A few weeks ago I thoroughly enjoyed being back at one of my favourite places to take photographs, Wisley gardens. I had not done a proper outdoor shoot for a while so it was great to get my camera out and have a play. Particularly as I haven’t had much of a chance to use my new camera very much, but more on that in a bit.
It can be surprising how much thought has to go into a photo-shoot sometimes. On this particular occasion I actually had to go twice in one week! I planned to go on the Wednesday originally, but I ended up going Friday too. On the Wednesday it was pretty dull weather for shooting so I didn’t take any photos in the end. Instead I just had a look round to see what was about. This actually saved me a lot of time because I was then able to really focus on the Friday instead of wasting time wondering around aimlessly trying to find good subjects to shoot. This is particularly important for me as it takes a long time to set up my camera kit. The main things that caught my eye looking round were the various meadow areas and also the trees in the pinetum as I’m keen to take some shots of bark. In the end however, I just ended up staying in one place, taking photos of the poppy field they’ve recently created on the site of the old glasshouse and I had more than enough to work with.
My new camera worked really well on the shoot, which was good to know! You might say I have an unusual way compared to most people of choosing cameras. Although new gadgets are exciting, I have to consider ease of use. If I can’t use the camera reasonably independently there’s little point in buying it. As well as trying my new camera I also took my adapted Perspex tray, which I had not used outside before. Until then I had only used it as a studio tool so it was a new challenge. Unfortunately it wasn’t especially successful as it was very difficult to keep the plastic still. This was a mixture of factors with the wind, having no strong clamps to keep it down and having to hold it. It was worth experimenting with though and I should be able to make it work better next time.