Fine Art

Costume changes!

ERWhittington 3 Comments

I love these shots by Mike Croshaw, taken recently at a studio day (its first!) at Cheltenham FilmPhoto Studios. Considering we only had a two hour slot together, and quite a bit of the beginning was taken up with me having to be laced into my wedding dress (I doubt any bride ever had to dress herself…), I think it’s impressive how much we got done. Here are a few from our session together. Very much looking forward to working with Mike again sometime. And for anyone interested in trying out the studio, I’d recommend it and can get you a good deal!

I’ve not really done ‘pin-up’ before, but Mike wanted to give the theme a try with me and I really enjoyed playing the part of a 50s cheeky-grinned starlet. I’d love to give pin up a real go, actually – I think it could possibly suit me quite well. Thanks Mike for choosing something fun and new to shoot with me!

This next shot has featured here before, but in the interests of comprehensiveness (of themes covered)… Gorgeous lighting and soft pastel hues:

I happened to have brought my brand new Asian bridal saree along with me to the shoot, in hopes of shoe-horning it into a session… I think it’s so stunning – I really really love ‘World’ costumery and I love India in particular so much. I spent some time there a few years ago (mainly in the north) and have been aching to go back ever since. Every year I tell myself it will be THIS year. I think it’s such a beautiful country, and I love how brightly coloured the women’s clothing is, as well; fanciful decoration and ornate, intricate beading is everywhere, and there is no such thing as too much adornment. It’s impossible to take a bad street shot there! Mike and I think a plainer background would probably have worked better for this shot (or I would love to shoot with it in a grand house, with the full works!), but for the garment’s first airing I do love this.

Below is a composite image in a classical ‘Old Masters’ style, which is a theme more traditionally suited to my strengths…

And finally we spent some time doing some movement and ‘swirly’ images. I love the golden curves of the fabric here, and its flaring wisp to my left in the composition (camera right?).


…Let me know which you like! 🙂

The edge of the world

ERWhittington 1 Comment

Wow, if Carlsberg made photographers, they’d come in the shape of Chicago-based Billy Sheahan. I appreciate and enjoy all of my shoots and often forge friendships with photographers when things have gone particularly well and repeat bookings are made often, but there was something about this shoot that was really special for me.

Billy picked me up from the airport in Mexico after I’d flown west from Mexico City (a place I can’t wait to visit again), and drove me towards a week of intense creativity. Billy was the first photographer who’d booked me for a shoot, and we found the most sublime beach, early in the morning, totally empty. We had to walk through various exotic trees and cacti to find it and when we first glimpsed it, we couldn’t believe how beautiful it was. So perfect and serene. It was so quiet, too, and the whole thing felt like such a privilege.

Billy is one of my favourite photographers ever. He is such a kind, jolly, positive person that is so much fun to be around. He was, as he called himself, the ‘model taxi’; carting us around to grocery stores and to and from meet-ups in his hired car. He even drove us and waited patiently while some of us browsed (slowly) a Mexican charity shop (I think ‘thrift store’ was the correct term; I bought some particularly eccentric black and white geometric-patterned trousers), looking for Halloween costumes. He crashed his car (well, ‘crashed’ is unfair; it was a tiny tiny bump) and got over it in half a second. He is always smiling and incredibly open to the moment, which was why this, Billy’s first real outdoor-location model shoot as I think he told me, was so successful and such a joy.

I know I sound like I’m gushing, but I just felt so incredibly FREE during this shoot. Billy just left me to prance about along the shore line, in and out of waves, jumping off rocks and strolling around in front of his camera. He was a fair distance away for a lot of the shots, and took millions of frames, hoping to catch the ‘moment’ of whatever I was about to do at any given time, since we couldn’t really communicate well in the conditions. So in some ways I felt, for a lot of the shoot, like I was alone in nature, just experiencing the place in all its head-knocking beauty. I’m so grateful for Billy for allowing me to feel that way, and for framing so much open space in many of the shots that reflect that state of mind. Looking at these shots makes me feel so happy.

Billy has written very eloquently about our shoot here and here. Please do read what he’s written – it’s so nice and really sets things in context!

Yes, there will be some monochrome/colour indecision. I love the blues in the ones looking out to sea!

Click to view them large (you’ll need to; I’m kinda tiny in some of them), and please let me know your favourites!



…And some in colour:
 
 

Superhero Rose & talks with Aslan

ERWhittington 1 Comment

You never know what you’re going to get when an email from Rayment Kirby arrives in your inbox. I’m a bit in love with these. The first one casts me as an angelic, peace-giving Superhero (well, that’s my interpretation of it anyway!), gently administering good will and benevolence to all humanity below. Ha. This should probably be on my business cards (ya know, the ones I rarely remember to actually give out). Seriously though, I love this image! Thanks Rayment.

I love the second one too – so warming to look at in our current snowy conditions! I wonder what hot havoc I’m stirring up.

And now, to cool things down again quite considerably, here is how beautiful the woodland park where I live is looking at the moment (OK, I don’t actually live in the forest, though I did see a tent there recently which made me sad… Seriously, I would HATE to be homeless at the moment. Well, ever; but particularly now). Such a perfect scene for Narnia-esque imaginations…

Finally, an irrelevant and unnecessary facial appearance from my cat, Sascha Tom, aka Mr Fluffy Bum/King Fluffalot/’my darling big boy’ (sometimes I address his highness as the latter in earshot of my not-quite-boyfriend, to freak him out for my own amusement), mostly due to his particular talent in the heft and fluff departments.

Well, I had to test out my new camera with a willing (lazy) subject, didn’t I? He has been following me around obsessively for the last few days, maintaining entire conversations with me around the subject of ‘Meeuugh’ and ‘Meeuh?’. He’s a rescue cat, and couldn’t purr for years (or perhaps he was hard to please and wanted us to earn the audible evidence of his pleasure), but now, I’m happy to say, he is an accomplished maker of the rumbling throat music. He also once tried to follow me into the bath (though changed his mind in mid-air and managed a sharp reverse). He’s cool. I love him a lot. Look at his lion face.

I’ve had so many dreams about Aslan appearing (only to stare at me, wisely; he doesn’t tend to say much, after all) in my backgarden. Those precious moments normally serve to punctuate the episodes of intense warfare where I (with bafflingly extensive abilities to be violent) have to single-handedly save the world or run and hide (usually through rivers or in caves; I think my unconcscious mind is a few centuries behind current events) from world-destroying bastards. It can go either way.

Trips and Leaves

ERWhittington 2 Comments

I love these leafy images by Robert Farnham.

And… I have some news and updates to share!

1. I’ve been spending an unhealthy amount of time on travel websites looking at flights, and have now booked a few more trips around Europe between now and July. Here’s what I have so far. Please get in touch if you’d like to discuss a booking in these areas; I still have some free days in some of these places:

*PARIS: 19th-23rd March
*WALES (including Snowdonia): early April (Easter)
*HOLLAND&GERMANY: April 11th-23rd (Dusseldorf, Cologne, Essen, Nijmegen, Amsterdam)
*SCOTLAND (Dundee-Fife-Edinburgh-Livingston-Glasgow): 9th-16th May
*IRELAND (Dublin-Kildare): June (details TBA; postponed from May)
*SOUTH GERMANY & FRANCE & MORE EUROPE: July-Aug

email: ellarosemuse@live.co.uk

2. I’ve been busily updating my website recently (a long, slow and arduous process, since my computer loves to crash when I try to update certain galleries). I have now re-organised my nude modelling images into four different galleries; Figurative for studio nudes (shape and form), Faerie for garden-style tree-nymphing innocence, Elemental for open spaces, rocks and water, and now BUILDINGS for nudes set against man-made structures (for modern interiors, crumbling ruins and derelict sites). Please take a look and keep checking back for updates as the other galleries (incl Faerie and Elemental, plus Romantic, Adorned, Shining and Accompanied) are all being added to over the next day or two!

Some fashion-y bits from Pierus

ERWhittington 7 Comments

Hhhm. How many photos are too many for a single blog post? I always post too many (it’s definitely true that there is more impact when a viewer sees fewer shots per set), and I might even learn one day to post more selectively, but since this blog is my designated place free of such rules and limits, I shall continue to overflood the area. On the plus side, maybe it shows that I can get a lot done in one relatively short shoot… (And not that I’m just really indecisive.) Yeah, I’ll go with that.

Photography by Pierus, from a recent trip to Cambridge. Muchos appreciation to him for kindly sending these!

The last one reminds me somehow of an actor’s shot.

And since I’m here… Here are some of the nudes we did as well – nice, simple shapery with lovely fine-detail lighting:

Bug Off*

ERWhittington 1 Comment

The following photos were taken by the excellent Cam Attree in and around a derelict old cannery. To see two previous posts from our time together, click here and here; this third and final selection is very different again.

* You’ll notice an inventory of insect bites remains intact. ‘Bug off’ relates to the multiple orange bottles of insect repellant spray Cam and Mal Grant (who was shooting Merrique simultaneously) brought with them for us all to use. Most bug-infested location ever. I don’t like using aerosols, but this stuff smelled really good – so sweet and fruity, baffling me entirely as to how it would do anything but attract insects. Anyway… I think it helped (and one of the bottles was very helpful for the rest of my trip after my Deet had run out…!)! Furthermore, for Christmas my Mum bought me a moisturiser by Avon which US soldiers apparently use for its little-known anti-insect effects. Feckin’ mosquitos.