Sarah S. in Bristol

I arrived just before 10am for the course about ambient lighting on location. DailyKeith, my old friend who first introduced me to Blip, had told me he had booked to do it some months ago, and I decided it could well be a good course for me too. I have never had any formal training in photography, having taught myself what little I know over the years. Keith has just finished the first of a two year photography course at college and now hopes to go on to do a further degree course having received excellent feedback. It was good to see a familiar face amongst the five of us on this course.

The morning was spent with Jayce Clarke who explained the basics of working with ambient light on location and his methodology. After lunch we went out to put it all into practice in a local park. Jayce brought a wide range of reflectors, diffusers and light meters and then demonstrated how he worked by giving us about six different situations where he explained the practical steps and then showed us the images he took, before letting us all try the set-ups with our own equipment.

Sarah S. is a local professional model whom he brought in for the location work and she worked really hard for us all, which must have been exhausting in the heat of a very sunny day. Having reflectors pointed at you for long periods must have been very uncomfortable. I got nearly two hundred images and I am really pleased with what I learnt, and having the benefit of Jayce's expertise in arranging a variety of set-ups meant I have examples of scenarios I had only heard about before. He advised us on the best settings to use and then all we had to do was the framing.

I have only just started to go through the images and thought this was one of the my favourites. I will post more on my Blipfolio when I have sorted them all out. The next day was to be the second stage of the course, where Jayce will introduce us to off-camera flash, which is his speciality and love.

I had to leave abruptly at 4pm to attend a memorial service for an old friend Terry Taplin who dies last week. I drove down to Somerset to his home where I met up with many old friends to celebrate his life. A sad loss. Then I drove back to Bristol to see Pip, who I had been staying with, and we had a good catch-up with a few glasses of wine. It was only then that I could have a quick gander at the pictures in camera, from the afternoon session in the park.