Commended

Today was the final day of the RPS portraiture workshop, requiring some practical work. That's three days of workshops on the trot as I'd done another one the day before this.

As soon as I'd finished, we went out to Nanpantan Reservoir to find out what's happened to the grebes, and also for a much needed walk after these days of heat.

The nest is empty but still intact. No sign of any broken or deserted eggs. We'd spotted both male and female grebes out on the water. One humbug was swimming alongside and another was on the back of the male. No idea if there were any more youngsters. I'll have to keep an eye open on future visits.

As for the practical work, we had to take a portrait straight on, a photo with the subject looking away, and another of just one feature. Most people, including me, chose hands. 

Len was very obliging despite having problems with OneDrive at the time. This was the looking away photo which the tutor commended. I opted to use a wide aperture 85mm prime lens so had to use a tripod to secure focus, because of the very shallow depth of field. I got the focus on the wrong eye in the looking ahead portrait.