Listen to your instinct and make that picture.
I was recently asked to shoot marketing pictures for an international dance instructors organisation.
I’d met my client, Jacqueline Jones, at Wrexham railway station, mid morning. She introduced me to the three young dance instructors, all of which had graduated from the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts, who I was going to be working with. I was to take pictures at two venues, where the instructors would teach young dancers in actual classes. The photos would then be sent to China for marketing purposes to build their Asian client base.
I was shooting for around six hours and we’d captured a wide gamut of pictures. Most of the day I was bouncing on camera flash to fill the halls with some light adding to what I was getting through the windows. After a handful of staged shots it was time to pack my kit away.
As if by magic, a picture appeared
As I was racking down one of my soft boxes, Jacqueline’s partner Yan, kindly stepped up to help me. I looked up at him, then to the corner of the room behind him. There was a picture here asking to be made and it wasn’t going to leave me alone.
Yan was wearing a heavy coat, a hat and had a bag over his shoulder. The location was totally plane walls, but somehow I needed to make a picture. I persuaded Yan to pose for the shot… The one I didn’t know was there until 30 seconds ago.
The down and dirty setup
I took my bare Speedlite, still on it’s stand, set it up so it was zoomed quite tight, pointing along the wall towards Yan. Then feathered it so Yan wouldn’t have the light smack him in the face. After a couple of hundred shots during the day, I took five frames and we were done, packing up and heading home.
The editing of this last image was very simple. I basically made a black and white conversion in Adobe Lightroom. A bit of cross processing bringing a look of an old movies to it and there it is. Not an earth shattering image but it doesn’t have to be. The most important thing is I listened to my creative, the picture was made which both Jacqui and Yan loved.
Next time you’re out with a camera and something stops you, a picture wanting to be made. Take the time to listen to your creative, work the scene and bring that picture to life.
Yan
That’s all for today. Have a great weekend.
