National Poetry Day

Highlight: Managing to grab some raspberry meringues before they all went

 Roger McGough

John Cooper Clark

Megan Beech

 

Jamal Msebele 

Phil Jupitus

Lowlight: Having to stuff them in my mouth whole, as no plates left.

Fill in: This is a job in two parts - the morning being The Winners of the Young Foyles Poetry Competition, where I have about three hours to get 100 young poets, two judges individually, in various sized groups, in one big group as well as them reading and networking. The afternoon is spent photographing poetry performances of various established poets then trying to waylay them as they come off stage to get a portrait as well as getting the various stands and activities going on around the Festival Hall which are laid on to celebrate National Poetry Day. Most poets are shy and unassuming and are always a bit puzzled as to why you should want to photograph them. I try to keep it simple relying on the light and a shallow depth of field to add interest to the shot and letting them just sit as they feel comfortable. I find, stairs, bannisters, and window ledges make great perches as opposed to chairs, which tend to make people slump.

Tech spec: A lot of swapping around with lenses and ISOs on this job. I use the 85mm F1.4 for all the poets portraits, as it throws the background out of focus and makes me concentrate on the composition. The Festival Hall is a great place for light as there are lots of floor to ceiling windows and long stretches of corridors and open spaces so you can get the background nice and blurry. The performances are taken on a 70-200mm F2.8 and ISO 6400 which is not ideal but beggars can't be choosers. The light is very saturated so I correct in Aperture in the post processing to calm it down a little. It's on camera fill-flash for the press portraits of the Young Foyles winners as the Poetry Society likes the Thames skyline in the background, so we take all the shots on the balcony which is in shade. Even so it is still tricky to balance the light as the river is brightly lit by sun. The casual shots of networking are on a 24-80 F2.8mm and shot with on camera flash.


For more info:
http://www.poetrysociety.org.uk/content/info/npd/history/npd12/