Brushing Up Against Celebrity

The forecast was set fair. Basil and I trundled off to East Leake to fetch literature and a flash card for the citizenship ceremony at Glenfield early evening.

The sun was out, the air was warm, the meadow was green in Meadow Park. Drives had been cut through the hay and grass. We walked up to the bridge at the far side and through to the silver birch plantation. It was still muddy on the far side of the tunnel. We crossed on to the footpath that led through the plantation but it began to get increasingly wet, so we turned round to return. This was the view along the path.

Home to check that all camera and flash batteries were charged. Then I donned a frock to try and look a bit smarter. I’d assembled the two soft boxes that I was going to use with the flashgun.

Len helped me load the van and off I sped to the county registry office.

Once there, I set up the lighting and circulated amongst the citizens-to-be and their families to give them the information about the formal photos and how they could view them online next week.

Rosemary Conley was the day’s deputy lieutenant of Leicestershire, looking very fetching in a three quarter length very pale lemon yellow brocade coat and a pillar box red hat trimmed with red and lemon yellow feathers.

As usual, I sang the National Anthem lustily which caused everyone to turn round and gaze.

Then on to the ‘studio.’ There was a good throng of people queuing for photos.

I’d reached the penultimate couple when I suddenly realised that the lens had been switched to manual focus. No problem had been apparent when I’d checked the lcd screen after each shot, until I decided to look far more closely.

I feel awful. Most of the photos are unusable because they’re out of focus. Too out of focus to be usable. When I browsed through the photos later on, you could see how proud the sitters and their families were of the occasion - and I’d messed it up. I just so wish I could call them all back, but that won’t happen.

I’m really glad that most people also had photos taken with their phones.