Out of the fire and into the frying pan. From photographing couples on Brick Lane to photographing potential couples at a speed dating event on Holborn. Hosted by the very accommodating and friendly people at Slow Dating I arrived early to get a look at the venue. Immediately I knew there were going to be issues with lighting. Shooting at 1600iso in a darkened room lit by intense down lights caused a huge contrasts within the frame and blew out a lot of the highlights. Also manual focusing with a DSLR in such dark conditions was going to be difficult. Before I shot a single frame I let everyone know what I was doing and why I was there. I had anticipated that there would be quite a few people not wanting to be photographed but surprisingly everyone was really cool. In-fact, during the course of the night I think I did more talking that shooting. In the beginning I played around with 28mm but settles on 35mm to give the images a more intimate feel.

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Here are a few of shots from my first attempt at the Relationships Assignment. After a couple of false starts and an extremely busy week I finally dragged my weary body down to the Tube last night. The plan was to photograph revelers travelling to and from city bars. I boarded at Mile and and rode the rails on the Central and Northern Lines. The first hour and a half was difficult. I certainly felt self conscious wielding a large DSLR in such small confined spaces. It took me a while to figure out the best way to work. I settled on two approaches. One was to quickly photograph people hopping between carriages at every stop. The second was to spot interesting groups, try to get chatting to them, and take a few shots before they disembarked. By the time I got the hang of it I physically exhausted. Three hours down there in a hot, dirty, packed tube inevitably takes it’s toll. If I have time over the next couple of weeks I’d like to give ot another bash.

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