Yesterday was the seventh Sunday of physical distancing restrictions, and we woke up to grey skies and 12C after a week of sunshine and warmth. Whereas Minou spent the whole day on Saturday asleep on the bench on the balcony, yesterday she curled up on an armchair indoors and refused to move. Rather than stay in and listen to de Pfeffel babble on and wave his hands like a mad man, Ed and I got in the car, put Spanish Love Songs’ Brave Faces Everyone record on to play, and drove down to the Lickey Hills for an evening walk. The contents of the speech had been leaked anyway, so there was nothing to be gained from watching it live.
Minou is such a sweet, kind, gentle cat. She puts up with all of my nonsense, and just accepts that life with a photographer and filmmaker involves lots of posing for photographs and light tests. I’m working on improving my off camera lighting at the moment, and since Ed is in school this week, I asked Minou to stand in and model for me.
Blossom petals dance along the pavement, lifted by the breeze, painting the drains, gutters and curbs a soft, ballerina pink. In a suburban park alongside the Rea Valley cycle route, a girl of six or seven shows off her ballet moves to her mother and grandmother, performing effortless twirls in her frilly dungaree shorts while residents from the terraces that border the park jog slow circles around the football pitches.
On a beautiful spring day as the fruit trees put on their magical display, the children’s play park sits empty, the gate taped shut like a crime scene.
I dug out my flash trigger the other day. After finding a new battery for it I convinced Ed to sit for some portraits so that I can improve my off camera flash technique. While I’m used to and comfortable with off camera lighting for filmmaking, off camera flash for photography is a different beast and I have found it quite intimidating in the past. It’s hard when you can’t see the light you’re shaping, and there’s a lot of trial and error. I decided to set up in our living room to take some portraits this afternoon, not thinking that I’d come away from the mini shoot with anything to show for it, but I surprised myself.
