Day Overview
I warmed up the car and set off from Bath at 7:45 to arrive in Droitwich a little before 9:30 for set up! For me, that’s an early morning start so I plied myself with coffee and slapped on some banging tunes to wake me up.
It was lovely to see Laura, the organiser and owner, again after our previous shoot together last year. Big thank you to Laura for feeding me yummy snacks and keeping my coffee levels up! You are an incredible host and a superb teacher!
I got set up in no time and started a fun packed weekend with all the incredible Aerial Heart students!
I was absolute blown away but the talent of all of these aerialists!!
It was lovely to see some familiar faces from last year, and seeing their progress just within a year is inspiring.
Also! So many people came so prepared! With lists of pose ideas and images to go with. Honestly it’s a photographers dream!
I stayed overnight at a hotel and made the most of it by running a hot bath and shutting off from the outside world (Living on a boat means no bath. I didn’t realise how much I’d miss having a bath!)
Day two ran even better then day one and before I knew it, the weekend was over and all my kit was packed down and stuffed into my tiny car, ready for the drive home.
If you are based in Droitwich or near, I would highly urge you to check out The Aerial Hearts Collective. Not only do they have aerial hoop classes, but they also provide Silk, Handstands and Acro Classes!
A Photographers Rambles
Wow!!! Honestly this studio and all of it’s students are amazing. They were all so welcoming and super bloody talented! 9 times out of 10, my photoshoots are Pole related, so I love when I get to work with an aerial studio! I do love seeing the cross over of moves that can be in both Hoop and Pole, like a Meat hook, Martin, Layback and many more!
I love that almost everyone chose a different colour set! A lot of people were BIG fans of the colour kiss lighting option; so we started the shoot with the colour kiss, but once their confidence grew, we were changing colours every other move! Personally you can never have too many colour changed. I don’t like the idea of capping the amount of colour changes someone can have in their time slot, go ham! be colourful!
And… I think this is what makes my job. At the end of the weekend, I came away with two absolutely beautiful bouquets of flowers and a compilation of messages which bought me to tears. Hearing positive feedback like this is probably one of the nicest feelings as a person and photographer.
I have a responsibility as a Photographer to be open, professional, be trustworthy and to create a space where the dancers can feel safe. Knowing that I AM and HAVE done this for so many people lets me know that I am doing my job right. So because of that, I’m so proud of myself.
Let me just wipe the tears from my eyes again before I get onto the techy part of this blog.
So, although I know in my job, I will forever be learning and changing, I feel really happy with the point I am right now with my lighting.
I have taken more time and further research into the lights that I have to really understand every inch of them which was a game changer for this shoot! I’ve always had basic knowledge of my lights, but sharpening my knowledge on light output power and duration and so many more things- it just allows me to feel more confident and competent while I’m working!
My growth has also allowed my to look at the images back and see areas that I’m not happy with, correcting the light positioning and then asking the dancer to kindly redo the pose/trick to get that perfect shot! I used to get really down on myself for not being able to get the perfect shot first time, but I’d rather get it on the 3rd try then not at all!
Aside from that, I used my classic 50mm for both days and experimented with a star light lens filter which gives such a gorgeous look that I can’t wait to show you all soon~.
Thank you for reading and I’ll catch you in the next one.
-Poppy x
