I must be a mermaid

'I must be a mermaid. I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living'. 
- Anais Nin

I was so glad I'd decided to pack my raqs sharqi costume (which I generally call my 'mermaid' outfit) for my trip to Norway. I can't imagine a better scene in which to show it off than at this rocky coast in moody weather; the colours worked so beautifully. I wrote a bit about Norway on my last blog post so I won't repeat myself here - but here's a little update on some edits I've kindly received!

By Hakon Gronning:

By John Erik Setsaas:

:-)

Into the Deep

I absolutely loved working with Clayton Bastiani on the Isle of Wight earlier this year. He is just so incredibly creative and it's really no wonder that his images have been published on hundreds of novel covers all over the world.

I was thrilled to be booked with the aim of producing a few more for his novel-cover stock (though we also did some different things as well). As someone who is rather fond of books and stories myself, I find it very exciting to be able to find myself on the front of another person's story, representing some aspect of an imagined world - it's a similarly wonderful feeling to know that a complete stranger has a portrait of you hanging in their house (or indeed, perhaps a bronze sculpture!) - really quite bizarre and odd (I always wonder what kind of person they are, and what it would be like to meet them and also how odd for them it might be to meet me). It will be interesting to see what stories out there will be matched up to my image, and why... Anyway, I'd better not get too ahead of myself, but I'll update on here with any news down the line... :-)

I'm allowed to show four individual images here on my blog, followed by a composite grid of some of the other images. It goes without saying but I'll say it anyway: all images are strictly owned by Clayton Bastiani and may not be used/reproduced in any way without permission.

I should mention that Clayton wrote a ten-part series on photo creation and photo manipulation for Black & White Photography Magazine, the May edition of which featured the first mermaid image below. In the article Clayton explains all about how it was made, and you may be surprised to hear that I didn't actually grow a tail especially for the purpose of the shoot (I suppose I'm just not that dedicated.. ;-))

Here's a snippet of Clayton's own words (from his facebook page), from when the magazine came out:

One of the driving forces behind many of my pictures is improvisation, finding ways to create images on a tight budget with minimum resources. This month I wanted to make a picture of a mermaid swimming in the murky depths of the sea.At the beginning of a recent shoot with Ella Rose I asked her to stand in the bay window and pretend to be swimming underwater. After the shoot I popped to the shops and bought a small fish tank and an assortment of plastic plants. Through trial and error and a little bit of torch light I spent a couple of days (in my usual to-ing and fro-ing manner) and created the following piece.

The Deep:

It's always so kind of photographers to send prints to me after a shoot and I was really excited to receive an actual 'moving image' of this one; when you walk past it looks like I'm swimming in the reeds! Very magical! :-)

Mermaid on Rocks:

Moon Dance:

Sword and Fire

And here's a grid of a few more from the day:

A lot of the images above were created in the most unlikely set ups: a lot of hocus pocus went into them and so the results were such a fun surprise for me (even knowing what the intended outcomes were, via some pencil sketches!). 

You can look through more of Clayton's work and purchase some prints of his fantasy and storytelling work from Stephen Bartels Gallery here.

Right, time for me to finish packing for France tomorrow!

Underwater Fires

I have so many images queuing up to be shown here as always but am interrupting that flow with some excitement caused by this morning's inbox arrival - some underwater adventuring shot in California by Zoe Wiseman.

I loooove these. Wow!!! Thanks Zoe!

I think I may have referred to this shoot already on here, mentioning that it was a fun challenge - my first underwater shoot. Meghan Claire (who features alongside me in most; we were also joined by Carlotta Champagne and Titania) was great at pulling me down, as I have the world's most buoyant butt, I think. The flowy hair and dreaminess of these, with the bubbles everywhere and upward reflections, and the light daggering and darting down through the water in ripples just makes these so amazing. I think my favourites are the ones in colour, and I also love the chaotic group shots at the end, with limbs and torsos all entwined at different depths and distances from the camera, with magical creatures falling beautifully in the foreground and far away mermaids swimming past alongside.... :-) I so want to try some more!

I'd love to hear your favourites!

Otters, Rocks and Water Lilies

Just in case you don't notice, I've now re-jiggled my blog here to have its very own stand-alone 'Travel Plans, Schedule & Events' page (see the new tab at the top!). Pretty snazzy, eh? I'll be attempting to keep it regularly updated with dates and locations, so it's the place to glance at now and then if you ever find yourself wondering about my wanderings.

I've also added a widget on the right hand side which enables you lovely readers to enter your email address into the box to get immediate notifications directly to your inbox every time I update this blog with news and new images. You might find you like it. (And if not, you can unsubscribe at any time.) Do it! :-)

*****

At the end of July I went on another two-day adventure with Perry (Imagesse) to Pembrokeshire in Wales. I annoyed myself throughout the trip by having a cold which meant I couldn't breathe amazingly well (urgh), but apart from that it was another very enjoyable adventure! I had my own beautiful little self-catering converted barn in Lamphey, so that was a nice treat (although I vaguely remember demanding that Perry remove a spider from my bathroom shortly after arrival. I am such a girl, it's embarrassing).

We visited various locations which Perry had thought looked interesting, and as usual there were some beautiful and striking scenes involved. Sometimes a shoot is a bit like a nature-spotting hiking trip in disguise. :-) With thanks to Perry (and hoping to shoot again sometime!), here are a few of the results:

With my dance wings let loose like a cape...

In a tiny old chapel set in a cliff:

Down near the water...

And in a huge lake filled with beautiful water lilies. It was quite difficult to find a spot to photograph here, as to be honest, the lake wasn't exactly very private, but we took the risk... I love the inky hues of Perry's mono conversions here, but will also add a couple in colour to show off the amazing vibrant blues and greens!

And of course, I promised otters. Well, aside from joggers of the picturesque-location penchantery, this location was also a hit with otter-spotters. One poor man told us all about his efforts to witness their existence, with little success, before moving on. Around three minutes later, we saw one repeatedly popping its little brown head up before swimming around to a slightly different part of the water, sending ripples and bubbles everywhere and popping up again... We were totally spoiled with otter omnipresence! So obviously Perry grabbed a quick snapshot or two (though he hadn't got the most appropriate otter-watching lens on at the time!):

Cuuuuute! I really hope the man we spoke to saw one or two before he went home.

I love my job.