“The John Jefferson Smurfit Room is located in the hotel itself which dates from 1832. The room boasts a magnificent Georgian stucco ceiling, complete with ornate plasterwork and a magnificent Waterford Crystal Chandelier. Beautiful sash windows allow views onto the manicured gardens and also allow plenty of natural daylight to flood into the space while the elegant marble fireplace adds a wonderful focal point to the room. Double doors lead out onto the Yeat’s Room which is home to a large collection of original Jack B. Yeat’s paintings and is often used as a tea/ coffee breakout area or as a pre-dinner drinks reception space. The John Jefferson Smurfit Room can be used for private dining, a board meeting or for a meeting or presentation.”
Which was the first room we looked when we went down to see Orla…
.. a few months ago.
OUR THINKING: Late evening – shooting around 7:30pm, so need to be setting up around 6pm.
2 members of staff preparing the room.
Dinner party possible set for a private birthday or small corporate dinner, so maybe if we keep flowers in low rise arrangements down the centre of the table.
White table clothes unless the table is really nice.
Fire lit.
So having agreed on that, just after arriving and have agreed to deal with Ivan here…
.. Dianne noticed that they were already starting to set it up for us to shoot at the end of the 2nd day – so rather than just letting them get on with it, she got out the iron and when to work…
.. which meant by the time I set up the camera and took the first picture here…
.. it was already looking very good.
So while Claudio and Ivan worked on improving the lighting, Dianne worked on the place setting…
.. as she felt there should be a little bit more on the table.
Then Ivan lit the candles…
.. the finishing touches were added…
.. and that was basically it – as you can see…
.. which in the end looked like this…
.. after the fire had been lit and I had added on the “magnificent Georgian stucco ceiling, complete with ornate plasterwork and a magnificent Waterford Crystal Chandelier”.
Delighted with that – however, we had mentioned in our report, that either 1 or 2 members of staff may work well – so before moving the camera, we gave that a go…
.. and yes as you can see here…
.. that worked very well too.
So were provided them with the two slightly different variations here – the first of which can now be seen on their website here…
.. as this was one which they felt really didn’t need anymore.
And I couldn’t argue with that – because it really didn’t.
Still, as I would often say about all the stuff that we would bring to these type of shoots…
.. “It’s better to be looking at it…
.. than for it”
And so that’s the story behind this image which you can now see on our homepage too…
.. as I would say that this was my favourite image from this shoot.
From Dianne, Claudio, Ivan & me at ampimage.com