Portraits

Rebecca Parker

ERWhittington 2 Comments

I worked with Rebecca Parker at the end of August. If you haven’t seen her creations before, you really should go and look at her website. Her images are exquisite – a wonderful mixture of dreaminess, drama, strangeness and simplicity. Rebecca does all of her photography and digital manipulation/processing herself, and now also does the make up (including mine, below). I think she’s secretly a control freak… Only joking. The multi-talent definitely runs in the family: Moonmomma made the beautiful pearl and blue-green headdresses I’m wearing below and they combine efforts often on various things. What a crafty team!

I’m so glad we were able to do these while I was in Birmingham on the way to a shoot in Manchester. Rebecca was exactly how I hoped she would be, after emailing each other for quite a long time, and I think we have such similar tastes that I totally trust her creative vision. The location was ‘Gentleshaw’, and we rocked some heather for some portraits, some lazy lavender fashion and then some mean gypsy styles indoors. Here is the evidence so far (there will be more images to come):

I also want to show this image I’ve recently seen. I flippin’ love it and keep going back to stare at it. Wow:

 

Rebecca will soon be organising some workshops/classes, to share her knowledge and techniques with other photographers and creative types. Definitely contact her for more info if you’re interested, and do feel free to hint heavily that I should be the model she demonstrates on… 😉

Some results!

ERWhittington

I did promise one commentator some results from my day at the Victorian Pub event in Oxford, and as I’m on a bit of an admin roll (I’ve just updated my availability on my website, having recently decided to make some time available for September bookings. Last minute I know, but maybe you’ll have read my previous post…) I thought I would post some of the images. Many thanks to the kind photographers who have offered me the chance to show them off! It was a great day, lots of fun and I think the photographers enjoyed the unusual location and potential it gave for some funky images. Here are my favourites:

From Martyn Davis (who took one look at this penguin and agreed we had to use it):

 From the lovely Karen Jones, who I’ve managed to work with about a million times now:

‘Swan Song’, ‘To the Distant Beloved’ and ‘Winter Journey’

ERWhittington 2 Comments

I worked recently with Patrick Allen, photographer and classical recording engineer/producer with Opera Omnia Productions on two CD covers. The two CDs Patrick needed images for are Schubert’s Schwanengesang/Beethovern’s An die ferne Geliebte and Schubert’s Winterreise. The theme was 19th-century romance; unrequited or unnattainable love. I love modelling for historical themes – the emotion, costumes and history of it all. I made sure to think wistful, yearning, formal, damsel-ian, lace-filled thoughts as I pondered upon my fine gentleman lover who may or may not have had a trusty steed.

Below are some shots from the day (some of which involved Patrick standing on his roof while I appeared unattainably through the window…and me standing unattainably on a ladder amongst the blossom of a beautiful cherry tree), followed by four draft mock-ups of potential CD covers which Patrick has very kindly allowed me to show already.

Allinthemind

ERWhittington 1 Comment

Simon Young is one of those photographers I just had to work with. We spent a full day in Gloucestershire at some brilliant locations with some lovely make up (by Simon) and in beautiful evening light. Rob, who I’d worked with previously, acted as assistant extraordinaire, prime reflector holder and distractor of passers-by, and also dedictated grass-gatherer to protect my feet from sinking in the squelchiest mud imaginable.

My Mum’s Victorian-style wedding dress, as worn in 1979 and brought to life with a dash of Florence and the Machine (Simon thinks) and Wuthering Heights (I think):

More:

The iPhone and the Cello

ERWhittington 1 Comment

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!