Prom season has already kicked off with a bang. With our first 2 busy events for PhotoReverie; the first was Lord Grey’s Yr11 Prom at Wilton Hall, Bletchley which I did with Lee and Kerry, the second, and more eventful of the two was the Bedford High School for Girls Yr11 Prom at Woodland Manor Hotel in Clapham, Bedford.
The difference with the 2nd event was that it was just myself and Jenny, who I’ve never worked with before. Not a problem, I’ve heard good things of Jenny and I’m well seasoned at managing these kinds of events. What I wasn’t prepared for was the huge number of random technical problems that we’d have on the night. From crashing laptops to flash bulbs going, to people leaving [and needing their prints] 45mins before we predicted, all in all gave us a very busy night.
With the odds against us; Jenny was superb showing the photos and taking the orders and more to the point, managing my own mild panic as we were swapping memory cards between each other to get the latest photos to view (not the streamlined work flow with USB/Eye-Fi we had used faultlessly on hundreds of occasions without issue).
I manned the camera in the small corner that was available making best I could of the space and now the added challenge that one of the flash bulbs had gone shortly into the evening. Although there was (what I thought) a spare bulb, it was a case of being able to get enough time to dismantle the faulty light to replace the bulb. Sadly after finding those 2 precious minutes I found we’d got the spare bulb for the wrong lights!? Not to worry – I was actually quite please at how the images were coming out at this point with the single light (now that I had noticed that one of the flashes wasn’t firing).
Instead of the evenly-lit bright shots, we were getting some beautifully sculpted, wrap-around light from the single softbox. Now although this wasn’t part of the high-hit-rate formula, IΒ preferredΒ the results as they gave a more creative effect. I had to be careful with the uneven light, especially with groups as across the 5ft space the exposure was anything but even. But with this in mind, I’m proud to say, I think I managed to make the best of a bad situation – to the point where I may adopt it in similar small venues – albeit with a 2nd working light to give me a bit of fill on the dark side.
Many thanks to Jenny for being such a hard worker and keeping me calm on the night.
