Ella Rose: the story: Herding Cats

Thursday, 22 December 2011

Herding Cats

Everything was in place, and still the camera was lowered from the photographer's eye.

Zoe: Stephanie. Ella. What are you two doing?

Me (calling down from the top of the steps): Just kinda, ya know, making shapes together...?

Zoe: No.

Stephanie and I: No?

Zoe: Uh-uh. (Shakes head.)

Stephanie and I: Oh. OK then. Normal posing (less symmetrical; less comical/excitable) is resumed. Results below. (....I loooove these pictures. How cool to get all of us models in the same place at the same time in front of a lens, to commemorate what a fun and productive week we had. Zoe Wiseman, woman extraordinaire, rolling around all over the floor, legs improbably askew as she took these, did such a fantastic job of organising things and I'm so happy to have worked with her. All the ladies in the images below are wonderful people and talented models I was excited to meet, and come from all over the world (I'm the only one from England, representin'!). You might want to click the images to enlarge them!)

*********

An interlude, while I have your attention:

JAN 29TH - Studio day in Banbury!! Photoshoots with me (art/fashion/dance, etc.) will be bookable by the hour, at £55 all inclusive (me and studio). These events are always fun and high-energy. Contact Martyn Davis at Eye for an Image for info; please be quick!

*********

Later on, I worked twice with Zoe one-to-one, wandering around the grounds of our accommodation. The heat was intense, so the photography was punctuated by dips in the pool. Each set was very quick, with a lot of moving around and finding new places as we went along. You can read what Zoe said about things here, over on her internationally-growing website, www.figuremodels.org.

In other news, I have fiiiiiinally got my brand new 2012 diary. This yearly ritual now requires the search for the perfect postcard to cellophane (yes, a verb now) onto the front, in light of the apparent lack of beautiful page-per-day diaries on the market. I found a good 'un, you'll be relieved to know, and will be scheduling in the many national/international trips I've been mulling over and scribbling down so far on loose bits of paper. Cool, huh? Email me for bookings at ellarosemuse@live.co.uk

3 comments:

jlmillerDec 22, 2011 03:25 PM
Very nice work from both Zoe and you... wish I could have been there as I was at the Mission Beach one and it was a fantasic time. Will definitely be at the next one.
ReplyDelete
ErikDec 23, 2011 04:23 AM
Strength (and beauty) in numbers. :-) I love the ensemble photographs, and the one-on-one images as well...very striking and captivating, especially the underwater shot. Also your mischievous grin I see in one of the colour photos. What were we plotting? ;-)
ReplyDelete
Urban PopeDec 23, 2011 08:52 AM
I love photos 022,029, and 030; The "dancing girl" with pottery photos. Really, really great.
ReplyDelete

Add comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

2012 TRAVEL PLANS

*PARIS: available 23rd-24th March
*WALES (including Snowdonia): early April (Easter)
*HOLLAND&GERMANY: April 11th-23rd (Dusseldorf, Cologne, Essen, Nijmegen, Amsterdam)
*SCOTLAND (Dundee-Fife-Edinburgh-Glasgow): 9th-16th May
*IRELAND (Dublin-Kildare): June (details TBA; postponed from May)
*GERMANY & FRANCE & MORE EUROPE: July-Aug

+ Australia, India, Hong Kong and Japan if I'm lucky.

I frequently tour a lot of the UK and Ireland, and travel internationally. Please email me directly at ellarosemuse@live.co.uk if you'd like me to get in touch when travelling to your area. Please include:
-your location
-a link to your work on a photography site/your website
-information about references, or a profile page where I can see some
-any other information
...Thanks!

...Wherever you are, I can probably get there and might be going there anyway! I have a car, a discounted rail card and a passport which likes being stamped.

About Me

Based in Oxford, UK, I began modelling for a painter not long after being a student and accidentally carried on. Whether traditional or experimental, from artistic nudes to fashion shots, I strive to work with artists and photographers to help create images which are memorable, beautiful, intriguing or celebratory of the female form. My life-long love of dance allows me to use my body awareness to add creativity, expressive lines, grace and emotion to images I'm involved with.

This blog is a little diary of my adventures and a fun way for me to share my latest images week by week (and help myself keep track of what I get up to!). Thanks for dropping by!

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.