Anglesey on my own over the Christmas period to do a bit of landscape photography. And I said, oh, this is a really good deal. Travelogies, only like 30 quid and stuff. And I got a long hard stare, which means how dare you do something without me. there's no way I'm going to go with some of the two dogs trying to photograph a lighthouse at sunset. It just ain't going to work.

Nick Church (20:51.233)
Yeah. Yeah. It's impossible. But do you know what I'm doing? You know, I do quite a lot of, property shoots in Anglesey and I've got one planned in January. So it's like four shoots in this time of year. There's no way can do that in a single day. I'll, I'll cause by the time you've driven there, it's, you know, midday if I leave at five. So, I'll be going for a couple of days. So you could come with me. You'd be my assistant, a free assistant, and you could basically bugger off and do some,

Steve Vaughan (20:56.579)
Yeah, yeah.

Steve Vaughan (21:05.389)
No.

Hmm.

Steve Vaughan (21:13.261)
Yeah, let me know.

Steve Vaughan (21:18.531)
Okay. Okay. You can pay me in beer. That sounds like a deal, mate. That lot of fun, actually. Yeah. I'd be interested to see what you do. We could even do a podcast in situ kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. On occasion. With the wind and the rain and the snow and the gales coming in from across the Irish Sea. Yeah. Well, nothing new there. Yeah. That's why they call me in them thousands, if not millions.

Nick Church (21:18.745)
decent landscape photography, you could shoot some lighthouses. Yeah, all right. No, I'll do that. I'll do that for sure.

Nick Church (21:30.509)
Yeah, we could. Yeah. On location. Over the Menai Straits.

Nick Church (21:37.241)
I'll be talking nonsense in a pub. But that's what that's what the listener wants. That's what the listener wants.

Steve Vaughan (21:45.839)
What about from a gear or equipment point of view? Any highlights, any disappointments for you in 2025? Anything that leaps to mind?

Nick Church (21:53.281)
Well, yeah, but we've, I don't want to talk about it again, really, but my Osmo is just been a game changer. love that. That's, that's been a game changer for my films. I'm shooting social media stuff. I'm doing my own commercial films that I shoot as well. So that's just brilliant. On the flip side, the, feel a bit bereft of cameras at the moment, because one of my, I've sold my A7R3 to a friend of mine. He's bought it for his son. Very generous with him. And my A7IV.

Steve Vaughan (22:02.413)
Yeah, brilliant bit of kit.

Steve Vaughan (22:15.564)
Okay, okay.

Nick Church (22:22.817)
One of them I'm looking at you now through the other one is back with our friends at Pencoid and Sony Pencoid. They're looking at that issue between the lens and the camera body where it's not, it's just not communicating, but frustratingly temperamental that I'd say trying to get it to go wrong. And I couldn't get it to go wrong. So it's hard to send it off. And I said, look, well, hopefully you can, you can find it, but I think they'll, if they can't reproduce it, I suspect that just replace the pins and that, that mounts.

Steve Vaughan (22:28.334)
All right.

Steve Vaughan (22:32.749)
OK.

Nick Church (22:50.996)
where the pins go and hopefully that'll fix it.

Steve Vaughan (22:51.931)
What you wanted was a friendly wedding guest to accidentally tip a pint of beer over it at the wedding. Which I read another photographer recently, they had an A9 and somebody tipped a beer out and the insurance replaced it with an A93 which sounds very generous. Yeah, couldn't we all? yeah. So would that mean then an imminent purchase of an A75?

Nick Church (22:55.479)
That'd be quite good as well, yeah.

Nick Church (23:06.144)
wow. God, I could do with that,

Nick Church (23:15.609)
I think I'm going to get this A74 back, assuming that's fixed. And I need to check the shutter can on these. think they've got a bit of juice left in them, to be honest. Um, I mean, there's no point doing it until I need to, right? I mean, there's no point buying them and sitting in the cupboard now until I think I've got, I've got a couple of months until the next wedding. um, I imagine when I come to that point, I'll reassess the market, but I, can't think of a good reason why I wouldn't be looking at the A75 to replace them.

Steve Vaughan (23:29.039)
No, of course,

Steve Vaughan (23:40.207)
Yeah, and I know we've done it to death over the last two pods, but the more I read about it, the more I reckon it's getting a real hard press, that camera. know, different, everybody's going about the open gate, da-da-da-da-da-da-da, but you know, I saw some data the other day that it's got anything up to two stops better dynamic range than the Canon, which yes, the photography is like really important stuff, you know. So anyway, we've done the episode to death.

