John Rickards is... the Nameless Horror

This Lighting Lark’s Easy, He Said

This’ll bore the bollocks off most of you, but I had my first attempt at shooting photos under controlled - I’d say “studio”, but our conservatory with a dark grey sheet hanging over the door doesn’t really count, I think - lighting yesterday evening (having previously been outside in whatever daylight there was).

Tried to make a very soft effect using a couple of reflectors and, during the above shot, a thin cotton curtain thing hanging from the conservatory roof to diffuse the sun as it shone directly in. By the time I came to the lower shot, the sun had gone behind the hill/buildings and the curtain came down. Played around with white balance settings and by the looks of things they work best either very warm, or very cool and then overexposed. OK in the middle ground, but nothing special.

So success! Go me. Rach mostly said, “God, I look so old.” But there’s no pleasing some people. If this kind of thing was all I intended to do, a lucrative career taking family portraits might already await.

How I’d fit a family into our conservatory - and what they’d think of the old sheet and “reflector balanced on pile of old firewood” - I just don’t know…