I had a really nice, laid back shoot in Gloucestershire with Mike Bradbury last year, dropping in on my way home from a couple of shoots at a studio nearby. I love these simple, relaxed shots we took in his home studio (in between chats). The eagle-eyed among you will notice I didn’t point my toes in the casual sitting shots – I really like this about them. I have to admit I often find the propensity for art models (and I do include myself) to point their toes to be a little too unnatural and (ironically) awkward looking sometimes – it can be such a beautiful finish to a line, which is why we so often do it (and some of us have dance/ballet backgrounds from which this trait is perhaps borrowed), but sometimes it becomes a bit too much, in my opinion, and I see it slightly overdone at the loss of the natural feeling of an image (and I get that not all images are meant to look natural!). I think there is a lot to be said for a more authentic, less ‘stylised’/gymnastic way of being in photos, now and then. (Cue everyone looking at my toes now… eek!)
And the following are by Tony Roberts, who was really fun to work with at Big Shot Studio – yep, he even got one of me drinking tea (to be fair, almost every photographer I’ve ever worked with will have a similar shot, as I cannot keep myself away from the stuff between sets or while lights/backgrounds are being changed…):