Nick Church (23:45.933)
Yeah.

Nick Church (23:55.001)
Wow. Yeah.

Nick Church (24:00.025)
And that's on, um, on the gray market sites, whether you, whether that's in your, within your moral compass or not about to use those. They're like, um, 2,260, a seven five. That's pretty hard to argue against, isn't it? Sam, I'll be giving you the Paddington stair again from the, from the background.

Steve Vaughan (24:06.937)
Yeah, absolutely.

Steve Vaughan (24:13.727)
So Steve's got his fingers in his ears now through his headphones not listening. Any from a very bad boy. But that's another story. So no, no disappointment set apart from problems. Nothing. Nothing you'd think.

Nick Church (24:31.065)
Don't think so. No, I don't think so. It's just being so busy and that does have an impact in your business. Cause when, when you've got two businesses to run, then you can only really focus on one at a time. So when I was focusing on the Academy, I wasn't doing as much marketing PR for the wedding photography, which means, you know, I am going to, as we all say with wedding wedding photography, if you're going to have a bad year in 2028, you know, already because you have the booking. So, um, I've been doing more now and requires a bit, you know, pick back up again. just shows how quickly they disappear. If you stop.

Steve Vaughan (24:31.916)
OK.

Steve Vaughan (24:38.243)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (24:44.27)
Yeah, sure.

Steve Vaughan (24:53.187)
That's right. That's exactly right. Yeah. Yeah.

Nick Church (25:00.513)
stop that constant kind of drive on social media.

Steve Vaughan (25:02.541)
Well, they are for us because we're doing absolutely no marketing, you the odd bit of Instagram, but no under the blog post for ages. And the only inquiries we ever get now are people wanting to improve our website or SEO in India, you know, which are the ones, you know, you get the email or we've got an inquiry. it's like someone no name who's going to tomorrow. no, he's actually an SEO guy in India. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But so we're not getting any inquiries particularly, but then we're not looking for them, you know, if we get a few great, but that's not, that's not what we do.

Nick Church (25:04.855)
Yeah.

Nick Church (25:20.385)
Yeah, budget 123456. Yeah, great.

Steve Vaughan (25:30.627)
From what I read in the Facebook groups, lot of wedding photographers are finding the inquiries way down at the moment. So that's not a good sign.

Nick Church (25:35.755)
I think so. think so. There's a few, I've chatted to a friend of the pod Geraint. He popped in on Friday, just for a cup of tea. And we were talking about this sort of industry and what next year is that. And I was saying, I've seen plenty of people that are saying they're more busy than ever, know, and I've chatted to people that have got, but then he made this really good point that, if they're not VAT registered, VAT register is the, I can't say it this is a family friendly podcast, but a BS meter.

Steve Vaughan (25:52.623)
Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it?

Nick Church (26:04.353)
It's the, the, the complete BS meter, the VAT registration. If you run VAT registered and they're telling you that they're doing sort of 50 shoots a year and you know, so, so, so you've definitely got, yeah, you've definitely got this thing about what, what people say. And that's why social media can be so destructive to our motivation and sort of self-worth because we're looking at what everyone else is saying they're doing. Of course, that doesn't always marry up with what they're actually doing because there's loads of cases where if people are doing the shoots.

Steve Vaughan (26:11.796)
so you mean, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, well, they're charging three to quit away to go somewhere then. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Steve Vaughan (26:21.327)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (26:24.889)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (26:29.795)
That's a really good point actually. Yeah. Yeah.

Nick Church (26:33.481)
they are doing that they're saying they're doing. They're committing that fraud or they're BSing. One of the other of those two is true.

Steve Vaughan (26:41.167)
Well, I know in recent years doing 25 weddings a year, we've screwed you very close to it. know, so it gives an idea. We're always mid price. so yeah, if you're doing 50 weddings a year, unless you're charging through to quit a wedding, you must be registered. Yeah. Yeah.

Nick Church (26:54.133)
Exactly. And if people are, you know, the risk is of course, a weddings that you're forgetting about the additional income, so suddenly a bride or groom wants four extra albums. Does it matter if you're only making 30 quid per album? If that's a grand's worth of business, that's an extra grand on the total. You know, VAT registration is pretty harsh in that regard. It doesn't take a profit into account at all.

Steve Vaughan (27:03.235)
Yeah, that's right.

