Bedroom Glamour

ERWhittington 12 Comments

Sorry for letting that last post run a while, but in between a brilliant trip to Germany’s Black Forest as well as a great little trip to the Manchester/Stockport area, I wanted to allow the news of the new book to take precedence for a while here in my little online space. 🙂 However, my desktop is BURSTING with new images from various people which I can’t wait to show on here, so… onwards!

It was lovely to hear from Tony Ornstien, a photographer I have worked with quite a few times but hadn’t seen in a while, a few weeks ago and recently I went over to his and his wife Jennifer’s wonderful, mad house (it is crammed with enormous, intriguing art, and built like a ‘train carriage’, which means you walk through a seemingly endless stream of differently-styled rooms all in one direction). I was booked for another dose of photography, since Jennifer requested some new art for their walls. It’s always fun to work with this duo, and Tony wanted to create some natural, intimate, relaxed, elegant bedroom (‘boudoir’, maybe) scenes. This style is intimate, and somehow classical and retro at once, and the atmostphere is vaguely similar to the image I have down the side of my blog here, ‘Bis’ by Pamela Hanson, which I (obviously) love. Liberated and friendly and natural. We found that the trick was to act, move and actually perform the particular movements or mini-narratives, rather than pose stiffly in a scene, and there was a lot of silliness involved.

The final set was the ultimate in multi-tasking at the end of a shoot; clearing up my things and modelling at the same time… 🙂 I am pleased with many of these (and there are a lot of shots – trying to decide on one or two favourites for my website!) and I hope to visit Tony and Jennifer again sometime soon!

P.S. To the person/bot who keeps trying to spam my old posts with vacuous automated comments about how ‘informative’ and ‘well put together’ my content is, and then suggesting I take a look at their loans website, please kindly fuck off. If you knew how strongly I felt about people who make money through interest, you’d understand how liberally I am deleting your ridiculous attempts to advertise your probably-virus-filled evil website through my ART blog.

Public Service Announcement: a Book!

ERWhittington 1 Comment

I’m so excited to have in my hands the fruit of several months’ coordination and the physical result of some extremely generous and kind photographers. I’m holding (well, not while typing, I suppose, but it’s here on my desk) a collection of some of my favourite images taken over the last three years, during which I’ve been practising my happy deviation into a life of art modelling.

I’ve mentioned before that I thought it was sad not to have many actual prints to show for my hard work, unlikely adventures and gloriously fun modelling frolics so far, and that computer files didn’t really cut it; and that I had decided to put together a photography book for myself to look at when I’m old (or anytime between now and then…). I’ve now managed to finish this project.

The book focuses on just one theme; it uses shots from one of my twelve website galleries, ‘Faerie’, and collects 29 natural, gentle, romantic and pure shots of me as the nude, female figure in a loose ‘garden’ setting; in tall grass, entwined in trees, in pools of water, surrounded by flowers, in faerie queen headdresses, in pre-Raphaelite forest guises, in the cool, shady dappled light of Mediterranean gardens and against huge, jurassic plants. I’ve never made a book before, so this is a great feeling, and just so wonderful to be able to own!

I’m so grateful to the photographers whose images are printed in this book, and although this was definitely created just as an indulgence for myself, as something to keep, I do have permission to make this book available for others to purchase. If anyone would like to buy themselves a copy, some money from each book bought goes to Amnesty. If you agree with me that physical prints are sooo much more satisfying to look at than online virtual ones, and you like the idea of owning a version yourself, having it adorn your bookshelf and perhaps provide some visual and artistic inspiration, you’re welcome to preview it online and see what you think.

Huge thanks to the following. Click on the links below to see more of their work:
Rebecca Parker
John Evans
Paul Bartholomew
Rayment Kirby
Voyages2004
J H
DB Images
Dave Aharonian
Keith Cooper (website pending)
Imagesse
Robert Farnham
Gregory Brown
Michael Cordiez
Sean Buckley
and Pat Brennan

…I hope you like it. I’m so glad I finally did this and am already thinking of making a second book sometime in the not-too-distant future… Just need to choose a gallery/theme and start to gather my favourites!

Pebbles

ERWhittington 3 Comments

Happy Monday everyone! Hope everyone had a nice weekend… I ended up on a boat yesterday for a friend’s birthday party on the river. Lots of fun (and cider and pimms!) and I got to drive for some of it!

