Girl group Little Mix on stage ahead of their sellout show at The O2 in London.

2011 X Factor winners Little Mix celebrate their first show at the best selling venue with an award from general manager Rebecca Kane.

I was called in for this photo at the last minute, presumably since the press team had only just got permission for it from the promoters.  As a freelancer its essential for me to be hot on my toes when the phone rings; if i'm not already working then I do like to be reliable and say yes to these kinds of jobs.  So off I went to Greenwich with an hour to spare.

When I arrived the group were sound checking on stage and so I stood patiently in the pit with the press officer waiting for them to finish.  There's plenty of "their people" in these kind of environments and they all look very busy doing something.  Communication isn't always forthcoming and our allotted photo time seemed to come and go.  There's not much you can do except wait politely.

At one stage the bands' PR people shuffled in some excitable fans, sat them in the front row and invited the girls down for a quick Q&A.  So again we waited it out.

Just as I was starting to wonder if it was going to happen at all, a big bloke with an earpiece and what looked like to be a knife on his belt (seriously), ushered us onto the stage.  I'd already popped up a light on a stand so I didn't waste any time fussing with it when the time came to use it.

Little Mix had some impressive stage design however I chose to drop the arena bowl into the background as it was more relevant to my client.  I grabbed a few frames giving more or less emphasis on the bowl, but the tricky part was exposure.  Lighting the subjects was no problem, however there was no way of lighting such a massive background, and it was dark out there.  I found myself at a desperately low shutter speed and a very high ISO trying to bring the dark seating areas up as much as I could.  This means dialling the lights right back so as not to overexpose the girls at the same time.  Its a tricky balance and image quality was definitely affected, meaning a little additional work in the edit to bump the shadows and pull the highlights a little.

Anyways, a dozen or so frames and yet another photo call job over and done with in a matter of minutes.  Its all in the planning and the intention, I say.  And waiting... lots of waiting.