Hinckley's Barnacles Restaurant Photographed by Christina Lauder

Again, more variety for me. Now this really is different and quite a lot of fun, for a change. Its basically just me, on my own, in an empty restaurant before the lunch crowd arrives. Barnacles Restaurant Bar & Bistro is a great restaurant owned by a lovely family and located just off the A5 in Hinckley, Leicestershire. I can highly recommend it. If you want more details please check out this link.

This may look like easy work and in some ways it is. What I find most difficult is positioning the camera on a tripod so that the obvious straight lines are running either perfectly horizontal or vertical as required. When photographing a room on an angle the horizontal lines won't be level but it looks better to find a vertical line to make perfectly parralel to the edge of the image. Without one line level it can result in an image that looks unnaturally wonky. If that were the case we'd likely find our attention goes more to trying to understand what we are seeing rather than appreciating the contents of the image.

This can be made more difficult when photographing wonky old buildings with lots of things in the way preventing a tripod from being positioned where it needs to be. Luckily we have software these days that have tools that enable us to correct lense issues (wide angle lenses will cause a bowing of the image putting curves into what should be straight lines) and we can adjust angles to make these straight lines run as they should.

This restaurant has lots of lovely light which our eyes can see very well. Unfortunately our cameras don't see quiet as well as our eyes. Which is where the job of a professional photographer comes in. I'm able to employ tools and techniques that can enable my camera to record what is necessary so that back at my computer I can use software that will merge multiple images to produce an image that most resembles the vision I had from memory of the day.

In some cases I used additional lights when I felt the dark side of the room was too dark in comparison to the bright side. This is where cameras have problems. Our eyes see detail in shadows much better than our cameras do. So adding a little light helps to show details in the shadows and balance out the light and dark.

The space in this restaurant was really interesting to photograph. I loved all the rooms, the different spaces and the natural light. Its a huge place but with so many small spaces it still feels really intimate, even having multiple spaces suitable for private dining. And the smells as I worked were killing me. It made me so hungry. Actually that's probably the most difficult part of the job for me. I love to eat and smelling nice food like that really got my appetite going. I'm not sure how I'm going to cope next time when they are having me photograph the food. Maybe my hayfever will have started by then and I won't be able to smell it.

Even though I'm predominately a portrait photographer, because I have a solid understanding of light and photographic software I can apply it to a variety of subjects. So I'll finish as I started, reminding you that I love variety and this career I've chosen is perfect for it.

Again my number is 01455 611069 if you've got some photography that needs doing. Or send me an email using our contact for here.

Comments

dark matter said…

Greatt reading your blog

20 May 2023 at 03:51

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