Critique Welcomed Alex the May Pole

[Hamish Gill]

Yes, they had Morris dancers at their wedding ... It was amazing!


Alex and Morris dancers by Hamish_Gill, on Flickr

 

[Brian Moore]

Love this shot, Hamish. The sunlight peeking in top right,...that guy's face and his stocking streamers flying. You caught the hanky on the guy on the left just right, too. What lens? (Looks wery wide!)

 

[Chris Dodkin]

I can taste the cider Hamish - great feeling of Britishness

 

[Hamish Gill]

Cheers chaps!
Its the 16-35 lens Brian ... Quite possibly at the wide end ...

 

[Pete Askew]

Superb Hamish. Brian has pipped me to the post again for comments! But he didn't mention the onlookers!! Is that Tom in the kilt?

 

[Hamish Gill]

I suspect it might be .. Rolling a fag by the looks of it!

 

[Pete Askew]

Did they lift her up at the end of this dance? I once was at a country fair where the local Morrismen were performing and my partner at that time made the mistake of wearing a long white dress and was immediately dragged into the centre. At the end they lifted her up.

I do like Morris dancers I must admit but haven't see any for a while. Must try and find somewhere they are performing when Ina is over in a couple of weeks.

 

[Hamish Gill]

they did indeed ... i have some more shots ... ill post some soon!

 

[Pete Askew]

Either during or just after the dance one of them dancers slipped and fell. They immediately stopped and the leader said to the crowd that the only way to restore a fallen Morris dancer was a kiss from a virgin. After looking around for a second he got a lady from the crowd and got her to bend down to kiss the fallen man who immediately leapt to his feet. Mind, it was a bit of struggle for her - she must have been at least 8 months pregnant!

 

[Hamish Gill]

haha... yeah, they were pretty funny these guys too!
the main chap had a puppet horse that he kept on kissing and pecking in peoples direction ... pretty odd, but very funny!

 

[Pete Askew]

It is that tradition of oddity I like so much I think. Very English!

 

[Hamish Gill]

Indeed ... We used to get them dancing outside the local pub when I was a kid! Proper old country pub in the middle of a proper little village. They remind me of that ... When summers were hot and (insert your own nostalgic cliche) etc

 

[Lesley Jones]

Wonderful photograph Hamish. The timing is perfect and I'm glad they had good weather on the day. We had Morris dancers on our little village green on Monday, but we couldn't go to see them because we were looking after the llamas and ferrets. It did look like fun though

 

[Paul Lange]

While some might say unconventional for a wedding photograph I think it is the kind of image that people will remember and will certainly be a standout photograph in their album. We often think that others cultures have bizarre customs but really we do have some odd stuff over here in the UK. I think the image also shows something of life in rural England that will soon disappear unless there is some kind of Morris revival. I can see it now with youth fashion taking ideas from the Morris costumes and traditional ditties as ring tones.