If you've been following this site for a while then you'll know that I'm usually quite slow and methodical in the way that I light photos. Yesterday I had to do a photo as quickly as possible as we were doing it at the beginning of a pool match and we were using one of the two pool tables!

Stephen's mum and sisters

I'd already done one picture that the paper could use, a group shot of all the competitors, so to some extent the pressure was off. But I wanted to do this photo and I wanted to light it properly so we gave it a go. The three women were the mother and sisters of Stephen Stewart, a young soldier who died of cancer. The pool match is held annually in his memory and raises money for the Highland Hospice.
I quickly set-up one flash into a silver brolly as the main light and another bare flash as a hair light. Guessed the settings. Put the women into position, did one test shot of the back of their heads to check the hair light, and turned it down a notch. Did another test shot of their faces and the main light looked okay. Rattled off a couple of dozen shots and we were done.

From set-up to pull-down it took about seven minutes. I could nitpick the photo to pieces, and some of those nitpicks would be major ones, but the bottom line is that it's an okay picture and we did it in a busy pub without causing too much disturbance. I hope the paper runs this instead of the group shot!