Today has been another mad dash of three days work to fit into less than a day because at 4pm we had to set off to Slough to moderate a couple of group discussions in the evening. (Hence posting this a day late.) The day was much the same as Wednesday, early start then not home until nearly midnight.

I’d been given a hard time about posting crappy photos so today I decided that instead of a snapshot while dashing from one place to another, I would take five minutes before leaving for Slough to sit my colleague, Ewan, down and take another portrait. I was so pleased with my portraits of Beth and Sab at the weekend that I was feeling confident that I could just get a good shot without too much effort.

In the event, it was more difficult than I’d imagined. I got my lighting set up wrong and, because of time pressure to get away for the groups, I didn’t have time to adjust and re-shoot. I ended up with too many highlights and deep shadows.

Ewan is a very handsome chap but he isn’t as happy in front of a camera as Beth and Sab were (interestingly I’ve learned that makes a huge difference to how well a portrait turns out). He was trying to smile and he looked as though he was grimacing when I looked at the pictures. This one has the nicest facial expression.

The whole potd was set up and executed in less than five minutes. I’ve also learned that allowing a bit more time would have been useful! In fact, I learned that over-confidence after one good experience isn’t a good thing – I need to think more about why what works, works and what doesn’t, doesn’t.

Anyway, here he is. An hour later he was sitting in front of a room full of women who were talking about their husbands’ illness (same embarrassing subject as yesterday) and they were telling him he’s got all this to come. Poor Ewan – I think he got a bit squeamish at one point.

He’s a natural with groups of women, the ultimate charmer and I think they all wished they could take him home with them!!!

Ewan stayed here overnight afterwards because we had an early start again this morning and the meeting was local to here and he had the dubious pleasure of sleeping with Rosie! (His choice...I did warn him of the danger!!!)