Neil Danton

…ahh the old ideas still work when you need them. A fall-back when there’s not much else to liven up an event is the old standby – the jump for joy.

I can remember back, waaay back, reading articles by Victor… someone** who used to write a column in Amateur Photographer. The jump for joy was one of his favourites, when static images looked like the only thing available otherwise.

**It was Blackman, Victor Blackman. It was way back in.. actually I’m not going to tell you when it was, but it was a LONG time ago. Victor was a staffer on the Daily Express and his tales of the daily exploits of a newspaper smudger used to fascinate me. That and drooling over the hundreds of pages of advertisements for camera gear that I couldn’t afford. Regretfully I believe he has now passed on, which is a shame really because otherwise I could catch up with him and berate him for starting me off with this strange desire to be a pro-photographer. That and creating my interest in my first pro camera – the Olympus OM1. What a camera that was, and still is – I still have one – I can see it now across the room. Must run a roll of that strange stuff called film through it. You may have heard of the stuff.

So back to the commission, announcement of college places for the unemployed. Needs something to jazz up what could turn out very boring otherwise. Light-bulb moment – a jump for joy.

It was a fairly gloomy location (and pouring with rain outside), so used one flash on the main subject and a second on the laydees. I wasn’t going back the car to get a light-stand, so how do you hold a 1Ds in one hand, a flash in the other, and the second flash in… Simples. Use the Very Important Head of Something that you have just finished photographing, and he can hold it. Well if you don’t ask…

TTFN