So once again the two parts of my brain were fighting over what to do… They eventually settled on another photoshoot, this time with Shard O’Nay. She had been picked as the next recipient of my little ‘Lets go shoot something’ project by Turkish D’Light.
After a couple of false starts where our busy schedules did not line up, we eventually arranged to meet at Battersea Power Station tube. Ok so I turned up 30 minutes early because I am an idiot… but it gave me time to notice that a lot of people were walking in the direction of the park.
Great, I thought, if its one thing that can spoil a nice photo… its other people! So maybe this will be a portrait shoot then…
Miss O’Nay arrived and we set up in the direction of what looked like everyone in South London was going to. We discussed cabaret and how expensive everything looked around us. Heading towards the river we started off with a couple of shots with Miss O’Nay looking out over the water.
I was using the Sony a7IV with its massive sensor for all the shots, this allows great opportunity to zoom in and crop the image if needed. Some say it’s overkill, I say I need a new computer to handle it without me growing a beard every time I want to do something.
Moving on, we could not take a shot without having Battersea Power Station in the background. We had to get onto an anchored jetty to get this shot and I had to move back quite a way to get everything in frame. Further on from there, we passed under a bridge, avoiding more people with pushchairs and a surprising amount of sausage dogs in tow we arrived at a small area with trees. With very little regard for personal safety, I asked Miss O’Nay to get very zen and become one with the tree. As you can see she accomplished this request easily.
Across from the trees we sat down on a wall and scooped up some petals that had the idea they could go it alone from their parent plant. I asked Miss O’Nay to blow the petals towards me while I took photos. This is why I like the awesome eye detect of the Sony camera, while locked onto the eye the petals were blurred out as I had the lens at f2.8.
As a treat and a break from tradition… more trees!! This time it would have been very difficult to ask for more zen and merge fully with a very tall arbour so leaning against the bark would have to suffice.
We had walked quite a distance by now, we couldn’t get on the beach without throwing ourselves over the edge, the pagoda wasn’t all that inviting and was crawling with other people. So we sat down on a handy bench for a few shots. Afterwards we wanted to rest, have a drink and some food and as we were heading towards a pub we found a brick archway for one of the final shots.
We rocked up at the Masons Arms pub. I wonder if there is a pub called the Masons Legs? Where we sat down ordered drinks, chips and sweet potatoes which were awesome!
As a side note, the massive sensor of the a7IV means I could zoom in and make this image from the one above. The amount of detail is fantastic and if you look close enough in the closest eye, you might be able to see me…
You can see more of Shard O’Nay at her Instagram https://www.instagram.com/shard_o_nay/ and also check out https://www.instagram.com/powerhausscabaret/ for the Burlesque Bottomless Brunch!