There were some familiar faces, and being remembered by the lighting crew helped a bunch in getting some adjustments to the setup made, as well as helping to rig the audio recorder as, in an advancement from last year, I was there to record the performance videos too.

With an assistant on stop & start duty I was free to hunker down just in front of the judges desk and shoot an incredible selection of competitors and guest performances from the likes of Lisette Krol, Charlotte Robinson, Sam King, Sarah Scott and An Dre!

Both the stills coverage and the performance videos were well received, though it turns out we did such a good job of the audio recording that YouTube content blocked almost everything straight away. Such an enormous pain in the neck that you can’t easily manage the rights for distribution of event videos, and something that’s proving to be an ongoing problem when covering events such as these.

You can check out the videos over at the HTTC YouTube Channel.

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As the expression goes with 3 buses turning up at once, this bus happened to be the FPS Fitness Christmas Showcase run by the lovely Lisa Darcy, so it was on the road to the Midlands to shoot a fantastic array of performers at the Aura Dance Studio.

As is fairly standard with smaller productions, lighting is always a mixed bag and almost always you’re forbidden from using flash so as not to disrupt the performers, the audience and the videographer. Trying to make busy backdrops and mixed lighting look good is a challenge, but things would get boring fast if they were always easy

Due to the low lighting at these kinds of events, ISO is pushed up hard, and shutter speed becomes a precious commodity. Timing becomes king as you have to hit every move at the apex where motion is minimised to avoid blurring. This is where extensive familiarity with whatever sport or activity you’re shooting comes into play, as anticipating what comes next is more than half of the fight.

All in all some outstanding performances with a great group of performers, hopefully I’ll be back again for next year’s show!

You never know quite what you’re going to get in terms of lighting when you shoot a new event, and the stage setup at MPC was quite  a challenge. A couple of large air conditioning units managed to edge themselves into many of the shots, and the venue’s lighting capacity was quite old and not packing much of a punch in terms of brightness. You can see in the before/after below the massaging required to return a semblance of skintone to the images!

Some might approach it with an “Oh well” attitude, but the performers have put in incredible amounts of effort and deserve captures that show them at their best, so once home and into Lightroom the fight with the low lighting begins, massaging what look like quite disappointing shots on the back of the camera into the best it can be.

A really fun day out with some superb performances all round!

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So my cousin Sarah calls me up to let me know that my cousin Mary is getting married and the conversation steers rapidly towards the fact that Mary would like me to shoot the wedding.

Any reputable wedding photographer will tell you that weddings are a high pressure event. A huge amount of planning and expense goes into creating the perfect day for the Bride, Groom and attendees. The expectations of the output are high and the schedule is tight and largely pre-ordained. Mistakes on an event for strangers are bad enough – insurance is in place to cover the dreaded possibility of a reshoot in the face of catastrophic failure – but working with family carries with it the additional menace of permanent exile

Booked at the absolutely gorgeous Ardington House in Oxfordshire with some light cloud, delivered to the venue via vintage bus, basically nothing could go wrong. Mary and her bridesmaids (and Bridesman!) looked absolutely radiant and it was an absolute pleasure to cover the day, and night.

As it was a family gathering I was sticking it out to the last, so I stayed shooting until the Bride and Groom had vanished off to the honeymoon suite, before crawling into the car and heading home for a much needed rest!

Needless to say though, when Daniel Rosen (Pole instructor and performer extraordinare) approached me to ask if I'd like to shoot the event stills for the first outing of the new Heir to the Chrome competition I leapt at the chance. Whilst event days are nerve wracking experiences they're also a heap of fun. With the hilarious compere Glory Pearl running the show front of house and Daniel and Mitch backstage managing the venue and performers it was a superb day out, running very smoothly and with fantastic performances from all involved.

Fingers crossed I'm invited back next year as I can't wait to shoot it all again!

It does also mean of course that like buses, many shoots can come along at once which can make booking quite difficult and delivery a headache due to the high volume of shots.

Showcases are always tricky with lighting too. Sometimes the event is in a venue with a professional lighting rig for full stage lights, other times they can be in village halls or the gyms themselves, which can lead to challenging lighting conditions that take some creative thinking to work around.

That said, they're an amazing amount of fun despite the hard work, and it's great to meet up with people outside of the context of a photoshoot too – sometimes it can be hard to recognise people when they're the right way up and in their civvies! Here's a collection of images from Elegance Pole in Loughborough, Pole Athletes in Chesterfield, and Pole Palais in Nottingham.

View the full gallery here!

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