The York Railway Institure Golden Rail Band played at Burnby Hall Gardens (in Pocklington) today as part of the garden's series of summer band concerts. Given it was such a nice day, it was decided we'd get a more up to date group shot of the band after the concert. Having half expected this (we'd planned to try a couple of weeks ago at Elvington, but got rained off), I'd actually brought some lighting gear to try and deal with the inevitable harsh sunlight. Unfortunately, no one was quite clear who was taking the photo, until someone pointed out at the last minute that it was me. At that time it was a little late to start rearranging things, or set up lighting gear (especially as it was just starting to rain), so I've tried to make the best of what I had. The photo is shown here, and I think for what the band need it for it will be fine.
From my point of view, there's a few lessons to be learned. Even when it's all a bit rushed, try and calm it down and take your time. Check peoples positions - there's a couple of people on the back row who are partly obscured, and the lad on the right hand side needed to be in even tighter (he'd been moved in closer once already). I think I would also have put the stand with the banner in front of the conductor, rather than over on the left, and moved everyone it a bit tighter. More consistency with hands and how instuments are being held would help too.
The background is also a bit of a problem - there's a drum visible on the left (although that's easily fixed in Photoshop or such like), but the people and chairs on the right are more problematic. Given the opportunity (and people not being in the way), I'd have shot the photo looking straight on to the bandstand (ie from the audience's point-of-view) with the conifer hedge as the backdrop (not the shop).
Finally, lighting is a bit of an issue. It's shot purely in ambient daylight, but there's noticable fall-off towards the left. It's not direct shadow from the hedge (the sun was more or less directly behind me), but I think it was blocking some of the diffuse light from the cloud cover, and it alters the characteristics of the reflected light from the ground (ie on the right there's a lot of scatter from the lighter grass). Given another chance, I'd have probably have tried to use the flash and brolly I had with me to counteract this slightly, and provide a little more intersting light.
Of course, there's also the problem of a few closed eyes - but at least on this shot everyone was more or less looking at the camera - the first one had a couple of people talking, and not paying attention. Given time I could probably photoshop the best bits from the two shots onto this one. Given hindsight, I should have taken a couple more frames without zooming in between them as it makes cutting and pasting heads that much more difficult when they need scaling as well.
Overall, am I happy with it? Well, I think it will do the job, and if the band is happy, so am I.
PS The Kenya photos really are coming along. I've even got one edited and ready to go, but I'm saving posting any until I've got a few more edited.
