We had the AGM of the Letchworth Garden City Camera Club last month & I managed to get myself onto the committee in the position of Secretary. One of the other newer – & younger – members also got on the committee so the ‘progressive’ members are hopeful of the club moving forward. There are a few members with ideas on how to improve the club & take it further into the 21st century, so we’ll see how it goes.

I did manage to persuade the club to reduce the subscription fee for the unemployed as I felt the discount they had previously wasn’t sufficiently lower than the normal membership fee.

We had our first committee meeting two weeks ago. It lasted around two & a half hours but was relatively painless.

Among the topics discussed was the idea of a website redesign which I & 2 others will now look at. Watch this space.

Last month I took on commission to photograph the baby daughter of a colleague.

I took my portrait gear round to his house & set up a studio in his living room. The kit consisted of the 8X7 Lastolite Hi-lite background which I illuminated with 2 180W studio strobes on stands. The main lighting came from my two  Elinchrom BXRi 500 flash units with softboxes. They were fired with the built-in Skyport remote triggers.

The kit went up OK although it was a tight squeeze in their living room. I used the vinyl trail which attaches to the bottom of the Hi-lite with velcro. The shoot went great, baby Tegan was a joy to work with. We managed to shoot for just under an hour & she didn’t moan, complain or cry once. We came away with a DVD full of shots which I understand the parents are very happy with.

Putting the gear away was a very different matter. Folding the Hi-lite is a definite skill which I have yet to conquer. We watched a tutorial on YouTube after failing miserably. We watched it quite a few times but I still ended up just bundling the whole thing into the back of the car. I finally managed to stow it away about a week later.