Lowlight: Being stood up by a building
Fill-in: It's still November, but Fran Nevraka, Chair of PPL had booked The Avenue and invited the Music Industry set of London for some Christmas Cheer. I have photographed this event for the last four years and I didn't even check the journey time as I set off to battle through the early Christmas Shoppers at Piccadilly. Getting out at the tube I swanked off down towards The Avenue. However as I got further and further down the street, all I could see was a a building where The Avenue had been, covered in scaffolding. I blinked and looked around, totally perplexed. Where on Earth had The Avenu gone? It was here last year. I scanned the street again and was met by the same unyielding wall of scaffolding. I walked further down, but I was coming to the end of the street and still no Avenue. People were starting to stare now as I looked like I had been stood up as I peered anxiously up and down for an answer to this conundrum. Then the penny dropped - I was in the wrong street. Feeling very foolish I beat a hasty retreat down the back roads and arrived just in time at the right place!
Tech spec: The brief is simple - a few corporate groups and then casual groups of the party. The Avenue is a long narrow venue with large airy windows at one end, so the light drops off fairly rapidly, even though it is painted white and has a high ceiling. Getting evenly lit faces can be tricky if you use the ambient light to fill the background as I do. To balance flash with ambient light, take a reading off the background, set appropriate ISO - I use 400 - 800 for indoors, then set appropriate shutter speed and aperture. Make sure you adjust the shutter if you have large windows in the background with light streaming though to stop flare. - you may have to lower the ISO to get a shutter speed low enough to sync. with the flash.
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