Dance

Gregory Brown and John Evans

ERWhittington 2 Comments

I’d admired both of their portfolios pretty much since I’d started modelling. We’d all spoken plenty of times before about potential bookings and finally managed to get the diaries together recently, which I was really excited about! I love their quirky props, the twisted shapes, the counterpoint in their work at which classicism meets weirdness… and the way the light wraps so beautifully around the models they photograph (I should probably mention that while I’m talking about both of them, they do shoot separately, one-on-one; for this shoot, I shot with Gregory while John shot with another model, then we swapped half way). I couldn’t wait to see what location was in store for me; I’d originally been booked for a studio shoot, but things were changed at the last minute and it turned out to be an enormous, half derelict house, bought by a friend of Gregory and in the gradual process of being restored… So, huge scope for interesting shots!

Here are some of me by Gregory Brown (there are a couple of shots which appear in colour and in b&w, as I’m struggling to choose in these cases… Please comment if you are more decisive than me and have a favourite!):

Stairs:

Strings:

Pointes:

Bongos in the window:

John Evans also sent me some photos. We couldn’t resist the purple wall:

More pointe shoes:

And some doorways:

And THEN…. It turned out that the guy whose house we were shooting in was in fact a British champion helicopter pilot. When he offered me a quick spin in his purple helicopter, I could hardly say no, could I? England drives me mad sometimes, but seeing it from the sky is a beautiful reminder of how wonderful the land is. Such an amazing experience!!! These are from my camera:

 My hand – I’m flying the thing!!

 
The location (and my little brum brum):

 Helicopter!

I didn’t actually realise Russell was quite the pro he was until afterwards… Bit scary when at the end of the flight around Warwickshire he claimed not to be very good at landing on grass, and seemed quite worried, telling me to brace myself for a skiddy landing, etc…. Eeek! What a tease. I didn’t even feel the touchdown. Ha!


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

ERWhittington

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.

The Sea, The Sea (I ran by it)

ERWhittington 6 Comments

And I ran a little bit IN it, which was nice. Being by the sea makes me so inexplicably happy; I deeply envy those who live near it and as if it’s just some other landmark or view. The ocean excites me sooo much; partly in a perverse way, since it terrifies me slightly (think of the ghosts down there; the sailors who gulped their last watery breaths alone; the bones; the deep, thundery laps of water rolling over itself and the bus-sized creatures who lurk, glass-eyed, past each other, having changed very little since the dinosaur age; the creaking sounds of ships and debris; the hunting noises and the dull squawks of the gulls over the water…. See, I even love sea gulls). Being at the shore-line is always magical. So you can see why I was quite excited to be working with John Kent down in Bournemouth recently.

We worked primarily on some stock images; running down the beach – lust for life, that kind of thing. My calves hurt a LOT the next day. I’d forgotten how running on sand can take its toll, especially if you don’t warm up..!

Then, I spent some time spinning and twirling under an arch, wearing pretty clothes. I do love my job!

The iPhone and the Cello

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When I was contacted by Gordon Fraser for a booking, two things struck me as particularly interesting about his proposal. Firstly, he wanted to take photographs of me using nothing but the camera on his iPhone (no Nikon? No Canon? What a maverick!) and, secondly, he wanted me to pose with a cello that would shortly afterwards be thrown from either a roof or the window of a four-storey building.

We shot, for the iPhone project, in a village hall. Any photographer who has used one of these for a shoot before will know of the distinct challenges they come with (the most basic of which being the almost inevitable lack of a featureless wall to use as a backdrop), but Gordon made excellent use of the surroundings. See how cool the floor looks in the shots below!

Here are a few from the day….. All captured and processed within the iPhone.

Cello:

Movement (some taken while I held a hip shimmy for motion blur only in that area):

Tutu:

And finally, some nudes. I really love the angles and warmth to these as well as the lighting and the slightly mottled effect on the skin in some of them:

Thanks Gordon!

You think it’s just a normal day…

ERWhittington 1 Comment

… Just hanging out in the studio with Mark Bigelow, standing on one leg, playing with shapes and silhouettes against an azure sky, merrily enjoying the space and the urge to explore the possibilities of oriental fingers…

Little (until afterwards) do you realise a little Ivory Flame-shaped ninja floating into the scene and hovering quietly behind you, ominously gravity-defying and waiting to pounce. This is actually how she entered the studio, you may assume.

(Dear Holly: This is the image I was talking about today.)

Seconds later, I got my own back (kind of):

Fun times!

… And still a LOT more to come from different sets.

This might sound immediately weird to anyone who doesn’t know instantly what I’m talking about, but some of these images remind me, for some reason, of little sand pictures of lizards I once bought in Tenerife.

Glastonbury: Ice and Ivy

ERWhittington

Last week I drove for hours on treacherous ice and snow to get to Glastonbury for a shoot with Ed Melville. Much of the journey was in first or second gear and there were times, during the way back, at which I thought I might never get home!! BUT it was worth the trip and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Ed wanted some Christmassy images with a ‘pagan’, natural theme, amongst other things. He’d gathered ivy and holly, and I fashioned myself a headdress.

We then went a little bit mediaeval/pre-Raphaelite. I’m really struggling to decide which to upload to my portfolio, so any help here onwards would be appreciated!!

Red and musical, featuring a Nordic lyre (which I could not resist twinging constantly, poor Ed):

Also, I now have these. I’m so sorry I’m bombarding readers of my blog with belly-dance pictures, but I’m having such a blast doing them…

Hope everyone had a wonderous, splendiferous Christmas. HAPPY NEW YEAR and love to all!

Swish, Sway and Storm

ERWhittington

Here are some recent shots from time spent with the wonderful, now Oxford-based, Mark Bigelow. We still have plenty more to do and I enjoyed it even more than the first time around. Mark even got to sample my terrible driving, which he was very polite about. For a spatially-aware person I am not very spatially aware.


The last one reminds me of the ocean – tumultuous/turbulent and moody (like all good oceans). I think the skirt (tied material) looks like liquid in some of the shots too.