… did that get Neil Diamond singing in your head? Never mind; maybe you’re not as old as me – or a cricket fan. Anyway this is the story of the first ‘real shoot’ I did after I finished at university. They were taken for a competition in the Amateur Photography magazine and the only criteria was to use added light, but not in a studio.
Working Girl 
Mean Streets
We drove in convoy out of the city at night to a retail park in Netherfield. Martyn and Beverley in the first car, because Martyn knew where he was going; Hannah and Mason following on; then Sian and Jack; and finally, Jan and I.
The dark street was perfect. The story was that Hannah was a ‘working girl’, standing under a lamp post waiting for a punter. So I had light shining down on her head and also from Sian’s car, parked to the left of the shot with the headlights on. Mason was driving the car in Mean Streets, pretending to be a punter.
It all went pretty well, considering I had only a shaky idea of what I was doing. Working Girl ended up being a composite but Mean Streets is a straight shot. It was either 2013 or 2014 when we did this and I look at them now and think, “I wish I’d known ….” but everything’s a learning curve, is it not?
It was only as we were packing up to go home that we realised the fence to the right of the shot bordered the Royal Mail depot and we’d had a very interested audience of postal workers while we were working!
It was Hannah’s first experience as a model and she proved that night, and many times since, that she’s a natural, responsive to direction and patient, as well as being adept at the snappy answer.
These were the first two pictures I ever entered in a FIAP Salon, hoping to achieve the first level of AFIAP.
Working Girl was accepted into five FIAP exhibitions.
Mean Streets was accepted into twelve FIAP exhibitions and earned a Highly Commended, an Honourable Mention and a Judge’s Award.