Here are some recent shots by J H, taken on Brighton beach! This was the first shoot of my trip to Sussex at the end of June and resulted in a little monochrome mini-series (and salty beach hair! :-)).

 

J’s plan was to keep these in monochrome, but I couldn’t help wondering what they’d look like in colour (despite the uneventful sky; it was a hazy morning) and after a couple of to-and-fro edits (me vaguely suggesting, J miraculously realising my ideas with the magic of technology), this colour image is what we came up with. I love the peachy-pink blaze at the top of the frame and the soft pastel hues.

 
Another great shoot – thanks J!

Yerbury Fine Art Nude Masterclass

ERWhittington 6 Comments

I’m just back from a very enjoyable shoot with a photographer and his wife, a couple I’ve visited quite a few times now and love to see. We did some really nice un-posed and natural, expressive nudes (inspired by Jonvelle) in their beautiful house, and it seems a fitting time to now blog about a recent day spent with another husband and wife team.

I love working with Trevor and Faye Yerbury – they produce such beautiful, classy work and are lots of fun to model for, so I was happy to be chosen to model for one of their Fine Art Nude Masterclasses the other day. As always, the photographers taking the course were all a pleasure to meet and seemed to enjoy themselves very much, snapping away with big smiles all round! The location was Pipewell Hall, an old country manor house in Northamptonshire. I was mainly stationed indoors with Faye, making the most of the building’s incredible features and furnishings, while the other model, Zoi, spent the day outdoors in the grounds with Trevor. It was really nice to meet Zoi after we’d tried but failed to meet up in Holland (where she is based most of the time, though she frequently visits the UK still) and we had a good natter over lunch. 🙂 We made a good contrast as photographic subjects; Zoi with her beautiful Greek/’Amazonian’ look and me with a more ‘pre-Raphaelite’/serene style (well, that’s what Trevor said anyway!).

See here for more info on the range of workshops currently on offer by the Yerbury team: http://www.yerburystudio.com/

A few of the photographers attending have very kindly sent me some of their shots from the day. It’s interesting to see some of the different takes on the same poses. I was really happy to give my first airing to my new pointe shoes (ribbons to be sewn on very soon; old ones to be dyed black!) and although I’d only mentioned to Faye in passing that I’d brought them along while she was doing my hair at the beginning of the day, ‘ballet’ ended up being quite a strong theme for my posing, with lots of happy skirt swirling in front of the window. 🙂

These first shots are by Andrea (Pink Lily Photography) – read Andrea’s blog post about the day here:

By Maria Tanner (Lace Market Photography – see Maria’s blog post here!):

By Ian Parry AKA Maximus Operandi:

And last but not least, by Faye:

Zoi and I posing together outside at the end (first shot here by Ian Parry; colour snaps by Faye)

Trevor overseeing all:

 And a group shot (Zoi and I being silly in the middle)! 🙂

Thanks again to everyone who has sent me shots – it’s much appreciated! And to anyone reading, please feel free to let me know any favourites… Your feedback is always fun to read! 🙂
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In other news, I’ve recently re-jiggled by portfolio on Model Mayhem (click here to go there) – trying to organise it so that, by clicking on the relevant galleries, photographers who are less interested in nudes can see my fashion/commercial/editorial work all in one place without having to wade through all the more artistic shots, while photographers interested in figure work primarily don’t have to wade through shots of me grinning and running blissfully along beaches in sportswear… Wonder if it works well like that as a way to show versatility without having them all mixed up and it looking too eclectic – why not pop over and take a gander?

Sunday: three little updates

ERWhittington 1 Comment

Hello all! Hope you’re enjoying your various weekends. I’m having such a nice one – went to not-one-but-two birthday celebrations yesterday daytime and evening and had lots of fun (though it meant I was unable to go to another friend’s shindig/Paradise Garden fest in London or a festival my boyfriend had threatened to take me to in France (but we couldn’t really make it in the end anyway)… All very triple-quadruple booked, and I’m normally no way near this popular, but it’s funny how things all seem to happen at once!!) 🙂 Meanwhile, I’m just dreaming of a chance to go and see the new Ice Age film! And watching the final tonight!!! I am GUTTED that Germany did not go through, and will now have to support my third favourites, Spain (but am still deciding!).

So anyway, today is very leisurely and has consisted so far of finishing the novel ‘One Day’, which I loved, procrastinating wildly about doing the next section of my online course, failing spectactularly at replying to emails yet so far (though it is technically the weekend!). Excitingly, though, I hope to finish putting together a book I’ve been working on for a while now, featuring some of my favourite photographs (of myself; vain I know, but I really want something to remember all this by!!). Cannot wait to check the first copy and see it in print!!

