Unbelievably London has strung three days of Indian Summer weather together - just when I needed it! Another busy weekend that started with Hannah's away Lacrosse game at Heathfield St. Mary's in Ascot. A great game that the girls should have won despite being a player short - they battled well and finally succumbed by a single goal - 7 to 6. French platts seem to be in!
After a very early start (7:50am at the school) at least the match was over by 10:30am and after the usual schmoozing after the game that included some polite conversation with Simon Le Bon, father of the St Mary's goalie, we hit the road back to North Harrow. I was keen to get back in good time as I had a family shoot in the late afternoon but still had a few things to sort before I hit the road again.
As usual I left Harrow early and drove the short distance to Mill Hill in only 15 minutes - a third of the time I had allowed. As I arrived way too early, I spent some minutes refining my various routes through north and east London for Sunday's wedding. Time well spent but even though I was early, I decided to knock on the door and give myself extra time to set up and get settled for the family shoot that involved four small (under five!) children. Just as well I did as one of the off camera flashes refused to sync with the Pocket Wizards and I worked hard to swap out the hardware to isolate the problem. Finally and in front of a very interested and sympathetic client, I finally solved the riddle. The "hotshoe's" contacts that held the SB28 flash, was canceling the PW trigger. A small piece of black electrician's tape over the contacts solved that.
The shoot was centred around three sisters, their spouses, children and of course and most importantly, their parents. I originally shot Sally and Howard's wedding in 2002 and have been in intermittent contact since but was delighted to take a call from Sally as I sat in the shade in Valras Plage in the south of France in July, when she called to organise the shoot. All shot with five SBs - four off camera and one on.
On to Sunday and a wedding shoot for Deborah and Leon with Deborah being the second of three daughters whose weddings I have shot this year, having shot Naomi and Oren's wedding in March. As this post is very weather orientated, it was amazing to have the same clear sunny conditions as we had in March for this second wedding.
Always trying something new, I placed an SB and Pocket Wizard off to the left and synced this with the camera and 50mm and shot with the very effective side lighting - manual and at a quarter power.
Here's hoping for a new Nikkor 50mm to be announced at Photokina in a few days time.
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