A couple of days before the event I had a phone call: could I take photographs for Shropshire Life magazine? The two regular photographers were busy at opposite ends of the county but the society and social correspondent, Howard Franklin, hoped to put a double page spread in the magazine but needed photographs of suitable quality. A bit nervously, I agreed.
It was interesting and instructive to photograph to order: head and shoulders, small groups rather than individuals or general views. The first thing was to get a shot of the venue - or rather of the house of the venue's owners. Howard selected groups to photograph, chose locations and took the names down: left to right, check spellings. I did some direction and chatted to the models, more to put myself at ease. He knew a lot of people and was able to distinguish the great and good from the hoi polloi - I'd have photographed the deputy mayor's chauffeur!
The overhead lighting created problems because brows shadowed eyes, so I used fill-in on-camera flash for many shots, to get a little light in without flattening faces too much. The light was stronger than normal room lighting, but even with ISO 800 and f3.5 - f4.5 (wide open on my 18-55 kit lens) I had speeds of 1/10 to 1/20 (down to 1/6 for some!). I took 70-odd shots for a total of about 20 usable ones. I don't yet know if any are good enough for Shropshire Life...
And I got to photograph actress Gabrielle Drake, who opened the event.
Cool! Well done, i had no idea about this.
ReplyDeleteI've received a mock-up of the double page spread, which uses twelve of my photographs. It's headed by a photograph Howard had me take first: a view of Ford House, the home of the hosts of the exhibition space. I much preferred my picture above of the barn it took place in it, but they're the experts: they know what the reader wants to see.
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