Halloween Party (Practise)

Gathering

Unfortunately my weekly events have been suspended. I could not attend last week because I had to work and apparently it wasn’t a great turn out. However, a couple of the same organisers are joining with some other people and will be  starting a fresh event in a club this time, which will be every Tuesday rather than every Thursday this time and to my delight the asked me to be the photographer and told me they would be paying me some sort of fee for the work I produce. The events don’t start until next month, however I don’t feel nervous anymore which I am happy about, on the contrary I look forward to November and being the photographer and asking people if they want their picture taken. This sudden boost of courage doesn’t quite apply to people on the streets yet, that’s a different environment, but I think I can work on that the way I worked on this, this has been the ideal opportunity and starting point in guiding me into taking chances and becoming a better photographer.

In regards to the images below I had been asked if I wanted to come along to someone’s house and take a few more images for a small gathering for someone’s birthday. I like how I am becoming a reliable source for these people and they keep calling on me when they need something.  I think there is an evident change in the images below to my first time taking pictures, I think they are captures of moments more as them happen than people simply posing, I  experimented with angles more as well because I don’t mind moving around and trying things out now.

I thought it was such a shame that I ruined this image with it being blurry. This guy was quite the

eccentric and I love the expression of his face in this photo and to be honest I couldn't tell you if it's

genuine or in jest.

I like the sponenaity of this image, which are the kind of moment I am trying to capture more.

I thought this angle was fun, a bit different to eye level which I had been generally taking.

I like the dark frame created here by the flash.

Night/Style Lamb and Packet Second Shoot

This evening I have booked out the Cannon 5D (unable to obtain the 550D) and Cannon Flash again for the evenings event. I had no expectations before I attended; I merely hoped lots of people would attend giving me better photographic opportunity. Thankfully, they did. The pub was packed with people this time.

This was a bit of a fun one, slightly cliche I suppose, but fun to take particularly for practise, with the blurry foreground and the sharpness on the faces.

I like how the flash worked on this image, with it really dark to the left and really sharp shadows.

I like this picture because it’s one guy drunkenly shouting and pointing and the other guy seemingly unaware or unconcerned.

 By this time I had gotten a little more confident, this girl was a little drunk and trying to hide from the camera, but I insisted she have her picture taken.

I felt this evening went really well. I started off with a few people I knew and had met the other week, it was simpler that way. The size of the camera labelled me as ‘the photographer’, which made it easier to ask people to have their image taken because I didn’t seem like some random person trying to take pictures of strangers, such a big camera makes people think you know what you’re doing and that the pictures have  a purpose. After photographing the people I knew I started to scan the room and think of people I didn’t know that I could ask. It took a little while, but I finally plucked up the courage and started asking people if they wanted their photo taken. That’s all I said really, ‘Do you guys want your photo taken?’, and 9/10 people said yes. The few who said new seemed to be the shyer few which didn’t really put me on the spot so much cause they seemed more agitated by my camera. I enjoyed this evening and I like quite a few of the pictures which came out of it. Some of the images are blurred, I only posted these on to my blog I did not give them to the organiser who is posting them onto a group for the people to see. I think my confidence grew throughout the evening, I started to take pictures of groups and also of people goofing around without asking them and it was hardly discreet with the brightness of my flash. In addition to that I absolutely love the Cannon speed light, it’s simply amazing and make the photographs look great. I love the sharpness and the simplicity, where all I seem to have to focus on is the depth of field.