Pictures just there in front of you

A family with prams, children and a baby, holding balloons,
with a single female, using HSBC bank cash machines in Kingston, UK
Sometimes pictures are just there in front of you, put on a plate (above). This is definitely my kind of photography, cheap, editorial, useful. I'm not sure I could have orchestrated this one better, a large family, coloured balloons, striking lighting, and the D300's best vivid colours - I might need to turn down the picture control as the saturation is uber-stock! On top of that, finance is a hot topic, family budgets, the credit crunch, people pawning their jewellery...

And then (below left), over a quiet coffee I find that the tables in front of me are empty, and the ambient lighting is interesting and I get a classic commercial shot in the bag (albeit without release). It looks perfectly staged but I assure you that every other table in the place was full, this one was no problem for my VR lens and D300 handheld, I didn't have to adjust this shot at all, it came off the camera like that.

As for the blue sky shot on the right, well even that was in the hands of the gods. This week it has been blue sky one minute, black sky the next. This was a chance shot on the way home. The M25 was jammed so I chose a different route, spotted the sign and pulled up. By the time I had taken a couple of shots of this and the adjacent offices it started raining out of blue sky (how does it do that?!) and the rest of the evening was dark and gloomy.

Inside the Moka cafe restaurant in the Bentall Centre, Kingston, London, UK

Renault UK Ltd head office, Maple Cross, UK 1/2 showing logo on standard

Here's to lucky shots, let's hope they get spotted.

For those following the QC angle on my blog, all three of these shots came straight off the camera looking like this. Upsized by 120% in Capture NX and saved as JPEG, straight through QC, and finally Bob's your mother's brother and all that...

Discount license
If you want to license the images directly at a discount, contact the photographer at sales@smyrnoff.com otherwise use the links above to license through Alamy.