She must be narcoleptic

was my first thought when I uploaded my images from the hairdressers shoot.

There were 5 people to include in the shoot, and one person had there eyes shut in about 75% of the photos !!

I must have noticed,as every now and then you could see I had shouted eyes wide open, Julie. And there she would be ,eyes super wide open,shot ruined. When all around her everyone is perfectly posed.

I groaned so much as they appeared on my computer screen,that my son walked out of the room in a huff.

Luckily,I had done a lot of location scouting just before hand.I had found some perfect spots that might work with the lack of sunlight and the built up area and traffic.

As the time was approaching the shoot time, hairdressers where doing what only hairdressers could. Deciding to totally redo their hair. I reminded them it was now 4.30pm and it would be dark in less than 45 minutes.

So off we ran around Stevenage Old Town, with me carrying a bloody ladder. Up and down that ladder I went. We did 5 locations in 40 minutes. Not bad aye?

At one point I realised I had left my ladder at the previous location, so off the narcoleptic ran to fetch it, whilst I set about taking some individual portrait shots.

As the shoot drew to a close and the light was disappearing I asked if they wouldn’t mind just running to one more spot.I knew the light would be perfect there. They weren’t that keen they were tired and cold by this point and one of them was really unwell. But I ran off,hoping they would follow.I was right to do it,the light was perfect and these turned out to be their favourites.

Its just a shame they are going to be in black and white for the paper.

I used a lot I learnt with Karen Russell for these pictures.The one above has leading lines, I used the golden hour for lighting,and stood precariously on a ladder to get a flattering angle for the oldies. I could be a bit anal and check to see if they fall in the rule of thirds,but its nearly midnight,so that's a bit sad.I choose the depth of field I could risk as there was so many of them to get in focus.

Oh and they all have perfect catchlights in their eyes.I nearly had an orgasm when we got to the spot and I saw them.

Oh and the focus is tack sharp.

You can’t even tell that there are bright blue railings to the left and a dog poo bin to the right!