A mail from Purple Port arrived one morning with a note of a casting call from Emily Hamilton aka Jezebelle. She had managed to get hold of a hotel somewhere in Dundee to shoot in, now I was up for a challenge as I had never shot in a hotel before but I was also interested in the hotel. It was situated on the outskirts of Dundee, somewhere bizarre for a Hotel, it was quite out of the way from anywhere. However I booked a couple of hours with Emily at the hotel thinking that I’ll try my hand at a different kind of location too. And a week before the shoot I thought I’d better dig out my speedlite flashgun, in went fresh batteries and bang went the flashgun in a puff of smoke. £175 literally gone up in smoke. However I had heard my friend Kirsty had bought some really good high speed flashguns and she highly recommended them. So I sent of for one and some triggers for off camera work. They were Yongnuo flashguns and for a fraction of the price of nikon speedlites, a good result!

Anyway back to the shoot……I duly turned up at the hotel to meet the lovely Emily, we had a natter and a look round the rooms we could use, what a very nice hotel, fab for a shoot too. Up went the flashgun on a tripod, trigger on camera and away we went. I was pleasantly surprised at how the flash was working out. It wasn’t all plain sailing as every area in the hotel needed a different light set up. I actually used the camera flash for some shots too. And some shots needed a high ISO as flash couldn’t be used effectively, all in all though it worked out well.

I just like the flare in this one….

In a different room with no flash, just window light and lamp light.

The natural light was starting to fade by this time as it was late afternoon in November..

By this time the room were getting quite dark and time was running out, so we called it quits slightly early but I was sure we had some cracking shots so I was happy enough.

Emily was a gem, took direction well and did everything with grace and style. Highly recommended, nice person and good company, she was very patient when I needed to get the light right at each scene change in the room. Very much a team player and enthusiastic.

Hotel shooting is a challenge too…it has its plus and minus points and I would certainly do it again….its one of those things that takes practise to get right.