1st February 2016
Cheeky Sew ‘n’ Sew Workshop
I travelled to Todmorden with a colleague to photograph a lady’s business – Cheeky Sew ‘n’ Sew…’s shop and a workshop she was holding. This was a great experience for me as it got me photographing outside of the box, because usually I photograph people however I was photographing still life and doing little set ups with her products/things she uses to create them. It was a great chance to be creative and use those skills that I may not always be able to use with every shoot – as some shoots are more structured and fast paced. The lady, Tansy, was so lovely, accomodating and friendly. She had some specific shots in mind but mainly gave us free reign in the shop.
The purpose of these images were for her website, as she is having it reconstructed and needed fresh images as the most recent images she has are 4 years old.
When it came to the work shop there weren’t as many people as I expected but it was a nice little set up with 3 sewing machines set up on a work bench and Tansy going from one person to another, teaching them either how to improve on what they already knew, or to teach them from scratch.
I mainly used my 24-105mm f4 lens because the shop was quite small and this lens seemed to work for the close up shots but also the workshop shots across the work bench. The lights in the room cast quite an odd colour so a lot of the images had a red/orange colour cast which I had to sort out in post process, as I didn’t set my white balance at the start. This would have been difficult to do though because there were so many light sources with different colours – the red/yellow tungsten lighting, the ‘blue’ day light coming in from the window, and the yellow and white bulbs in the sewing machines.
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- Non-routine context
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- Non-routine context
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- Non-routine context
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- Non-routine context
Over all I was very happy with the shots throughout the day because I felt I had time to really focus and get them technically correct and pay close attention to my composition. I feel they also fit the needs of the client in ultimately showing her at work, teaching others, and then actually showing in detail the things she uses to create the end product, and the end product itself.
oliviafayewilford 