Improvising and having a pragmatic approach is something I have learnt that photographers have to get used to. Especially if they are not the sort of person that sits down and writes a check list (note to self… consider a check list!).

Actually it might have been a bit sad to have done a check list when just heading out for a Ruby and a cheeky half  or two!!

I was very kindly invited along to my second meal with The Punk Rock Curry Club by Garry Bushell. I do try to carry a camera of some sort most of the time and decided to take my Fuji XT2 along for the night rather than my usual Canon kit. Partly because the Fuji is smaller and less intimidating for people and because I bought a new Godox flash & wireless trigger that I wanted to try out.

The flash is as big as the camera but it all fits rather neatly into a little camera bag. Something I would not have been seen with in my teens & twenties & perhaps even my thirties as it looks a little nerdy… Heck! Even just having a camera wasn’t really seen as cool….. Oh how things have changed!

[At this point I adamantly refute any allegation of standing in the mirror trying to figure out how to hold a small camera bag; trying to look a little less like I’m carrying a man bag.] 

You might be thinking so he has a camera, wireless trigger and flash, that all sounds good so where or why did he need to improvise? I’m getting there…

I forgot the bloody battery for the flash and unfortunately the flash does not use any of the batteries you can buy in any old corner shop or petrol station, so I was a bit stuffed. The available light in the pub & the curry house was not really sufficient to get any really good photos. I took a few but can’t say I was overly impressed with them. I thought a high ISO and then pushing the image a little in editing might work but nah! What I should have done was just set the ISO a bit higher and I might not have had such noisy photographs.

I did however decide to improvise a little as we were heading back to the pub.

I haven’t taken any portraits for a while and haven’t really given this camera a decent work out to see what I can do with it. Nor have I given any real thoughts to night portraiture. So here was an opportunity but I had to make the most of available light and spotted a fried chicken take away on the high street provided my much-needed improvised light-source (Looking back at older posts light seems to be a constant theme).

Thank you & good luck to Jose Olan who is currently on tour in the UK with Bad Manners   I hope he has a great time. Thanks also to Jet Baker of Buster Shuffle for standing around in the cold to have a portrait taken.

As usual a big thank you to you for stopping, reading my sometimes rambles and for looking at the images.

I haven’t posted in a while and will be unlikely to post again before Christmas but will hopefully get a chance to respond to any comments. So based on that I hope it’s not to early to wish you a happy Christmas and a healthy fun-filled 2018.

Kind regards,

Jim Jimmy James.