No sooner had all the guests taken their seats, the fire alarm went off. Everyone made sure to grab their drinks before being evacuated!
And it wasn’t long before the boys in yellow pulled up outside the town hall. It was all a bit of a false alarm. I believe the dry ice on stage set the alarms off.
Whilst everyone was heading out into the streets, I took a couple of quick shots of the presenters of the awards; Krishnan Guru Murthy and Myleen Klass
“ This Exhibition–which features actual human specimens–allows people of all ages access to sights and knowledge normally reserved only for medical professionals. Take the opportunity to peer inside yourself, to better understand how your elaborate and fascinating body works, and how you can become a more informed participant in your own health care.”
I had done my research before attending. I knew the subject matter, but I was more concerned with the technical aspects of photographing the ‘bodies’. What would the lighting be like? Would I need a tripod? I’ll bring one just in case. What lenses will I need? I filled my flash unit up with fresh batteries (but as it was I never used the flash). I made sure I had spare memory cards… all the sorts of things that go through a photographers mind before taking out the camera and clicking the shutter.
When I first walked into the exhibition, I was quite at ease with the ‘bodies’ and body parts surrounding me and got on with the task of taking great shots. However, it wasn’t until someone asked me to pose with one of the body’s that I started to feel a bit uneasy. It took a minute or two to get the shot (see below) and whilst I was looking the body in the straight in the eye, the strangest of feelings came over me. I could see every eyelash of the body in front of me. The combination of that, and the sweet chemical scent I could smell, made me realise what I was actually face to face with. It’s very hard to describe. I didn’t feel disgusted. I didn’t feel ill. It was more of a “Wow. This person was once living and breathing. Had friends and family. Had stories to tell. And now I am studying his eyelashes and looking inside of his body”. Surreal I guess you could say.
Admittedly this was one of the hardest shoots to edit. What images to include, and what to leave out. So I present you with a taster of images of the exhibition.
Would I recommend the exhibtion? Absolutely. It’s a chance to see the human body how you would never get to see it ordinarily. It is facinating, informative and something very, very different.
Me studying the eyelashes of the person before me…..
I took the opportunity to grab a quick sound bite from the Medical Director of the exhibition, Dr Roy Glover.
I have also made a video of the images too.
Tomorrow night is the Royal Television Social Awards. It’s time to charge my batteries (and my those of my camera!) and get ready for, hopefully, a star studded event
Yesterday I shot some photographs for Oxjam. It was a music event that spanned the city, raising money for climate change and poverty.
This is Nathan Bennett aka Man With Piano at The Prince Of Wales (a pub I used to work part time in many moons ago). You can also find him twittering.
Pete Haywood. He isn’t online yet, but will be working on a website soon (won’t you Pete?). As well as being a talented musician, Pete is an artist. We had an interesting discussion about which medium captures someone’s personality the best; photography or drawings. Pete was insistent on drawing, naturally I had to disagree a little on that one Perhaps there is a challenge there!
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