Evening!
portrait
Catchlight in Belfast
I had a really fun morning today in London at a costume fitting for a new pilot I’m going to be in. It’s by the people behind Breaking Bad and Mad Men (neither of which I’ve personally seen, because I am never on top of these things), and I was (hilariously) picked out specially to be in a particular scene. I suppose I’d better shut up there, as I’m not allowed to discuss anything, but anyway, I get to wear a beautiful dress. đ
In catch-up news, I really enjoyed a flying visit to Belfast in February, organised by the lovely and very talented Ross McKelvey, who I’d modelled for once before in Dublin and once at a Yerbury workshop. A two day booking at his studio (part workshop, part group thing) expanded into 4 separate shoots, and it went by in a bit of a blur! I definitely hope to return at some point. In the meantime, I’m probably coming to Cork in August, which should be really nice!
Here are a few images from Ross McKelvey, which I really like:
and one from Hugh Wilkinson (hair and make up by Julia Clements):
Elephants
It was a pleasure to model again recently for Rayment Kirby, photography-improviser-extraordinaire (I was particularly impressed by the papier mache light, this time – Rayment is incredibly ingenious when it comes to creating equipment with which to work and produce various effects). We were working towards his latest book and created a good range of images, as shown below, with the aid of bohemian cushions, black fabric, jewellery, plastic sheeting, red rugs and rainy windows…
Twigs, Sticks and Weaves
Afternoon! I had another highly creative play-around in the studio (Unique Capture, in Milton Keynes, this time) with Karen Jones at the weekend, and have already been sent some shots I think are sooo lovely. Karen and I have worked together a lot on quite a range of styles and settings, and these latests shots are way up there with the best of what we’ve done, I think! It’s really nice to work on ‘themes’ with Karen, and it’s always good teamwork.
The original plan for this booking was something completely different, a ‘part two’ to a theme we’d already started (and which had resulted in some lovely shots, I think) but on a bit of a whim Karen decided to abandon that idea, for now, and work on some other ideas, including one set using twigs in the studio. Funnily enough, this had been on my ‘to do’ list for a while, and was also the plan of the photographer I worked with the just day before (luckily the shots are quite different though)! I have modelled in studios and outdoors in nature (as the eagle eyed among you may have noticed), but I hadn’t before brought these two disparate tropes into synthesis before, and the idea of bringing nature inside and posing it against an indoor, modern studio setting, makes for all sorts of connections about both life and death, joy and sadness, doesn’t it? We did a bit of classical ‘mother nature’ style stuff, and also some more ‘messed up’, ‘earthy’ portraits for which it seemed only right to backcomb my hair into an enormous tangly state (it needs little encouragement, to be honest). Those came out kind of glamorous (which was nice) though. Karen had made a necklace using moss. So clever (and a tinsy bit itchy, after a while…)!
These twiggy ones were done with natural light, which is often very flattering, I think.
Karen’s soft processing and the luminous light here reminds me of the film 300, somehow:
And one we liked without the twigs:
Then, another idea Karen had was inspired by an ‘oriental’ accessory. I remembered that I once bought a Thai hat on the floating market of Bangkok (why have I never used that on a shoot before?), so I whipped it off my shelf and brought it along, braided my hair and put on this rather funky jumpsuit Karen had brought along and kindly donated to my modelling wardrobe afterwards! I’m not usually one for wearing orange, but I do love it and I think it made for some cute, bright fashion-y shots. I really like the slightly retro tint in this first one especially!
Some monochrome nudes, for a different feel…
And a ‘Black Widow’ experiment:
Thank you Karen! Looking forward to the next one!
Poolside
Hello lovely blog readers!
All has been a bit dramatic here over the last couple of days. Those of you who have ‘friended’ me on facebook will know by now that I had a bit of a strange episode in the early hours of yesterday morning, walking into the bathroom and collapsing to the floor. I have no idea why this happened, really; yes I’ve been  ‘under the weather’ for a while now, with what was flu turning into just the usual symptoms associated with a cold – feeling a bit lacking in energy and tired, with a cough that seemed like it would never go away (still hasn’t). To be honest I was ignoring it a bit, just taking it a bit easier than usual in terms of accepting bookings, but my body obviously decided to have a bit of a sulk about it and treat me to my first experience of fainting.
I now have a cut, swollen lip, bruises on my chin (I basically landed on my face, I assume; my front tooth hurt a lot yesterday, though thankfully it didn’t get chipped or anything) and a touch of concussion to top it all off. The doctor took my pulse and blood pressure about seven times, frowning worryingly each time – my heart was racing, and my head was kind of lolling about while I sat in the chair. I also mentioned to her that I’d been vaguely aware of bumping my head against something more than once, as though I had been moving about on the floor (and also we found blood in two different parts of the bathroom floor), but she assured me that moving around is still consistent with a faint and not something to worry about at all (and I’m not really sure what happened anyway). I’m still feeling quite dizzy, strange and sorry for myself, but hopefully the actual faint was just a one off – though apparently it isn’t uncommon early in the morning, especially in young women, so various factors probably just came together. Still feels very bizarre and ‘out of the blue’ though.
I think I’m going to just lie down and read The English Patient for the rest of the day.
Also, the swollen-on-one-side lip has given me the opportunity to be surprised by the fact that, actually, massive lips wouldn’t particularly suit me. I’ll stick with my own please.
On a much brighter note, I’ve recently updated my Model Mayhem page and my purpleport page including one of these images taken by Jim Baab.
‘I only Feel’*
Evening! Just a quick update before dinner to show some recent film images taken in Belgium recently by Dimitri, while listening to Radiohead, Blonde Redhead and other such stuff.
I found Dimitri’s way of working quite interesting; he absolutely forbid any posing whatsoever. Instead, I had to just ‘exist’ in front of the camera, go into my own thoughts and feelings and be completely un-self conscious. I think the results are good, and it made me think of the way different photographers work; there is such a range of methods among those I work with. Some come with exact ideas, some have no plan whatsoever, some take control, some want the model to take control and don’t offer any real direction, some want emotions and moods to be acted, some (rarer) want no acting whatsoever. I want to say I think I’ve noticed a very slight divide between British photographers and mainland European photographers in this last comparison, but I don’t know if that sounds pretentious, and I’d need to do more research… And the painter I’m modelling for again here in England is definitely of the ‘just be yourself’ camp, as we were discussing the other day, though perhaps that’s another difference (between painters and photographers). Usually I think modelling is mostly acting… but is it? And when does a stance become a pose?
Lilies and Vanity
Hallo! I modelled for the following images in Dusseldorf a while ago with photographer Vernon Trent – a mixture of film and polaroid. So nice to see the results, and I can’t wait for my next trip to Deustschland! Vernon and his lovely lady friend were very nice to work with, and I have always found Vernon’s photography beautiful. đ
I really like the fifth shot.
Also, I recently wrote an article about ‘vanity’ in the context of modelling. (Loyal blog readers might recognise some of the content.) It was published a couple of days ago on the front page of Model Mayhem, and had a great reaction. I was expecting some snarky comments along the lines of ‘why does she think we’d want to read about that… Who is she anyway?’ etc; forum reactions are unpredictable (and I have experience of this from writing for the Guardian; you get such a mix!)! But I have survived and am pleased to know that people are relating to what I say in great numbers. Over on the facebook page of MM it’s had a crazy amount of ‘likes’ and ‘shares’, and I’ve had some really nice messages about it. I have no idea if non-members of Model Mayhem can read the article, so here it is in full, for the record:
….And soon I’m getting around to looking at some questions I’ve had posed to me for an interview for an excellent website, getting ready to let loose on some more of my thoughts about this modelling business… Such a compliment to be asked, and you just can’t shut me up at the moment.