So in amongst all this faffing and procrastinating and getting-things-done (I also intend to dye my old pointe shoes black, sort out my accounts/tax, acknowledge the fact that I need to address the monumentally boring task of choosing a new phone as my contract is about to run out, sort out my diary for Sept, Nov and Dec (when I am available for bookings, should anyone be interested!), and maybe even take my chihuahua for a walk/jog, I thought I’d top up my blog with a few stand-alone shots from recent times.

By Steven Billups, whose images I love and who I will be working with again this month in Germany. (Shot taken in an extremely BOILING part of Mexico; we didn’t last long out there):

By Max Operandi, who also shot me after this summery shoot at a Yerbury workshop a short time later; I’ve seen some of his shots from both, other than this one, and I think they are amazing. Can’t wait to show off more as soon as I can.

And a charcoal by Kristian Mumford, an Australian artist who used a shot by Christopher Ryan (with permission) for the basis of this work. (See images by Christopher Ryan from our shoot here: Lynn Creek Canyon). Kristian plans to create a whole series of artwork using my modelling images as inspiration, which is rather nice!

TWO ~ Ella Rose & Ivory Flame

ERWhittington 4 Comments

Hello! I’m just packing all my fancy things (lingerie, dance-y bits, fashion and interesting accessories) and squeezing in another quick blog post before my jam-packed (with shoots, not jam) Sussex trip (Surrey tomorrow, then Brighton and east Sussex before a studio day at the popular Cottage Studio – there is some time remaining on Thursday afternoon: see here for details and to book some time with me last minute or email me at ellarosemuse@live.co.uk!).

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It’s always so nice to work with other models, and the beautiful Holly (Ivory Flame) and I, although different in height/build, always seem to gel so well together in look and mood. We have so much fun working together, giggling all the time and having bizarre little half-conversations to assimilate our poses as we’re moving around. One of the best blurted lines ever was ‘Did you see that fawn over there?’ (well, any dreamy faces and mythical expressions are based on stories going on in our collective head!), and there is a running theme of elbows and hair inhaling. Recently (on a completely different shoot, I announced with whispering confidence that I was going to do ‘waterfall arms’ for the next click. Holly knew exactly what I meant, and immediately worried aloud about how she would compete with such promise(!), which made us both collapse in hysterics and get a great outtake shot from the photographer at the time. (The outcome of my waterfall arms is yet to be seen; I never had to prove myself.) Hhhm, I wonder if I’ve just shattered some illusions by exposing the utter nonsense going through our heads when we pose sometimes. Nevermind.

ANYWAY, the theme for our two consecutive days at Eye for an Image studio in Banbury was ‘goddesses’, the thought being that it might inspire some varied and creative ideas about what to do with two girls. I find that photographers have to think differently about shooting two models at once, and from our point of view the expressions and body language are all important; sometimes the focus is on shapes and intertanglement (probably not a word) and sometimes more about narrative and storytelling, or gentle sisterly togetherness.

….Here are a few of the images I’ve been sent (with thanks to the photographers for working with us!):

From Karen Jones (Thunder and ‘Sun Goddesses’):

From Stuart Thomson (classic curves and shadows) (this shoot lasted literally two minutes at the very end of the day; job done):

From Chris Lloyd (interaction, shapes and… hindu deities! …Although I’m a Christian and in general very much avoid ‘religious’ themes, I think the last shot here is pretty fun and funky!):

Hope you like them! There are more shots from other photographers and some beautiful things floating about on the internet… hopefully coming soon! 🙂

White on Black

ERWhittington

Four new images from a recent shoot in Dusseldorf with Klaus Kampert, who booked me recently for his ‘curvy white nudes on black’ project and has kindly sent me some of the results. Klaus is an excellent photographer and known for the precision with which he often requires his models to work. It is difficult and physically challenging to appear through the lens as though one has misplaced particular limbs (or hands or feet), and requires the holding of strange and uncomfortable, off-balance positions while being meticulously directed millimetre by millimetre. But Klaus’s creativity and passion, plus his interest in the musculature, structure and workings of the human body (his route into fine art nude photography is telling), made this shoot inspiring and fun – and his wife made the most delicious blend of green and black tea, which I gleefully devoured throughout the shoot, of course! I really hope to work with Klaus again sometime next time I visit Germany.