On Saturday (day 328) the boys and I were hugely excited to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in London. This was the boys' first proper theatre experience and my first time in about 10 years. I was bursting with excitement as I tried to explain why it was different to going to the cinema. The show didn't disappoint and the boys were suitably impressed. Rexy was curious to see how they would show Augustus Gloop being sucked up through the chocolate tube and Roo was keen to see Mike TV. I wanted to see what the oompa loompas would look like. All three were amazing and left us open mouthed and in awe. The sets were stunning too. I wish that we could go to the theatre all of the time, but it really is such an expensive treat. It also felt very sad to leave my husband and Bear at home, but realistically she is much too young to go yet.
The boys were very patient as I crouched down on the ground, blocking the pavement, to get some shots with them and the headboard. The sun was tricky and the board was a bit blown. I was able to recover it though, possibly due to shooting in RAW. I have learned, but never successfully applied, the idea that I could use a fill flash to take the shadow off the boys face. It just always looks so flashy! Carrying around a reflector is tempting, but not really practical. I don't have one anyway. The boys would be so embarrassed and probably rightly so. The final shot isn't bad though. I'm happy enough with it. It captures the moment.
The boys were rewarded for their patience with a trip to the lovely sweet shop across the road from the theatre. This is a wonderful shop that is familiar to us because the original Hope and Greenwood set up just around the corner from where my husband and I lived in London, before we were husband and wife. We have such fond memories of that area, including the little sweet shop. They were so successful that they opened this second shop in central London and wrote a book or two on how to make sweets at home. I have the book, but have not had much success in making them. It is so much easier to buy sweets, don't you think?
Bear was not happy that we were off on a day trip without her, so we told her that we were going to buy her one of her birthday presents. Her birthday is next weekend. Unfortunately she misunderstood and thinks that it is her birthday now! We did buy her something in the Disney Store and ended up giving it to her last night.
And I photographed it today... (day 329)
Bear loves the Disney Fairies. She was delighted with this set which also included Silvermist (stand broken already) and the Neverbeast. She has played with them all day. I think that the are cute too but I was mostly interested to try out a focusing technique I read about this morning. I think that I have read that this is useful for macro photography and it would be brilliant for the Lensbaby for sure.
So basically, you switch to live view mode to see the image on the LCD screen. Switch to manual focus. Compose the shot as you wish then zoom in on the eye, or whatever you want to be in focus ,and then take the picture. Just to be clear, you don't zoom in with the lens but the image on the LCD screen. I was really pleased with how the fairies turned out. Even more so because I shot in very low light. I stabilised the camera on a book and used ISO 100, a very low shutter speed, and timer delay.
I will play around with this technique some more using my macro lens and the Lensbaby.
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