A very long day

I'm making a conscious effort not to turn this little corner of blogdom into yet another,

"Today I blah, blah, blah...".

But in this case I can't resist. Yesterday was a weird day.

About six weeks ago I made a pitch to a potential new client. They're well known internationally in the luxury interiors sector. After a brief portfolio review and a fair bit of dialogue I was commissioned to do an 8 image interiors shoot in Eastern Europe. So far so good.

The shoot day arrives. I'm up at 3:30am and on the way to London-Luton just before 4am. It's dark. I live on the edge of London in a little town surrounded by Epping Forest - A 12 mile strip of mature English woodland. As I'm weaving my way through along a forest road in the dark at about 50mph a full grown female fallow deer (I think) pulls of one of those classic deer-in-the-dark maneuvers. You know the one: 3 great leggy leaps across the road right in front of a fast moving car, thereby provoking a heart-stopping screech to a near-miss halt.

The flight is just over 2 hours and A-OK. At baggage reclaim I wait longer than everyone else, watching both the over sized belt and the regular one from my London flight. No case appears and upon asking I'm told that all the cases from my flight are out. So it's off to lost luggage after waiting 40 min's to spend another 40 min's reporting the missing case and filling out forms. My over sized case was checked-in on the over sized belt in London but it's disappeared along with my hefty tripod, head, 2 lights, 2 white brollies, 2 light stands & brushes.

This was a capital city I'd just arrived and the day was still relatively young. With my hand luggage Mini Trekker in tow I grab a taxi to the shoot location. In the car I call the location and get through to the location's marketing manager who's the contact I've been given. He has a cheap tripod I can try. I arrive and try and it's way too flimsy. Naturally I'd checked out camera equipment facilities online before I left the UK but had drawn something of a blank. The only retailers I could find seemed to do consumer grade stuff. I'm working in a new 5 star hotel and so take advantage of their concierge. 5 min's later I'm being whisked off in a taxi for a 30 minute jaunt across the city to a shopping centre. It's 5 a storey affair and it takes a good 15 min's of language barrier shenanigans to locate the tiny little shop on the most tucked away corner of the 5 floor. One man, a desk, some camera bags (about 7) and 3 tripods. That's it. That's all they sell. I go for their 'best' tripod. It's no 055 but good enough for the days work. I hand over my card. Through hand signals and head shakes I'm told that they can't do plastic! A little further 'conversation' reveals that there's a bank on the ground floor. Down I go. Then back up. I pay and now almost run back the ranks of escalators to jump into to my waiting taxi for another 30 min's drive back to the location.

Finally I can start (just 3 hours late). The 8 interiors locations cover the full 26 storey's and the only light I have now is a Canon Speedlight with an IR controller. I have gels pre-cut and using tape, tables or a bungee it can be put to use. Lots of static multi-exposures are taken and by 7:30pm I'm in the bar with the marketing manager enjoying a couple of well deserved cold drinks.

I hit the sack at 2:30am this morning ... A very long, sometimes fraught, but nonetheless rewarding shoot behind me.

My flight case arrived 2 days later.

Developing Interiors Photography

Interiors. For a while I've been either heavily lighting them with multiple flash heads, or using the multi-exposure mask blending techniques used for many of my exteriors. This has just changed. I've just completed a restaurant interior shoot. For this I decide to use small off-camera gelled units to gently highlight key details and reveal form. This was followed by the full multi-exposure blend in post. I love the results. I'm really looking forward to doing more of this sort of interiors photography soon.