Steve Vaughan (27:10.862)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (27:15.927)
And for our internationalists, which we have many, VAT is sales tax in the UK. I think it's 83,000 pounds, something like that, turnover per year, which means that you have to become registered with the taxman for sales tax, which is 20 % in the UK. And it means your prices go up 20%, but you can reclaim VAT on things that you buy, but a lot of the things that we would buy as photographers like albums, prints.

or all zero rated, the only things that are fat red, you can get fat back on is like cameras and gear. And even I can't buy cameras and gear every week. So it's a 90,000 now it's gone up then.

Nick Church (27:47.673)
Nine, 90,000. The gods at Google have just told me, So it's 90,000 from April 1st, 24.

Steve Vaughan (27:55.663)
That's interesting because there was a lot of talk before the Chancellor, who is the finance minister in the UK, did their latest budget. There was talk it was going to come down to something like 30k, which would have put a lot of photographers out of business, I think.

Nick Church (28:04.748)
Yeah.

No, I don't think it would have. I think it would have just made a lot of took was adding the fat ones, their prices. And that would have been fine. That would be good for everybody, I think. But well, but anyway, that would have been a pretty bold move, I think anyway.

Steve Vaughan (28:12.409)
Yeah.

Well, yeah, perhaps. Yeah, I can see that. Yeah, well, he didn't have thankfully. So all right. So twenty twenty six and apart from the Academy, any other plans or aspirations in twenty twenty six?

Nick Church (28:29.729)
Yeah, I want to keep doing, more wedding films. I really, you know, from a business perspective, having a, creating a wedding film alongside photography is fantastic. It means you're, you're getting twice the income for, for the same day out of your calendar. So not, not so much in terms of time, because the editing's a absolute killer anyway. know that, you know, film production takes an awfully long time, but it means that you're not, you know, like rather than getting two weddings,

Steve Vaughan (28:41.591)
super important.

Exactly. That's why we do weddings as films as well.

Yeah.

Nick Church (28:57.539)
this are occupying two summer dates. It's just one day that you can then do more. So, so keep doing that. Keep pushing that. the, the academies, you know, really that's kind of business as normal. I need to keep doing that. I'm doing, I've got a lot of time allocated for the Academy and the PR and marketing. I'm doing talks. got a few talks next year as well. So I'm doing the photography show. again, so doing that again to that. And that's really good. That's on two, two dates.

Steve Vaughan (28:59.683)
Yeah, that's right.

Steve Vaughan (29:20.784)
you are good. Okay. Yep.

Nick Church (29:26.041)
to different sessions on different dates, which is a departure from one. Cause normally I talk about the business side of stuff. This is more of a, um, the beginners stuff. So beginners about exposure and manual mode and then beginner stuff on editing and stuff as well. Yeah, perfect. Yeah. Yeah. Really good for that. Back in Birmingham. Yeah. 14th, 17th of March, 14th, 17th of March. And in January, I'm at the society of photographers convention in London.

Steve Vaughan (29:37.327)
So that would link well into the Academy stuff as well, wouldn't it? Yeah, yeah. And it's back in Birmingham this year, I believe, yeah? Thank God for that, yeah.

Not that I'm biased.

Steve Vaughan (29:52.175)
okay, well we will see you next. normally go down. What day are you talking?

Nick Church (29:56.189)
14th. it's the yeah, this is the there's 14th to the 17th. 14th is the convention. The talks and seminars and things. And then 15th, 16th, 17th is the open event where you go and look at, you know, suppliers and things like that.

Steve Vaughan (30:04.142)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (30:07.711)
we want to see that. Yeah. So again, for international listeners, this is society of wedding and portrait photographers convention. So it's a site or a group that you can join for like 10 quid a month and chat with other wedding portrait sports. There's various different categories, aren't there? And they have a convention every year in the start of the year where there's lots of master classes and things. And there's a bit of an exhibition, which is what we normally go to.

We once, you know, Damon Lovegrove. must know Damon Lovegrove. He used to be a feature film ambassador. used to be all over Facebook. very, very well, I can tell that. A very larger than life in every sense of the word photographer. There's a lot of video around using light and, you know, flash work and stuff. think he was a BBC cameraman in the past.

Nick Church (30:38.849)
No, no, don't know.

Nick Church (30:45.591)
I don't know anybody Steve, must know, you must have put this up. Yeah.

Nick Church (31:00.185)
Okay.

Steve Vaughan (31:01.443)
We once made the mistake of going out for a beer with Damon Lovegrove after the SWPP and we just about got the last train home and we were very, very, very, very, very twiddled. So not a thing I'd recommend you doing if he's there this year.

