Ella Rose Muse: the story: Commercial/lifestyle with Chris Rout

Wednesday, 4 August 2010

Commercial/lifestyle with Chris Rout

I'd be meaning to work Chris Rout for over a year before I finally got around to it. I needed some lifestyle shots for my commercial agencies and have always admired the incredible way Chris captures light; his work is so fresh and natural, which was exactly what I needed, so the 5-hour trip (each way) to Middlesbrough was well worth the time and effort. I couldn't believe how quickly he worked. We got through over 20 sets, I think, with many of them finished within just 3-4 shots! Chris also needed some natural-looking stock styles (many of which I haven't included here), so it was a great exchange.

Also, in case you missed it on my rather smug (sorry!) facebook status (page here), the hotel I stayed in before the shoot had a cancellation and I was offered a free upgrade to an enormous room with two beds (one being a double four poster), gorgeous antique-looking furniture and a stained glass bay window. Brilliant! I hardly ever stay in hotels, so it's always quite a novelty anyway.

Back to the images. I won't lie, there's a lot (A LOT) of cheese here. Good, wholesome 'don't you just love life?' stuff... Brace yourselves!

(... And as you can see, I'm struggling to limit these down to just a few favourites. As the whole idea of commercial/lifestyle portfolio shots is for the potential client to see what you would look like in a given 'scenario', it's all about seeing/showing yourself in different ways and from different points of view... So thoughts and opinions are very welcome, as always.)

Kicking off with 'Casual Ella':

'Purple Dress (dangerously close to editorial but not allowing ourselves to go there for more than a couple of shots) Ella':

'Health and Beauty Ella' (including 'my elbow hurts'):

'Catalogue Ella':

'Hanging out in lingerie Ella' (kicking off this time with 'my stomach hurts'/'perhaps I'm pregnant'):

'Office Ella' (including 'let's talk business' Ella and my personal favourite, 'really really excited, office has won the lottery' Ella):

'Safari Ella':

'Mumsy Ella':

'Bikini Frolics' and 'Action Ella':

And 'Ballerina Ella':

What a productive day!

Walter De La Mare, 'The Listeners'

‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,

Knocking on the moonlit door;

And his horse in the silence champed the grasses

Of the forest’s ferny floor:

And a bird flew up out of the turret,

Above the Traveller’s head:

And he smote upon the door again a second time;

‘Is there anybody there?’ he said.

But no one descended to the Traveller;

No head from the leaf-fringed sill

Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,

Where he stood perplexed and still.

But only a host of phantom listeners

That dwelt in the lone house then

Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight

To that voice from the world of men:

Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,

That goes down to the empty hall,

Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken

By the lonely Traveller’s call.

And he felt in his heart their strangeness,

Their stillness answering his cry,

While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,

’Neath the starred and leafy sky;

For he suddenly smote on the door, even

Louder, and lifted his head:—

‘Tell them I came, and no one answered,

That I kept my word,’ he said.

Never the least stir made the listeners,

Though every word he spake

Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house

From the one man left awake:

Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,

And the sound of iron on stone,

And how the silence surged softly backward,

When the plunging hoofs were gone.

Natasha Khan/Bat for Lashes, 'Horse and I'

Got woken in the night,
by a mystic golden light.
My head soaked in river water.
I had been dressed in a coat of armor. They called
a horse out of the woodland.
"Take her there, through the desert shores."
They sang to me, "This is yours to wear.
You're the chosen one, there's no turning back now."

The smell of redwood giants.
The banquet for the shadows.
Horse and I, we're dancers in the dark.
Came upon the headdress.
It was gilded, dark and golden.
The children sang.
I was so afraid I took it to my head and prayed.
They sang to me, "This is yours to wear. You're the chosen one, there's no turning back."
They sang to me, "This is yours to wear. You're the chosen one, there's no turning back."

Mark Doty, 'A Display of Mackerel'

They lie in parallel rows,

on ice, head to tail,

each a foot of luminosity

barred with black bands,

which divide the scales’

radiant sections

like seams of lead

in a Tiffany window.

Iridescent, watery

prismatics: think abalone,

the wildly rainbowed

mirror of a soapbubble sphere,

think sun on gasoline.

Splendor, and splendor,

and not a one in any way

distinguished from the other

—nothing about them

of individuality. Instead

they’re all exact expressions

of the one soul,

each a perfect fulfilment

of heaven’s template,

mackerel essence. As if,

after a lifetime arriving

at this enameling, the jeweler’s

made uncountable examples,

each as intricate

in its oily fabulation

as the one before

Suppose we could iridesce,

like these, and lose ourselves

entirely in the universe

of shimmer—would you want

to be yourself only,

unduplicatable, doomed

to be lost? They’d prefer,

plainly, to be flashing participants,

multitudinous. Even now

they seem to be bolting

forward, heedless of stasis.

They don’t care they’re dead

and nearly frozen,

just as, presumably,

they didn’t care that they were living:

all, all for all,

the rainbowed school

and its acres of brilliant classrooms,

in which no verb is singular,

or every one is. How happy they seem,

even on ice, to be together, selfless,

which is the price of gleaming.

Kate Clanchy, 'Poem for a Man with No Sense of Smell'

This is simply to inform you:

that the thickest line in the kink of my hand
smells like the feel of an old school desk,
the deep carved names worn sleek with sweat;

that beneath the spray of my expensive scent
my armpits sound a bass note strong
as the boom of a palm on a kettle drum;

that the wet flush of my fear is sharp
as the taste of an iron pipe, midwinter,
on a child's hot tongue; and that sometimes,

in a breeze, the delicate hairs on the nape
of my neck, just where you might bend
your head, might hesitate and brush your lips,

hold a scent frail and precise as a fleet
of tiny origami ships, just setting out to sea.

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Wednesday, 4 August 2010

Commercial/lifestyle with Chris Rout