CLOUDS Harp Quartet
CLOUDS Harp Quartet members Angelina Egerton, Elfair Grug, Rebecca Mills, Elinor Nicholson and Esther Swift all met at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. The fact that I hadn’t met any of them during my time at the RNCM shows how big the place is. It was only after I graduated that I saw them perform at St Ann’s Church in Manchester, in a brilliant and very moving concert. It was Angelina -who I knew via a mutual friend- who later contacted me to see if I could do a group portrait photography session for them at Elfair’s house in Irlam which I very gladly accepted.
It was a wintery day in February with just the right amount of clouds to take the harshness out of the daylight to get some photos with beautiful soft lighting as a result. It is my experience that the easiest way to have musicians be at ease while taking photos of them is to ask them to play, so we started off with some solo portraits at their instruments. Most professional musicians get so concentrated on their playing that they forget about the photographer, which usually results in a fair amount of natural photos.
After the initial individual shoot, we had a short break and it felt like the natural next step to sit everyone down and take some photos, mugs in hand. After a bit of manoeuvring of the harps in the background they were the perfect frame for the more natural group shots we were looking for.
For the last segment of the photoshoot we headed outside. During winter I always make sure photoshoots take place at the lightest parts of the day so we have plenty of daylight. It was cold, but dry and thanks to the light cloud coverage we ended up with a muted colour scheme which helped draw all the attention to the group member’s faces which were lit with a gentle glow.
It was a lovely shoot which I enjoyed immensely. If you would like to see the full series of photos, you can click the link below.