Nick Church (31:08.354)
You

Nick Church (31:15.587)
Well, I'm down on the 14th and my session is quite late, it's at five o'clock, but it's an hour long seminar on that death zone topic that I've talked about before. And if I've got a book in me, that's it. it's an extended version of that. I'm, they put me up in hotel that night. So I'll be knocking about. So if people are visiting the show and are there either on the 14th or come in the day early to do the open event then on the 15th and then give me a shout.

Steve Vaughan (31:20.644)
Right.

Steve Vaughan (31:24.685)
Yeah. Yeah.

you

Steve Vaughan (31:40.153)
Yeah, well, look at that. might try and down to 15th and we can hang out and do so. Okay, so that's the plan for 2026. And nothing else particularly on the horizon that you can say. Okay.

Nick Church (31:45.273)
Yeah, that'd be cool.

Nick Church (31:50.177)
Loads of camera, a few camera clubs booked in as well. I'm doing talks and that's why I quite enjoy that. That's quite, quite nice. You know, just get, get, get in front of photographers that adjust that because they really interested in it. You know? Yeah, that's great. I love that.

Steve Vaughan (32:00.399)
Because they love photography. Yeah, now I've done a bit of that as well. Yeah, that's good fun. I've done some basic photography workshop as well for the Cambridge Shopping Bistro where you came up for my Lightroom session a while ago. So for me, photography wise, from a business point of view, really it's working towards our active strategy, doing a great job for the couples who've booked us in 2026. If people inquire and want to book us in 2026, we're willing to have a chat.

Nick Church (32:10.349)
yeah, yeah, yeah.

Steve Vaughan (32:28.705)
If it's a Tuesday at Swindon Registry Office, we probably won't be doing it, put it that way.

Nick Church (32:32.227)
So we do be actively not taking bookings now. So if someone came along for 27.

Steve Vaughan (32:36.511)
it would have to be right for us really. So it's going to sound a bit pompous, but it'd to be the right kind of gig really. so, you we're not, we're not sort of looking to make much more money out of the business. Really. We've got an exit plan and you know, obviously we'd like to make as much as we can, but I'm not chasing in 2027 really, because you know, we've got grandson, granddaughter on the way in January. you know, so we want some weekends back, unfortunately, or fortunately. and, so, you know, if we get

Nick Church (32:58.915)
wow, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Steve Vaughan (33:05.583)
inquire through some of the venues that we love working around here, know, any of the Oxford colleges, the Bodleian library, know, places like Caswell House or the Tithe Barn. Yeah, places that we know and they know us then, then yes, of course, really. So if you all listen to this as potential couple, Cotsworth Hotel and Spa is another one we like working at as well. But if it's, as I say, if it's a, you know, Oxford registry office on a Wednesday morning, probably not. They should give you a call.

Nick Church (33:14.487)
Yeah, they're really nice gigs.

Nick Church (33:29.929)
they should give me a So if you're married at Bista Rugby Club on a wet Tuesday, that's all right, I'll still do it.

Steve Vaughan (33:36.559)
We think they will because he's just been demolished. Mr. Rupert Cubs have been demolished by Mr. So he's standing out in the field. Right, as it's the week before Christmas, it's only right and proper that we do our traditional, as in we do it once before, Christmas quiz. So Nick Church, your specialist subject.

Nick Church (33:45.017)
Yeah.

Nick Church (33:58.553)
Oh God, my performance last year was not, it was not an exemplary shift I put in there.

Steve Vaughan (34:06.147)
Well, what I thought we would do being the sort of guy that you are, the international cosmopolitan, sort of guy that you are, I thought we could do. Now we won't do all 50. We can do 10 questions from the cosmopolitan Christmas quiz. That sounds right up your street, Nick. Yeah. And just to make it, it sounds definitely up your street being the swastificated man that you are and to make it even easier. It's a true or false. Okay. Are you ready?

Nick Church (34:20.769)
All right, yeah. Great. That does sound right at my street, that, yeah.

Nick Church (34:31.993)
Okay. All right. so, so, um, like a, an old carrot would get 50 % true or false. could just, well, I'm just thinking of the most lame thing. All right. Cushion, a cushion could get 50%.

Steve Vaughan (34:40.751)
Have you been watching TV adverts?

Steve Vaughan (34:50.031)
Your specialist subject is an old carrot. That's so left field, I don't know where to go now. Okay, are you ready? So you're starting for 10, no conferring. When I get bored basically, yeah. So Christmas, true or false questions? Question number one, true or false? Nick Church. There were four ghosts in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, true or false?

