The Oxford Brookes Nurses‘ Graduation Ball 2010 was at the Oxford Thames Four Pillars hotel, in Sandford-on-Thames, near Oxford. The hotel itself is very attractive, and is in a beautiful location on the river.

The ball was much like the Oxilp ball at the Randolph, in that unlike college balls, its more of a sit down meal followed by a disco. At the Oxilp ball there was a large bar area which had space for us to set up in, and after talking to the ball organiser, Sarah, it seemed that this ball would be the same. Foolishly I didn’t visit the venue. The bar area off the main event room had space for us, but there was the bar, a door to the kitchen, a door outside which was a fire exit, and a passage way through to another event room. Unfortunately that meant there was nowhere for the studio to be set up.

After a quick chat to Sarah, and to the hotel staff, it was decided that a few of the tables for the sit down meal would be rearranged, and the studio could be set up in the main room. We didn’t leave it all to the hotel staff, but pitched in to help. Although that pushed us for time a little, we were all set up with time to spare.

Prior to the meal it had been arranged that we would do a group photo for all of the nurses who would be graduating (hopefully – they weren’t getting there results till the Monday after the ball). A little more negotiation with the hotel, and we decided to do this photo in the hotel reception, which was a lovely large room. After a little more furniture rearrangement, all was set up.

We had a bit of a break after that, as there was the sit down meal for all the attendees of the ball. Once that finished, we got down to studio photography for the rest of the evening. Most of the nurses had been reasonably well “watered” during the meal, so the photos were quite entertaining.

I’ve seen Wordles in number of places now, and so I thought I’d jump on the bandwagon. Here’s a Wordle of this blog created today – although not including this post – but perhaps iteratively doing it could be interesting… – perhaps not.

This was created at Wordle.net. The size of words depends on the frequency of their occurence. Consequently it shows what I post about most, or at least the words I use most when posting. It’s not surprising to see photos, wedding and Oxford coming up quite large. Perhaps the colour scheme I choose is not the best as ball comes up quite large, but it took me a while to find because it is in a light colour. Another factor affecting it’s size is that I use it slightly interchangably with event, meaning both come out a little smaller than wedding.

I may resort to creating one of these each month, I may not. We’ll see.

The Oxford Institute of Legal Practice (Oxilp) Ball took place at the Randolph hotel in Oxford. The students of this ball were celebrating the end of their legal practice course, and it was nice to see a few tutors joined them. Being a friday night, I didn’t have a lot of time to prepare after getting home before going out again, which meant I forgot a number of things – like the gels we used on the background for the previous ball (St Hugh’s & Corpus). However, we did have a new set of lights with us enabling us to do a 4 light hi-key setup, as shown below. I don’t really like this style much personally, and have shyed away from it because so many other event photographers use it. I like to offer something different. But the clients seemed to like it, and the results were pretty good.

4-Light setup for hi-key at the Randolph

Julian Simpson, who assists me at such events, put in an heroic effort for this ball, driving from south-west Wales to make it to Oxford by 17:30. He also worked tirelessly throughout the night, and uploaded all the images to my sales area. If you’re looking for a photographer in the Bristol or south Wales area, I’d highly recommend him.

I’ve been rather busy lately with booking weddings and photographing St Hugh’s & Corpus Christi college ball. Although I was originally booked by Corpus, the ball merged with St Hugh’s Ball because ticket sales were low. The combined ball was a much better size. We were only able to use one studio because space was at a premium for the ball, meaning we were busy throughout the night. At this ball we used a new vinyl background and projected different coloured background to suit the client’s clothes (hopefully). I think the results were good, particularly for 3/4 length shots. The main problem with full length shots was that the vinyl kept rucking up as we were unable to secure it at the sides, and the flooring was fairly soft.

P.S. If you’re organising a ball and want our services – please give us room to work!

P.P.S. Photos from this event are available to buy here

Saturday morning was spent doing a publicity shoot for Corpus Chirsti College’s Ball in Oxford. The ball is themed “Heaven & Hell”. The ideas for the posters were intended to be pretty unoffensive to most people, and revolved around the stereotypical concept of a angel and a demon sat on each shoulder trying to persuade a person one way or another. Some shots were done of each of the models individually, so that they can be scaled and photoshopped (not my job!) later. We also did some photos, as above, with all the models together. I think everything turned out pretty well and I look forward to seeing the posters up around Oxford.

Details of my Oxford ball photography service can be found on my main website.