The WiR lunch was OK, but a bit boring because I was sitting at a table with strangers with no-one to talk to. Everyone else were couples. So I decided to walk around outside and take some photos. As luck would have it, there was a "fashions on the field" competition just outside the function room, so I thought to myself that it would be interesting to try and take photos of the girls on the stage and see what I learnt from the process. I learnt quite a bit: some things at the time and others after the event when processing the photos at home.
The first thing I learnt was that amateur models don't pose for the cameras. The girls were maybe concentrating on not falling off the stage or trying to remember how models walk. Too often I waited for the right shot that never came as the girls just swept past the point where they were supposed to stop.
Next, it's hard to get the whole girl in the photograph without becoming distant. You have to be content with getting half of maybe two thirds of her in the frame. This was certainly complicated by models who rarely stood in the same position on the stage, so it was difficult to frame a whole-body shot. This must be an important issue for fashion photographers who want to get both the hat and the shoes in the same shot. Maybe it's a matter of what type of photograph you want, and I prefer portraiture to fashion. It certainly seemed that the facial expressions were important to me. And pleasant expressions at that.
Here are some of the photos that turned out OK.
This is the girl that I think will win. She smiled at the crowd, she smiled at the judges, and most importantly, she smiled at the photographers.
Oh, and as for the horse racing.... Diamond Jay came 6th.
