Are you the paparazzi?

Has the world turned upside down? If Nadal being bundled out of the French in the 4th round to a Swede, a Swede(!), wasn't weird enough London has just reeled off her second successive sunny weekend. Insanity. I decided to head out to Hampstead Heath for a picnic with Bec and Danny, but our plans were scuppered when we learned the train we'd planned on taking wasn't running. Time for plan B, which just so happened to be Highbury Fields just over the road from the redundant train station we were standing at.

I was armed with my full photographic arsenal, including my recently acquired 5-in-1 reflector which I was very keen to practise using. Contrary to popular belief bright sunny days don't make for good photos, especially when your subject is people, the harsh light has a tendency to wash out light skinned faces, make people squint, turn people into silhouettes (if you don't know what you're doing behind the lens) or even worse, cast horrendous shadows all over faces. Long story short it's a nightmare. Unless you possess, and know how to use a reflector that is. I was half way there in that I possessed a reflector, the tricky part is figuring out what to do with it.

Fortunately the aforementioned Danny is my Old Street Photography running mate, and his wife Bec was a willing model, so between us we managed put our heads together and figure this thing out.

From Highbury Fields Forever

We soon discovered where the idea of eating a strawberry had come from, that unscrupulous photo editor from the Times magazine had pulled a sneaky Derren Brown style subconscious suggestion on us with the cover of the magazine Bec was reading...





The cutest moment of the day came when I was shooting this shot of Bec and Danny



These two little girls, maybe 8 or 10 years old, came up to me and said "Excuse me, are you the paparazzi?" I assured them I was not, and that there were my friends I was taking photos of. Kids are priceless.

Managed to catch another classic London shot today, this one will go alongside my shots of Big Ben, the Millenium Bridge, and London Eye in the snow - a man putting his shorts back on after sunbathing in his briefs.



Last but not least we have my favourite "non-reflector" shot of the day.



A good day was had by all, apart from the 2 children Danny and I both hit with frisbees in separate disc related incidents, but as they say, no blood no foul, and I'm sure those kids will grow up giving frisbees the respect they deserve.

Tip Of The Week: Buy a reflector and practice with it, find some good online tutorials to learn the basics and experiment with the results of using different coloured reflectors. Get one you can fit into your kit bag, mine goes in the laptop compartment of my bag and weighs next to nothing.