Nick Church (34:51.961)
You

Nick Church (34:58.391)
Yeah. Is there a time? There's not a timer.

Okay, fine, fine.

Nick Church (35:18.51)
Thos.

Steve Vaughan (35:20.419)
Not a good start. It's true. Mali the ghost of Christmas past, the ghost of Christmas present and the ghost of Christmas to come.

Nick Church (35:21.701)
dear. Crit.

Nick Church (35:29.365)
Okay, right. Is that a question? don't know. Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (35:30.255)
Okay, now I was going to give you this as a separate question. Well, nobody said it was going to be easy, know, I mean, you know, know, I mean, things in life are easy, Nick, you know.

Nick Church (35:38.231)
You should have said, what would an idiot, how many ghosts would an idiot think there are? And they would have got it right. Yeah, okay.

Steve Vaughan (35:40.344)
Hahaha

So, nil points so far. so question number two, and I was going to give you this as separate question, but I this one better. True or false? There were 250 gifts given in total in the 12 days of Christmas.

Nick Church (35:57.759)
Okay, right.

Steve Vaughan (36:01.071)
And if you're going to work it out, let me know. Cause I'll stop the recording and come back in half an hour.

Nick Church (36:09.717)
I don't know. No. there is. I'm going have say yes. That sounds about right.

Steve Vaughan (36:17.199)
The answer is false I'm afraid, there were 364. You're a mathematician, is it 12 factorial? Is that right?

Nick Church (36:25.689)
No, because that'd be 12 times 11 times. Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (36:27.459)
That's 12 times up plus isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. You can see why you got a D and A level maths. Right. One very close to my heart. True or false? If you were born on Christmas day, your star sign is Sagittarius. True or false?

Nick Church (36:43.129)
I think that's true.

Steve Vaughan (36:45.679)
afraid the answer is false you'd be a Capricorn like me all the best people are Capricorns

Nick Church (36:50.163)
Sagittarius is like September sometime, isn't it? Yeah. This is pretty good so far, though, isn't it? What do I need to do to get, to get, to get 50 %? So need to get, you know, I could probably get one or two more fails and that's it.

Steve Vaughan (36:52.471)
I don't know. I just know Capricorn is now because mine's in January. No doubt a three. Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (37:05.93)
As as Dee Reem sang, things can only get better. Did you know that, what's his name, the physicist on TV? Brian Cox. No, it's not the quiz. He played keyboard in that song anyway. He did know that. But it's not a question, because this is a Christmas. True or false, the King's speech who traditionally aired at 3pm on Christmas Day. That's an easy one. True. Woohoo! Kajanga, I have some fan-a-sex.

Nick Church (37:08.985)
Mm.

Nick Church (37:12.791)
Is this a question Brian Cox writes that's that that

Nick Church (37:27.501)
Yes, that's true. Yeah. I thought that I thought it was I was trying to work out if this was the first King speech and whether it was a trick, a trick question, but I it isn't.

Steve Vaughan (37:34.597)
that's a good question. Yeah. mean, how many Kings have been on TV? You know, George VI, George whatever. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah.

Nick Church (37:40.301)
Yeah, Charles Charles Charles the first well known for it that you'd love to watch the standards. So he never he was. Yeah. Yeah. You watch East Enders Mrs. Brian boys and then ready for bed really. They probably did back in those days. They must do I cannot understand it. It's one of the true mysteries of life.

Steve Vaughan (37:45.711)
Charles I was that before he his head cut off in the 1600s.

Who watching Mrs Brown? Does anybody watch Mrs Brown's boys? Does anybody find it funny?

Steve Vaughan (38:01.729)
I would rather eat lots of dead carrots, dried carrots and that. Alright, so one out of you're on a roll, ish. True or false, according to tradition, your Christmas decorations should be done on New Year's Day.

Nick Church (38:03.626)
Yeah. Yeah.

Nick Church (38:17.017)
true.

Steve Vaughan (38:18.553)
False, it's the 5th January, it's 12 days of Christmas.

Nick Church (38:21.228)
I thought it was six days before six after. Goodness sake. Okay.

Steve Vaughan (38:27.087)
Okay, I wouldn't know this one either, so this is a pure guess. It's one out five, Nick, by the way, just letting you know. True or false, Iris is a journalist in the holiday.

