The annual May Week in Cambridge has just started, and what better time to return to the city for a short visit. I landed in the afternoon and headed straight for Pembroke College where Inge-Vera Lipsius and her cast were rehearsing All’s Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare.
The brief was to make a few headshots, so we did that, but then we got a bit more creative. Here are my favourite photos from our evening photoshoot.
Amiya Nagpal. We started out with some simple headshots. The first thing to do is to figure out where the light comes from, and turn the head accordingly. Also, rather than standing against a wall, I asked Amiya to take a step away from the wall, to give the photo a bit of depth.Amiya Nagpal and Will Gould. With two people you can get a bit more dynamic in your portraits.Amiya Nagpal laughing.Black and white portrait of Will Gould channeling his character Bertram.Will Gould and Amiya Nagpal playing around with different poses.Amiya Nagpal and Will Gould. This photo works best on a big screen. Here we found a roofed area of the courtyard. In a photo your eye is usually drawn to the brightest part of the image with the highest contrast, and after that it starts exploring the rest of the image. By using that knowledge you can control how people discover your photo by playing with placing different characters in different lights.Will Gould and Amiya Nagpal. Sometimes taking a step back will let you include more of the scene to better place your actors into an environment.Will Gould and Amiya Nagpal. Here I asked Will and Amiya to act out a scene, to make the photos more dynamic.Will Gould and Amiya Nagpal. Take two of the same scene, or was it take three (four, five?). Sometimes it takes a few trials to get the shot.Will Gould. Photography is not all about adding light. Sometimes it helps to remove light in order to get some shadows to help define a person’s face.Amiya Nagpal photographed in the same spot.Amiya NagpalWill Gould and Amiya Nagpal. While doing the portrait above I asked Will to just walk past in the background, and as he looked over his shoulder I snapped this shot.James Martin as the King of France. Here we were inspired by that famous photo of Winstone Churchill where the photographer Yousuf Karsh had not managed to connect with his subject. So to get his attention he walked up and stole the cigar from Churchill. James did not have a cigar, but I asked him to imagine the scenario. While doing this we also made sure the doors were angled so that his reflection would appear in the glass. The easiest way to do that is just to ask your subject to make sure they see the camera in the reflection. If they see you, the camera sees them.Inge-Vera Lipsius and Thomas GreigInge-Vera LipsiusInge-Vera Lipsius and Will Gould photobombing. A director’s job is like herding cats.Will Gould and Inge-Vera LipsiusWill Gould and Inge-Vera Lipsius. This has nothing to do with the play (as far as I know?), but they wanted to do some jumping shots.Thomas GreigHope Whitehead
Some of the cast had been missing on our first photoshoot, so the day after I came back for a second round of photos.
All’s Well That Ends Well is playing at Pembroke College garden 22 and 23 June, at 17:00. Tickets are £5.
Cast Helena – Beatriz Santos
Bertram – Will Gould
Countess of Rousillon – Grace England
Diana – Amiya Nagpal
Parolles – Inge-Vera Lipsius
Lafeu – Thomas Greig
King of France – James Martin
Multi-Roling Steward – Hope Whitehead
Multi-Roling Soldier – Sarah Amy Taylor
Band Guitar – Jack Benda
Production Team
Director – Inge-Vera Lipsius
Assistant Director – Gus Mitchell
Publicity Designer – Hannah Taylor
Co-Producer – Yanhong Zhao, Gaia Fay Lambert
Costume Designer – Ellie Jackson
Photographer – Johannes Hjorth
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