Finally I've got this set of stories photographed, edited, captioned and up. Three new ones, I'm getting to be like the modern authors - stories come in trilogies! This particular set have been well over a year in planning, I think I made the drum either last year or the year before, and due to many reasons was not able to do the shoot for it. So even though no photos were ready by the end of may let alone for May 1st I decided to go ahead and post these anyway.
Here are some links if you've never seen or heard morris dancing before.
Video of one of the local sides to my area. They dance at sunrise every May Day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1Gf6F3uNuY
Maypole dancing (not my video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uJq4BSkkG8
There was no way I could recreate their intricate weave with the dolls lol, but you get the idea of dancing and the music.
I had a lot of fun with this (afterwards...) Rowena was sacked from her post as Drummer at least once, and both her and Ryan were nearly summarily removed from the maypole dance team for Refusing to Stand UP, even under Duress' The (real) rabbit ran off with a bell pad and then proceeded to make his acquaintance with the camera tripod.... that's what happens when I take pictures in the conservatory which is the domain of our two lunatic bunnies when the weather is vile outside. I made no end of mistakes along the way with both the setup and the camera. Firstly the maypole base was made out of a hardening putty but turned out lighter than I'd hoped and then I forgot to put the flat heavy wooden base under the footing, the result was that all the maypole pix took half an hour to set up for each shot, the kids are all neatly counterbalancing each other's weight... NEVER AGAIN! I specialised in getting seven of them into position then the last one (Rowena usually as she was the most difficult) would minutely change the balance and down they'd all go.
Here's a shot of them practicing, where miraculously every doll stood up with absolutely no problems what so ever!
Amyway I hope you enjoy the stories! I will eventually get to picking my favourite shots out for including in the main gallery, but since I haven't found the time to do that from the Christmas pix yet I'm not worrying about it until I have the time.
Right now on to the big summer project!
Thanks or reading
Sue - and Tye.