Ella Rose Muse: the story: September 2014

Sunday, 21 September 2014

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Congratulations to Stephen Bassett who's been awarded a Gold medal in a salon (1st DPW ANNUAL EXHIBITION 2014) for 'Ella's Eyes':

I have to say I don't think my eyes have received a medal before, so that's nice. :-)

I also like the one below. Both were taken at Catchlight Studios in Belfast.

In other 'things I've been tagged in on facebook' news, the incredible photographer Neil Snape, who I worked with in Paris plucked this image out of the ether and wrote the following very very touching note:

'Funny Ella Rose Muse said when shooting, she didn't think she'd fit into my style of shooting. In the way that must be because I had only one chance to shoot with you , the most romantic painterly Raphealesque model one could ever find.... I think I'll have to remove this one quickly even though it shows nothing but beauty, unfortunately.'

... It's true, I do remember saying I was surprised (and flattered) that he was so enthusiastic to shoot with me, despite being more usually working with supermodels and fashion advertising. It was a pleasant surprise that someone whose commercial clients include 'Helena Rubenstein, Sonia Rykiel, YSL Beauté, Lanvin, Cartier, Lalique, Leonard, L’Oreal, and LMVH' was so keen to work with my look and genuinely appreciative of it.

Actually, I think I'm due a visit to both Paris and Belfast again soon. Hhmm.

I hope you're all as embarrassingly excited as I am about Downton Abbey's new series starting this evening... Keep your eyes out for an appearance from me in a couple of scenes (though I have no idea which episode I'll be in!).

P.S. Have you been following me on instagram? I'm posting behind the scenes and other such nonsense on there... and I promise it's not ALL about my dog, despite the fact that she looks like this:

(Sometimes it's also about my cat.)

Wednesday, 17 September 2014

Europe

Happy Wednesday everyone. A fine day.

Despite technically having a little stretch of days off between modelling trips - I've been a busy (tres Oxfordian & cultural) bee with my new book group, poetry workshop, volunteering, piano lessons (and I've been asked to play at my brother's wedding later this year, which is both amazing and terrifying!). I'll be baking the unbelievably-delicious-n-nutritious 'glo bars' again today in time for a couple of friends visiting tomorrow (I REALLY recommend the book as well as the food blog: http://ohsheglows.com/). I've also booked my flights for Vienna for next month, which is exciting - along with Venice that will be two new cities I've not seen before in just one month. I blimmin' LOVE living in Europe - all this amazing beauty and culture and history right on our doorstep, all with so much variety and diversity within one continent.

Here are some shots from Thomas Bichler, who was a pleasure to work with in the south of Germany recently.

He wrote about the shoot over on his website here. :-)

It was such a lovely trip in general, with lots of hiking around to get to the perfect spots; this shoot required a really beautiful walk down to the lake, after amazing views from the top. Plus a few other locations.... Very much looking forward to working with Thomas again in future.

Thursday, 11 September 2014

Leonides the Lion Head

I was waffling on about how I would one day love to shoot with a lion (as is often the case, other waffle-themes sometimes involving tigers, llamas, lambs, peacocks and sometimes unicorns; and lack of animal-cruelty allowing) and David came up with this spot, half way down the Australian coast... Well, we work with what we've got... :-)

Tuesday, 2 September 2014

Pedal boats & Bikinis

Evening!

I'm back from a gorgeous 'sunshine shoot' in Portugal - lots of images to show soon, I hope, and in the meantime, the results of some more local (south coast of England) beach frolics, courtesy of a last minute road trip with the excellent Gary Sandy, and the fine Great British weather. Gary's so much fun to work with - I'm sure I'll be shooting with him a third time at some point.

These were great additions to my 'Bright' gallery on my new website.

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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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