Birthday soirée

Back blip from Gill's birthday soirée  yesterday.  Rachel, our daughter, singing Loving that man by Jerome Kern.  Later on she sang the Flower Duet with Gill.  It all went well and it was great to see many of our old friends.  

This one was done with bounce flash but I also set up a backdrop and the studio strobes to take a few images of the friends & family who were there - managed a few decent portraits and raised some cash for Lupus UK as one of the friends has a daughter who suffers from it.  

Having 'subjects' who know me made it much easier than working with someone who is a stranger.  I found myself over concentrating on getting the eyes open and in focus, so one or two with cut off fingers etc.  Having said that there are two or three which have worked out really well :-)

A couple of extras added in now:  Gill with three of her colleagues,  Penny, Gill, Ruth and Shirley ... if you were in one of their classes, you were (as someone once said) lucky!  A separate one of Penny and her husband, who was, our son, Stuart's A level maths teacher.