Nick Church (38:37.433)
Well, let's say true. Yeah. I think the two, if I got one that I knew, or I guess them both, I think I'm probably guessing, but yeah.

Steve Vaughan (38:38.659)
Correct? Two out of six, woohoo.

Steve Vaughan (38:46.819)
both guesses but never mind that's what it says on the score two out of six. Number seven true or false the first Christmas card was sent in the year 1901.

Nick Church (38:55.609)
Victorian or just after yeah, that sounds about right. Yeah, true. Yeah, answer.

Steve Vaughan (38:59.727)
True or false? Australia has a popular Christmas dessert called White Christmas which is made from meringue. True false? Correct.

Nick Church (39:17.657)
False, because it's Pavlova.

Steve Vaughan (39:21.881)
Well, that's probably right, but that's just the answer. It says he's made from coconut oil, dried fruit, desiccated coconut and rice bubbles. It's obviously very low fat.

Nick Church (39:30.861)
But are you saying that they do have?

Steve Vaughan (39:32.535)
I'll give you that. No, the answer was false and you said false. Yeah. You some incorrect information after that, but I'll disregard that. So that's three out of eight.

Nick Church (39:40.865)
Yeah. Well, I think, I think with the Pavlova additional information, which was invented, which was created in Australia after the famous ballerina. So that's four, well, what about three or four points? Okay. Fair enough. Like Clive Myrie. Yeah, go on.

Steve Vaughan (39:49.859)
Is that right? I don't know. Does it get you an extra point though? No, no, no, not at all. No, three out of eight. Yeah. So you've got two to get half marks. If anybody's looking on the video, I'm looking nothing like Clive Meyery. There's an obvious difference. Fine fellow that he is. True or false? The camel is said to have carried Mary on its back on the way to Bethlehem. True or false?

Nick Church (40:06.425)
You

Nick Church (40:18.339)
False. Donkey. Famously, famously a donkey, yeah.

Steve Vaughan (40:19.435)
It was a? Yeah, of it was. Yeah, little donkey, little donkey. So that's four out of nine. Okay. Big moment coming up.

Nick Church (40:27.733)
So this is the big one to get 50%.

Steve Vaughan (40:31.361)
It is. And it's a general noise question.

Nick Church (40:40.729)
Hmm.

Nick Church (40:44.631)
I'm gonna say.

Argentina.

Steve Vaughan (40:50.753)
Australia. Four out of ten. Four out of ten. So he could, could not. Yeah, could. Actually, he could have said the same thing every question and got more probably. Yeah. Yeah. So I think you need to go back to Sunday School. Yeah.

Nick Church (40:51.87)
crikey that cushion that cushion could have done it.

Nick Church (41:00.289)
Yeah. Yeah.

Nick Church (41:04.761)
Well, I mean, as a regular, I'm surprised. I'm surprised that it's about it, to be honest.

Steve Vaughan (41:08.271)
And what are you having for Christmas Day? Any exciting things to eat?

Nick Church (41:15.449)
We're going to Dawn's parents and we'll be having turkey, oh no, having beef, beef Wellington. I think, I think I'm beef Wellington. I'm gonna cook lamb on Christmas Eve.

Steve Vaughan (41:17.795)
Yeah. nice. Yeah.

Yeah, we're having a bird and a bird and a bird, which isn't the evening entertainment. It's what we're having to eat.

Nick Church (41:32.215)
What's that? A partridge? No, a robin in the middle. A robin, then a pigeon, and then a swan.

Steve Vaughan (41:36.065)
Well, you think so, Rory. Sparrow. I don't know. Sam's ordered it from Mark Suspense's collection. So it's going to be interesting, so to least. Yeah. God knows how you cook it. I'm just going to do what my dad used to do and go to the pub and get drunk and then come home and fall asleep in my dinner. Yeah. Enough of this nonsense. Nick, in all seriousness, can I wish you and your family and your loved ones and everybody you care about a wonderful Christmas and a happy 2026.

Nick Church (41:50.681)
You

Nick Church (42:01.623)
You absolutely can. I'd like to bounce that back to you as well.

Steve Vaughan (42:04.739)
Thank very much, mate. Thank you very much. So dear listener, we're to have a couple of weeks off from the pod now to enjoy a bit of a break over the holiday season. So we'll be back in mid January. In the meantime, we all hope you are there. If you do celebrate Christmas or whatever festival you celebrate at this time of year, we hope you have a fantastic time. We also hope you have a wonderful 2026. We'll be back again soon in January. Until then, happy photography and we'll talk to you soon.