I’m very privileged to work alongside The Menopause Experts, a leading menopause retreat company, videoing a large proportion of their online marketing and web site content and also shooting still photographs. They’re a great company to work with, full of fresh ideas and constantly active, which is of course really enjoyable. Videography in Shropshire and Staffordshire is an interesting departure from my commercial and event photography work and it involves a very different approach – no studio flash here so the continuous lighting gets used!
Fountain Retreats run menopause retreats with four key focus points (called “pillars”) – mindfulness, nutrition, the nurse and psychology, which is really educational and a great way for women either perimenopausal or menopausal to learn more from experts and of course ask questions. The Fountain Retreats speakers are really knowledgable, I’ve filmed the retreats a few times and at the end of the day we always ask a few people at random if they’d like to be interviewed. There’s always a line of ladies who want to participate and their feedback is incredibly positive which is great to see.
One of the things I enjoy most about working with them is that Dee Gardner, the CEO and Psychologist treats all members of her team really well and looks to get them involved in everything. Last week I spent a day filming for their online packages, which are available for women who are unable to attend a retreat or prefer to engage in the comfort of their own home in their own time and it was great to see both Sabrina (The Menopause Chef) and Kate (the Head Nurse) both stepping up to talk about their content. Check out their website.
It was quite an overcast day so I decided to use some nice window light as fill and balance it off with a Kino Flo Diva Lite as the key, plus two gelled Dedolights, one as a hair light and the other to just put some fill into a corner. If you look closely you’ll see I’ve used two mics, (a lavalier and another one overhead). The overhead mic is just for safety so there are no surprises when I come to edit the videos.
