Day 262/365: Cinderella Exhibition

I had an exciting night tonight because I got to go to the ball with Cinderella. 

Well, sort of. I went to the Cinderella Exhibition that is currently running in Leicester Square. As you may have gathered I am somewhat keen to see the film. I am not actually a massive fan of the Cinderella story, although Bear loves the animated movie. I am very interested to see how they modernise the characters as Disney seems to be doing a good job with their female characters these days. They have just the right blend of beauty, independence and strength of character. I have really enjoyed all of the recent Disney films I have seen because they are so well put together with lots of excitement. The cast looks great too. However, I think that most of all I am excited by the costumes. I absolutely love beautiful dresses and dramatic costumes. This exhibition was perfect for me. I was also on a quest for something Shining as that is the prompt for the 52 project this week.

I lugged my Tamron to work in the hope that photography was allowed. It was! I was delighted that I made the effort with the big lens because most of these were shot at 24mm or 35mm. I was pretty lazy at first and tried to achieve decent white balance using the AWB, fluorescent light or tungsten. Everything came out orange. In the end I used the Expodisc and got better results. Having said that the faces on these mannequins worked well with the eyedropper in Lightroom. The layout and management felt very similar to the Harry Potter Studio Tour. 

Similar to the Harry Potter tour, the lighting was very tricky with very bright and dark contrasts. It was hard to get photos that were not blown or too dark. Lots of overhead light too, which of course casts horrible shadows. 

I adore this dress. There is a doll version of the step mother wearing this dress and I am very keen to have it. 

Here is a good example of the tricky lighting. I wonder if I could have achieved a better result with RAW. 

Another wonderful dress. I love that Helena Bonham Carter plays the fairy godmother. 

Here they are pre-transformation. 

I really am developing a thing for windows. 

The pumpkin carriage was so difficult to capture because of the lighting and the space available. I thought I would throw it in for the sake of completion. 

The main event was the ballroom. Cinderella and her Price very helpfully rotated around and around so that we could see the stunning dress from all sides. It is such a stunning dress. I wish I could have touched it because the fabric looks so floaty light. It really does look magical. 

Now, here we have an interesting contrast in colours. The photos of the dress above were shot with various in camera white balance settings. As I mentioned before, all of them were very orange and needed extreme colour correction in Lightroom. 

The ones below were shot with the Expodisc. The colours look much more natural to me.

How I love this vicious woman's sense of style. I'm not sure what it is that I like so much about her. 

The rotten step sisters. 

Some pullbacks from the ballroom scene. 

They had the glass slipper on display in the ballroom. I think that I found my Shining. 

It was a great exhibition and free too! Now I just need to see the movie.