Shapes

Through the desert… (My head soaked in river water)

ERWhittington 8 Comments
Hello! 
Just a quick update while I find my feet here in the desert…
I’ve just finished spending an amazing week in the company of wonderful people, a house/commune of girls who are all very different, yet all very like me, where going around nude is nothing out of the ordinary, beautiful art is created, and evenings were spent testing our tolerance for heat in hot tubs, then cooling off by slipping like whales – or, perhaps more flatteringly (possibly), otters – into the cooler conjoining pool, while sipping wine or water laced with freshly squeezed and freshly picked lime-tangerines (we couldn’t diagnose them; they crossed boundaries but tasted deliciously sour). What an amazing reality. So sad to leave that behind. I have now jolted my system into a city of fakery, artificial pleasure and sin; not my most natural habitat, but a wonderful part of the world from which to discover a nearby(ish) hole in the ground, I hear. And I want to wear feathers in my hair and pretend to be Pocahontas while finding the landscapes of the natives.
Here is a slideshow I made (and please appreciate that I am technologically retarded, in the truest sense of the world, and that this actually took a lot of effort). It shows various nude shots of me and is a good overview of my work so far in that genre. I amused myself by pushing the ‘English fairy’ angle quite heavily; hence the incredibly beautiful song by the incredibly ethereal Bat for Lashes, who spent a lot of time singing through my car’s CD system a couple of years ago and whose third album is going to be grabbed by me as soon as I’m home, as its being released while I’m away. Actually, I’ll just order it online now. 
//www.youtube.com/get_player

Thanks to all those photographers featured. You are great.

Painting with Chaos

ERWhittington 1 Comment

These oddball images were taken by Terry Joslin at one of mine and Ivory Flame‘s joint ‘Goddess’ themed days. We had a lot of fun making these; it was my first foray into painting with light, and as Holly had worked on this with Terry before, she was able to give me a quick intro into the method of whipping torches around the parts of our bodies we wanted to illuminate for the camera to see. The results are completely unpredictable. It’s so hard not to want to rush to look at the back of the camera after every frame. Many faces, limbs, expressions, body parts and movements are caught here, in different locations within one frame, and it definitely puts the model in the position of performance artist, capturing something akin to a moving image. At one point I became obsessed with trying to capture my left leg in a high-kick (more difficult than it sounds!)… and then I decided HANDS should feature… Hands hands hands on ourselves and on each other… The results are so creepy, strange, horrific and capture the imagination, I think.

Thanks to Holly for being splendiferous to hang out with in the studio, as always… and I do hope to work more on this with Terry sometime!

Gypsy Dance

ERWhittington 2 Comments

In my ongoing quest to make bellydance and gypsy/boho costumery a respected sub-genre of modelling in its own right, I give you today’s offering: a cacophony of movement and colour! These images were taken by Frank, a photographer from South Africa, shot in Gregory Brown’s studio in London. Frank said I made his day by asking if I could blog some of these, whereas actually by giving me permission he made mine. I love all the colour, passion and movement in these! I enjoyed doing all this styling myself (I specialise in eclectic and chaotic visual adornment).

I’ve got so much to do today, but am definitely definitely going to choose new dance classes to try next week. It’s probably a toss up between tap (my first love), contemporary and belly, at the moment I’ve had a break from the latter but maybe I’ll take this ