I was lucky enough to have had two shoots last year with photographer Owen Lloyd – first in August at Atlas Studios, as part of an event organised by Nicole Rayner which brought us together along with Ivory Flame for a ‘trio’ day at the brilliant (but very filthy) industrial indoor location. Owen was one of the photographers attending the day and got some amazing images, then in December he booked me at Sandon Studio in Staffordshire, where we made the most of a few of its atmospheric sets (and I half-froze to death due to the heating not being on there, despite Owen doing a great job of hauling mini heaters around with us from room to room!). I’m convinced our third shoot might be both warm and clean (though I’d better not jinx it..!). 🙂

Owen is a total pleasure to model for as he really takes his time with his lighting and is very experimental and creative. I find photographers often apologise incessantly to me when they feel they’re taking too long setting up lights, as though I they might think I’d feel my time is being wasted somehow, but really it’s completely normal to keep tweaking things until you get the results you’re after, and if there was a choice, I’d far rather a photographer faffed for much of the shoot and got some amazing images by the end, than shoot ten thousand images without stopping to check, only realising later that they would have been improved by pausing to assess the results as we went along and making some simple changes to the angle/intensity/effect of the lights.

[Interlude for announcement… (drum roll)… Those of you on my mailing list will know I’m now planning a big tour of the US/Canada for next year. It’ll be a whistle-stop tour of quite a few places, and a huge job to organise, hence me taking bookings already, 10 months in advance. Send me an email (ellarosemuse@live.co.uk or via the contact form here on the website) if you’d like more info!]

With enormous thanks to Owen, whose use of colour I adore:

(With Nicole Rayner and Ivory Flame.)

At Sandon House: