Royal Cornwall Museum main hall

Architectural Shoot at Royal Cornwall Museum

I’m a sucker for learning. I just can’t help myself: I spend hours, sometimes days, reading photography blogs, watching tutorial videos, buying books from Amazon.

Sometimes I think if I am so good at learning, maybe I should start teaching. But the problem is I can’t nail down and simplify what I do. One of my strengths is capturing those fleeting moments of connection and emotion which can’t be contrived. So much is just instinctive, on the hoof, improvised.

How do you teach that?

For example, I was commissioned by the Royal Cornwall Museum to photograph some kids from a local primary school for a brochure to promote school visits.

I love working with kids of this age. They are so full of enthusiasm and fascination for the world.

Photography-wise I had to improvise: I had no idea what the actual activities would be. There was no point in creating an elaborate lighting setup as the kids would be moving round a lot.

The other challenge was that I couldn’t shoot some of the children because we didn’t have parental consent. I had an image in my mind of a kid with an expression of fascination and full attention.

I nailed that, but by staying in the background and not contriving things I got a some lovely shots of kids interacting, basically just being kids in a museum having fun and learning.

That was half the day. The other half was spent photographing the interiors of the building. Apparently it used to be a bank. Amazing that one of the biggest buildings in Truro was a bank. They obviously wanted to impress their customers. (Interesting factoid: the building was designed by  local architect Philip Sambell who was deaf without speech).

Unfortunately I can’t show you the photos of the kids; all those pesky parental permissions. So feast your eyes on these shots of this imposing and fascinating place.

Oh, and Abbi. That’s Abbi Hughes, also a very talented photographer fresh out of Falmouth who came along with her brother and my son to have a look round while I photographed them. Thanks Abbi and Pod.

www.royalcornwallmuseum.org.uk

Check out my portfolio for some some current property and and architectural images. www.mikesearlephotography.co.uk

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