This week Ritva hosts the lens artist challenge – Portraits, and the opportunity to capture the essence and personality of your subjects.

My images might not be quite what you were expecting, on the subject of portraits, but I think these images show the creative and fun side of the subjects personalities. All my images are from the Bristol Zombie Walk, around Halloween, back in 2010. Although this was 14 years ago, I’ve chosen the Zombie Walk because I remember it fondly and it was one of the most enjoyable days out I’ve had with my camera. At the same time I learned so much from my afternoon with the zombies.

A lot of the participants were Bristol University students and really up for a good time. The zombies began to congregate on College Green, Bristol during the early afternoon and by about 2.30pm there were several hundred milling around in front of the Council House. The atmosphere was fantastic and the effort most of them had made with their zombie makeup and costumes was superb.

It was great for me because it was the first big event I’d attended as a photographer. At that time I wasn’t super confident at approaching people and asking if I could photograph them. In retrospect, perhaps I should have foreseen that having made the effort to participate, everyone would be up for having a few snaps taken. I took well over 200 individual zombie shots in a short space of time, that afternoon. My confidence grew with everyone I asked and nobody said “no.”

Most of my pictures were taken during the time the participants were meeting up on College Green before the walk moved off and wound its way through central Bristol. Even if it was a flash mob event, without anything official in place by the local authorities, it was a good natured, well marshalled and ran very smoothly.

It was a good learning experience for me as well as being a really great fun thing to do. I got a little too close with some portraits, with peoples eyes nicely in focus but the tips of their noses blurred. I also had to think on my feet, which stood me in good stead for when I went into wedding photography a few years later.

In retrospect, I could have taken a few more general shots and ideally I would have had a second camera but, in my defence, the area was quite tightly packed with people and I had to work fast with what was available. I couldn’t pre plan anything. The organisers had kept any information about the event to a bare minimum, as it wasn’t officially sanctioned, so on the day we had to, literally, go with the flow.

In the years after the walk I attended a few portrait photography courses and I now have a full set of Bowens studio lights. I’ve run a few personal and family portrait sessions but I decided studio portraiture wasn’t for me. The results were fine but photography wise it just didn’t excite me at all.

I did enjoy wedding portraiture when I was shooting weddings. I had a bit more time then to use fill flash, normally through an umbrella, and give a bit of direction to get poses and placings I wanted. I’ve included a few of those images below. Since those wedding days I do very little portraiture work although I do enjoy other peoples portraiture photography and I’ve lots of books on the subject.

Thank you to Ritva for hosting this. Posted as part of Lens-Artists:  Portraits

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All images: ©Stephen Hyde 2007-2025 – All rights reserved.