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Elvaston Castle - Derby Creatives meetup

This is yet another networking event because in this industry it is a massive key factor to keep well in touch and have great communications and relations between other photographers, new and professional and models, right? So, this weekend, I hit out to the wonderful location of ‘Elvaston Castle’ to shoot a whole range of models with a range of different backgrounds and mingle with a variety of many new photographers that I have never met before and even some that I have met online before-hand. It was an absolute pleasure to finally meet them in person after seeing their great work too! This meet-up was held by a local group called ‘Derby creatives’ where they hold regular networking meetups just like the ones at the studio, but they are usually based more on location, which is where I would like to go to again to gain more experience.

With this one being based at the gorgeous ‘Elvaston Castle’ just on the outskirts of Derby city centre, I had a good range of ideas in mind of what I wanted to shoot with the range of models that they were going to be at the event. I, of course, knew there were going to be a lot of trees and nature style themed backgrounds there around the country park so I wanted to go for the quite green nature bright colourful vibes within this shoot which would really stand out instead of just producing some bland ordinary nature portraits.

So, as everyone started to all arrive, we all split into groups and with another photographer and was joined by a lovely model or models. I first started off with two lovely models called Niamh and Anna, I shot some beautiful shots in front of an old archway door, which I was then also assisted by another photographer called ‘Alan Clark’ holding a gold reflector just underneath the face of the model to get rid of those harsh shadows and to bring a bit more light into the model’s general appearance which worked okay. Alan Clark was also quite an inspiration for today’s networking day shoot as I really love his work. I admire his work because of the popping colours he adds to his images, the way he uses flash so well and his composition with using light works really well that this is also something that I want to achieve too. With this being an event to meet other people within your chosen choice of photography, which in my terms is mainly portraiture & fashion, the other photographers there are always happy to give you a helping hand with tips, tricks and the models will always agree to what you’d like them to do (within reason). What I mean by this is that, if I’m not quite sure on something then to actually progress in the professional world of this career then I will of course need to ask questions and try my best to learn from others from the general experience. At first, I started to struggle with the lighting, but I soon got this sorted once Alan had gave me a few pointers! After this, I just learnt from my own mistakes from previous and took my camera and just kept practising and trying harder throughout the day.

To conclude, I got a variation of creative shots from the day and had a great time. From going forwards from this, I have yet again already arranged to shoot with one/two of the models again already which is a complete positive!

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