Prime Time with Mum and Dad at Kew Gardens

Another weekend, another crazy adventure, this time my cohorts were none other than MUM and DAD!! (and Yvonne of course). The parentals saw their way clear to spend a whole 2 days with their 2nd born son as part of another 5 week epic Euro vacation (bring on retirement I say!) and it was great hosting them at my Old Street Studio (which is actually my flat).

So, an unprecedented 3 sets of brackets in my opening paragraph, I get the feeling this is going to be a classic blog entry (or is it?). Anyway, we cracked some bubbly upon their arrival, nothing like a bottle of Bollinger on a Saturday afternoon, before heading off for dinner and a show - Chicago. We were all pretty bushwhacked after the day so retired early in anticipation of a busy Sunday.

We'd planned many moons ago to pay a visit to Kew Gardens on the Sunday, and after some early clouds we were blessed with a perfect London autumn day, the ideal conditions for 2 generations of Bills men to go head to head in an intense, unspoken photographic competition. Dad's a photographer from way back, when he was my age he took Mum and a MASSIVE heavy hardcase camera bag filled with manual focus prime (non-zoom) lenses on a trip round Europe, back then people didn't have the luxury of zooms, if you wanted a wide focal range you brought a lot of lenses, simple as that. Lenses like my SIgma 18-200 were an unspoken luxury.

It's interesting though how things come full circle.

I've been thinking a lot lately about shooting with prime lenses and using them for weddings, but there's a lot to consider. The benefits include superior image quality and wider apertures which allow better low light shooting and incredibly narrow depth of field which opens up some great artistic opportunities. The downside is that they're less practical, you need to move your feet to get the framing right which isn't always possible - if you need to move back to fit everything in but there's a wall behind you then you have to change lenses, a 10 second process that could cause you to miss the moment. Another downside is that they're EXPENSIVE (well, the ones I want are at least!) and it's hard to justify spending vasty sums of money on lenses when I already have the those focal ranges covered in my top of the line Canon zooms. The third and final reason I don't use them for weddings is because I don't own any, apart from my Canon 50 f/1.8 which I would never use at a wedding due to the slow focussing.

So, what do prime lenses have to with beating my Dad in a Kew Gardens photo competition? Well, I decided to only shoot primes on Sunday, I brought along my nifty 50 and I managed to get my hands on a Canon 100m f/2.8 MACRO lens courtesy of my main man Danny "Z Score" Zada (funny side story - I picked the lens up from Danny on Saturday, I found him at a quiet pub near his house where he'd popped down to watch his beloved Chelsea, the problem is he lives just near Emirates Stadium and Arsenal were playing later that day, so instead of enjoying a quiet pint with a neutral crowd the pub was packed to the rafters with rabid Arsenal fans all gunning for Aston Villa!). I lent Dad my Canon 24-70 for the day, so he was equipped with some very tidy glass of his own. The scene was set, battle lines were drawn, here's what we came up with.

The following shots are mine:


(this one was shot at ISO 25,600 in the 5D mkII for you photographers out there)
















And here's what Dad brought to the table:











And here's one of Mum we combined on, mine's the left - I think Dad's is better actually, and it pains me to type it!!



All round a tremendous weekend, made all the better by some first class steaks and tasty wines for dinner. Is there anything better than taking photos with your Dad on a crisp Autumn day in one of London's most beautiful gardens when the leaves are turning?