Lord and Lady Swinfen

Yesterday was delightful and challenging in equal measure.  It is the second part of my project to photograph Gurkha supporters with a serving Gurkha, and to allow the serving Gurkha to photograph the supporters.  Captain Buddhi has long been a keen photographer, so I asked him to accompany me to Lord and Lady Swinfen’s charitable Trust event at the House of Lords.  The Swinfens are long-time supporters of Nepal and have been supporting medical projects across the third world for many years.

The evening was just delightful.  The party was split between the Cholmondeley Room and the House of Lords’ terrace over-looking the Thames.

The challenging part was the photograph.  I had planned to use the terrace with it’s wonderful architecture and water back-drop, but it was perhaps a little chilly, so I decided to fully utilise the wonderful green wallpaper in the Cholmondeley Room.  I had some concerns that it would over-power the picture, so I set my speedlight to 1/4 power, and positioned to camera left to add some punchy shadow – I think the wallpaper now really adds a sense of the place.  The other challenge was that Lord and Lady Swinfen are busy people, and were expecting all the guests to arrive (we fortunately arrived before everyone else), so time was short.

The outcome from my image; I am really pleased with.  I will show Captain Buddhi’s image at a later date when he has had a chance to look at it.

The next part of the project is to photograph one or two of the in-pensioners at the Royal Hospital Chelsea at the end of May.

For more information about the Swinfen Charitable Trust, click here