There we are, best buds
Hey, I'm in that shot
! I'm the tall guy with the brown shirt, looking over the shoulder of the togger with the orange checked shirt.
I was in the aisle seat in the second row on the right hand side (as you face the stage). I think that most of you guys must have been over on the left side.
Anyway, I had a blast that day. I think that I was the only person there without a camera :shake:, but I had just paid for the ticket to be entertained and maybe get some inspiration - as it was, I got gallons of both!
Joe's a really, really polite and friendly guy (unexpected, given his background as a New York photo-journalist
) and above everything else, he really made me feel 'reassured' about the whole artificial light concept. The fact that he approaches every shoot with (usually) only a fairly vague idea of what he wants to achieve and then builds everything up a step at a time, with plenty of mistakes along the way, seems to me to reflect how most of us would go about doing this :shrug:. The fact that after 30+ years of being a leading light (
) in the world of small flash photography, Joe
still can't take one look at a subject and just magically produce an instant recipe for the perfect lighting out of his hat, makes me feel a lot better about trying to do more of this kind of photography myself. That was the biggest message for me, from the day
.
I also enjoyed seeing how it all worked with the models. As an amateur (and relative newcomer to photography), I've never seen the workings of a photographic studio, so it was all new to me. Having charisma (and status) like Joe's is obviously a huge advantage when addressing the models and I bet that Anna and Ali were secretly thrilled to have added some Joe McNally portraits to their respective portfolios
.
Also cool was that Joe wasn't to 'important' to stick around at the end and sign a few autographs (even though he was supposed to be helping the guys with packing up the gear, I suspect). Lucky really, as some people had actually brought along little presents for him and so they got a chance to meet him and hand them over personally. I had a quick chat with him too and got his autograph, so it really rounded off the perfect day for me
.
I was second row directly in front of the stage (baseball hat and t-shirt with 'Task Force Helmand Media PIC, Lashkar Gah, Afghanistan' on it - I thought someone might have noticed...lol).
You may also have heard me after lunch telling the fat oriental kid who'd stolen someone else's seat that he was a T0$$er (and much else besides!)....
I was looking around for you Rob, but I'm afraid that I was probably seated in the wrong place and as I don't know what you look like ether, it was always going to be a bit tricky
.
That whole seat-swapping thing was bound to happen I suppose. Different cultures have very different notions about things like queueing and personal space etc., but I'm glad that you spoke up, as we were in England after all and that is simply not 'the done thing'
.
Hope that you enjoyed the rest of your time in London too (I did - had several good oub crawls :nuts
.
