Lowlight: Trying to get a sense of gravitas about the occasion when the last time I was here was when Fireman Sam was getting his hosepipe out.
Fill in: This event was the People's Question Time for Havering, and Boris Johnson and the London Assembly were under fire from Havering residents on every subject from the Global economic crisis to the terrible bridge at Chadwell Heath Train station. Being used to seeing the local panto at the venue, the atmosphere actually wasn't much different, particularly when some people from the St. Paul's Cathedral protest group stood up chanting a well rehearsed slogan before being unceremoniously escorted out of the venue by attendants who I'd last seen dealign with tiny toddlers being sick in the aisles.
Tech Spec: The organisers were not happy with previous photos as they were so dark. This was not surprising as the lighting was high in contrast., backlit with electric blue and the resulting images had been converted automatically to black and white and photocopied. Saturated blue (or any saturated colour for that matter) is not a great colour for converting to black and white and may look great in real life but appalling if not converted properly. This makes it look like your photos are bad even if it's not your fault so you have to try and prepare for this eventuality as much as possible when shooting press. I shot at a high ISO and overexposed the highlights so I had plenty of detail in the shadows. I tried to endue the focal points were well lit and the negative space made and interesting shape - so if it ended up as a black blob it would not be so disastrous. I also lifted all the shadow areas in a batch process in the post processing to give them a bit more life. This posterised the blue somewhat but the overall effect is more pleasing than a murky dark bland area.
For further details: www.london.gov.uk
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