….which title will mean nothing if you’ve never watched Only Fools & Horses and know Uncle Albert’s classic one liner, I’m sure the last thing on anyone’s minds was having their picture taken. And in any event I wasn’t yet born, though my Mum was a war baby born in the summer of 1940.

80 years on from WW2 there are people still fascinated by war-time culture and stage events where they dress in costumes from the time and display various war-time memorabilia. Luckily for me, one such annual event is staged in the County where I live and I’ve gone along a few times over the years to try and get some photos. However, they’ve never really been satisfactory because the lighting was harsh and there were a hundred visiting tourists in modern dress in the background of whatever image I tried to take.

This year I decided to be daring and contacted the event organisers to ask if I could bring along a backdrop and some lighting gear, set up in an unobtrusive corner somewhere and take some proper portraits. You don’t get if you don’t ask, and graciously the organisers said it would be fine. So I rolled up with a small plain backdrop, my camera, a small shoot through white umbrella and an off-camera flash.

When I take portraits at home I use continuous lights and it must be at least 5 years since I last did any flash photography. My skills were rusty, so the day before I set up in my back garden at home and worked out how much flash I’d need to overpower the sun (it was due to be bright sunshine without a cloud in the sky). I’m glad I did this trial run because it took about an hour to decide on the best settings and it would have been time wasted at the actual event.

Having got set up on the day, I went in search of willing victims volunteers. I’m no wallflower by anyone’s stretch of the imagination, but even I have to force myself to walk up to a total stranger and ask if I can take their picture. Thankfully, the people who take part in these kinds of events are used to being asked for their photograph and are usually happy to pose. I, on the other hand, am still learning at giving direction, though find that most people are happy to be given some pointers on how and where to stand.

I always offer the person who has posed a copy of the image, but herein it gets tricky. It was a whole day’s work for me and the editing afterwards took a week (I took loads of pictures). Not only do I have to safeguard the copyright of my images, I also have enough self worth not to give my pictures and time away for free despite “only” being an amateur photographer and not a professional. So I always watermark my pictures, then reduce the size so that images can be shared on social media but wouldn’t produce a good quality print. That way, if anyone wants a print they will have to buy one from me. I hope it’s a good compromise.

I had an absolutely smashing morning and met some really lovely people. I’ve also been told by the organisers that I am welcome back next year, which is extremely kind of them. The first time doing something like this is always a learning curve and next year I will have learned from both my mistakes and what worked well. It’s just a great opportunity to do something different and for me to keep learning.