Hello dear reader, I hope you've all had a fabulous weekend enjoying the sunshine, we had a wonderful weekend away in the Northumbrian wilderness, a travel assignment for the Bells of Hemscott there'll be an upcoming blog about that soon!

Durham, City 3/69 in the UK Cityscapes Project

First of all though it's time to update you all on all things UK Cityscapes -

There are just under 4.5 days to go in the initial phase of UK Cityscapes with only 39% and £728 to go so if you have been waiting and watching, now is the time to jump on board and pre-order a book or a cool canvas of the city you live in, visit igg.me/at/ukcityscapes and say you were part of the project before it's too late.

If you are a business and you want to become a business investor then do hurry as you only have a short time to get yourself a whole year of promotion on my blog which receives up to 700 unique visitors every single day, last month saw 12,500 readers and it's growing by the day as news spreads of this incredible project, it's never been done before so you'll be part of something groundbreaking.

To see all of the benefits you'll reap as a business investor click here and you'll be in great company, businesses who have already got on board with the project are RML Direct, Colleagues on Tap, Sharpe Recruitment, Epic Times and Aloe to Glow, a year of promotion for less than £2 a week, get on board NOW

So, what's on the schedule this week?  Well, I've been asked to give interviews to a couple of people so I'll be working on those, I won't be doing any travel this week as I have to catch up with my business this week, I have photo shoots and my first June wedding coming up this Saturday but I am in the planning process of deciding my next city and you can help, just leave a comment telling me where I should go to next and remember I've already visited Newcastle, Liverpool, Durham, Sunderland, Carlisle, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Perth, Dundee, Stirling and York, that's 11 cities done with 58 remaining.

I want to just say a massive note of thanks to the 68 contributors to the project so far, you're all wonderfully special whether you contributed £1 or £100, without you the project wouldn't even be happening.  So if you have been thinking of getting on board but haven't clicked that button, go exchange your monies for some really cool goodies for you or your business.

41% to go, UK Cityscapes weekend news

That's an alternative view of Glasgow which was city 7/69, I love this photo, not so glamorous but I think it's pretty!

Yes it's excitingly true, yesterday was a bumper day in the funding quest for the UK Cityscapes project, people have been pre-ordering their books and businesses have been securing themselves a brilliant sponsorship opportunity  Michaela Knight of aloetoglow.co.uk did yesterday evening, she's my newest business investor and you're going to be hearing a lot more about her over the next year, she is of course joining the very good company of sharperecruitment.co.uk, epictimes.co.uk and colleaguesontap.com, there are only a few business investor spaces left to go and get one now from http://igg.me/at/ukcityscapes where you can also pre-order a book or grab yourself something lovely, sponsorship starts at only £3 and you get stuff in return!!

I really never dreamed it was possible to get this far, I feel like I have the whole country behind me between the 600 people who are reading my blog ever day and the thousands of followers I have on social media.

It's the most exciting time and obviously I have saved the reveal of a whole new photo just for the occasion and what could be more fitting than a portrait of me?

Yes that's me, wearing a rucksack pressed into one of those giant pressy things (I don't know the technical name) at the Glasgow Science Centre you know I've probably mentioned how my postcards from the city are usually collected on a barter system whereby in a lot of cities I take 1 of my daughters (it makes the travel cheaper because of our family railcard and I get to share some of the experiences with them) and we have a conversation that goes something like this -

"Mum do you have to take more photos?"
"yes, I do, it's for the project"
"but I wanted to do fun things
"Well we are doing fun things"
"I'm bored and i'm hungry and i haven't eaten for 5 whole minutes, and I need the loo and I'm going to collapse from lack of orange juice"
"5 more minutes and we'll go to the next museum we find"
"alright but if you break your promise I shall stand on this bridge and not move ever again"
"no, you're a panda"

Actually that's usually Abigail, Looby is a lot easier than that are rarely complains, she just enjoys the experience, oh and lets just also add, Looby doesn't mind a long journey, Abigail has a boredom threshold of 11 minutes, we know because we've timed it!  Now can you imagine being on the train for 6 or 7 hours with a 12 year old who's bored after 11 minutes?

I'll stop now as it'll only spoil your enjoyment of actually reading the book full of these adventure but let me just say here and now, Abigail will not be joining me on trips to Inverness or anywhere further south than London!

Tomorrow I am off to Sterling, well I say tomorrow, could be Monday, depends on weather, accommodation which i'll assess this evening and yes I know it's last minute but that's what lastminute.com is for!

Right then, in two hours I shall be on the beach photographing little people and their families, please go do a sun dance as the weather isn't currently all that inspiring and unlike cityscapes people don't generally enjoy standing in the rain!

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Business Investment and sponsorship for the UK Cityscapes project

Through the UK Cityscapes project (a quest for me to photograph all of the 69 cities in the UK) you have the opportunity to gain profile for your business for a very limited investment of only £100 (and I'll be using this investment to fund the project).  I know advertising can cost the earth, so I'm offering an alternative - online promotion for only £100 to last a whole year - no catch.

Just to give you some idea of the scale of the opportunity, within only a couple of weeks I've had:

1.    A 2 page article in the Journal/Sunday Sun

2.    Over 600 hits to my blog a day every day last week (that's where your business will be profiled)

3.    Over 12,000 visitors to the UK Cityscapes crowd funding page on Indiegogo (you'll be mentioned there as an investor too)

4.    Thousands of social media followers/fans all following the progress of the UK Cityscapes project (and I'll talk a lot about you there, too!)

beautiful Newcastle, one of the first Cityscapes of the UK Cityscapes Project

This offer is only available for another 2 weeks, so if you're interested in making an investment of £100 to raise the profile of your business online, there's no time like the present (I know you can do the maths - that's only £2 a week as the promotion will be for a full year).

For your £100 you'll get national profile alongside the UK Cityscapes project for a whole year.  If you're looking to get your name out there, I can definitely help you to do that!

Here's exactly what you'll get for your £100:

1.    - A blog post dedicated to promoting your business, including links to your website, news/images, links (my blog receives over 600 hits a day and your post will be there for the full year)

2.       - A mention in a daily promoted tweet which goes to over 70,000 businesses just like yours many times throughout the day.

3.       - Regular mentions via Twitter and facebook, and of course my blog, over the next year (these also reach many thousands of people and businesses)

4.       - Your business logo will be in the book that emerges from the project, and a live link to your website in the digital version

So, to purchase your promotional package for £100 click HERE - this link takes you to a funding page - just follow the instructions and we'll soon be in business :)

It's going to be a bright, bright, bright sunshiny day...

Well will you look at that, skies are blue and the sun is out, I love the summer months, I know it's technically still spring, not long to go now though...

So, it's Friday and where are we with all things #UKCityscapes?

1. £1,042
2. 42%
3. 22 days to go
4. 8 cities photographed
5. 61 cities to go
6. 49 weeks left to finish in a year

yep, that's the statistics of where we're at, I still feel like it's very doable and I'll reach and possibly even exceed my target, it's just a slight lull while I attend to other parts of my business, I had a couple of wonderful photo shoots yesterday and I have more over the weekend, back in the actual office on Monday and I think that's the day when I'll be on a mission.

So what can you do?

1. pre order a digital copy of the book, for this weekend it's only £2 once again BUY YOURS HERE
2. pre order the actual photo book, a glorious hardback containing all 69 cities and the adventures it took to get me to them, for this weekend there's £5 off meaning it's only £25 BUY YOURS HERE

So have a wonderful weekend in the glorious sunshine and don't forget to save and go order your Uk Cityscapes book today!