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!

Stone, Swords and Silhouettes

Carl Grim has sent me more from a shoot we had together recently. :)

Butterfly catching...

In other news, I have some very exciting shoots coming up! Keep an eye on this blog for updates!

Wings!

I love these recent shots from Karen Jones, taken in her barn in Milton Keynes. This was the fourth time we'd met, and the third time we'd worked together. When Karen contacted me for a booking and mentioned 'flower fairies' as an inspiration, I got quite excited as I loved the illustrations (by Cicely Mary Barker) when I was younger. We were definitely on the same wavelength as to how these should look - pretty, innocent and girly, without being overly 'fancy dress'. The wings were light and sheer, and the moth ones in particular were beautifully-shaped - they made me want to flit around!

The first two here are probably my favourites - I just love the lighting and treatment, and think they have a strange, magical, mysterious feel to them. The second two are more disney-like, I think, in pastel colours (and probably closer to what we'd intended to achieve).

More to come from this shoot, as we also deviated from the theme fairly significantly after fairy time...

Lost and found: Dancing with Scarves (not Wolves, sadly)

I think I'm going to invent a little 'series' of blog posts based on images I discover when going through my hard drive; the previously lost and gloriously found. It is so much fun to look through images a while after they're taken.

This time, my discoveries are due to going through millions of shots in order to choose some to print. I'm planning to make myself a printed portfolio, purely for my own sake, of my favourite shots from my modelling so far; this decision is sparked largely because I don't know exactly how long I'll be doing this for, what with going backpacking for a few months and then coming home to an uncertain lifestyle - I hope I'll model while away in various continents and get straight back into it when I'm home, but you can't take these things for granted. As it stands, although I've been modelling for 18-ish months and am signed to commercial agencies, I have a confession to make: I have NO prints of any of my images. This increasingly strikes me as having been bizarre behaviour on my part. What have I (not) been thinking? It would make me VERY sad not to have physical memories of what I've been up to. Of course, everyone always says prints are completely different from computer files, and even that an image isn't 'finished' until it's a tangible, physical thing to be looked at - well, I've never seen any prints of my images (except for one or two versions; fittingly, Mark Bigelow sent me a card advertising his recent exhibition at Oxford Artweeks). I'm really very silly for not thinking of having my own prints until now. :(

(The card from Mark's exhibition:)

The rules: My printed 'portfolio' is going to break all the rules of what a portfolio should be like. It's not going to need an expensive folder (though one would be nice); it's not going to consist of only one image per set - if I like five images in one outfit/location, I'm going to print them all; it's going to have a LOT more than the standard maximum of 12-15; I'm not going to feel pressure to throw images away when they become 'out of date'... But, it is going to be carefully put together, and beautiful. In short, it's not going to be for anyone but myself - a 'memory book'!

:) :) :)

These were taken sometime within the last 6 months (I'm not sure exactly when without checking my diary, which I'm slightly too lazy to do at this particular moment) by the wonderful photographer Mark Bigelow. They remain unretouched and honest. I have some images from this set in my portfolio but had somehow overlooked these few, which now strike me as being quite interesting - especially the first, which I'm sure I initially didn't cast a second glance at, probably thinking it was a reject. I love it now! I actually might put it in my online portfolio, just to spite people who think models must always have heads. What a rebel.

Photodorset and FiresSecret

I had a shoot recently with Photodorset in the forest, fields, avenue of trees, flowers and open spaces near my house in Oxfordshire, featuring another model, FiresSecret. The shots required were natural and relaxed ones - nothing overly posed, which made for a very pleasant shoot with lots of candid shots of FiresSecret and I chatting and joking around (there are LOTS of shots of us laughing at each other and being silly, which is always nice - maybe one day I'll add a 'bloopers'/'outtakes' gallery to my website - I have plenty of material from this shoot alone!!)

These are some of my favourites: