Strike a pose!

As I’ve mentioned before, Andy from SSC Learning and Martin Hodgkiss held a photography day for all the social media apprentices. We were shown a presentation with different bits of information on and some really cool photographs that Martin had taken. Once the presentation had finished, we got to give it a go for ourselves. We were all told to bring in our own cameras, so I made sure I had my boyfriends camera ready so I didn’t miss out. Some people didn’t have their own cameras to use but we ended up happily sharing with each other and some people were more than happy to use their camera phones.

We first started off having a go at product photography where we took photographs of different objects such as mobiles and head phones. Our aim was to try and make the objects look like something you’d find on the items packaging or a photograph in an advert. Doing this gave us a chance to get used to using different camera settings rather than using the standard ‘auto’ setting with flash. We were shooting photographs inside this white cube, it would reflect the light which made the photographs we took come out looking really impressive. I took a few shots of a mobile phone, I would have experimented with more objects but when I went up to have another go, there was too many people.

After we’d finished shooting in the cube, we moved onto studio photography. There was a huge white screen set up with a couple of lights which made me photographs we took look really professional. We had to change the settings again on our cameras and we had to use a flash add on so the photos came out looking right and not dull and ‘cheap’ looking.

Before I could get my hands on a camera, Andy made me be the model to test out the set up. I felt so embarrassed, I mean, I’ve done some modelling before, but not when there’s about 20 other people sat there staring, it made me feel really shy. A few different people got a few shots of me in our little man made studio set up and it was actually quite fun. I was made to sink my teeth into various objects, such as cameras and skateboards which made some good shots, but I still think I look crazy in them!

Once I’d finished being model, I got to be the one behind the camera. I was pretty excited because I’d never experienced a studio styled shoot before, so I was really looking forward to gaining a little experience as it would hopefully help me in the future. The first model up was Louis and he was definitely up for posing. I got a few shots of him with a skateboard which looked quite cool, I also got some natural shots of him just having a look at the camera which I thought looked really good. After a while, Louis started to use some less glamorous poses, unlucky for him, I got a shot of some.

When Louis had finished, it was almost lunch time and Andy and Martin needed to pack up, however, Rosie really wanted to have a go at being the model so we decided to be awkward and get in the way. We tried to be as quick as possible and keep out of the way, Rosie posed for a little bit while I got some shots of her. I think seeming as the set was in the process of being taken apart, the photographs I got of her didn’t turn out too bad, they did come out a bit pink but I think it works quite well.

If I had more time, the right equipment and a lot of props, then I would have definitely gone to town on the photographs I was taking. I could have stood and taken photos all day and night if I had the chance. I plan on using the skills I learnt in the future and expanding them even more, I’d love to get back into photography again and the photography day that was set up definitely helped me see that. It was a lot of fun and I can’t wait to learn even more!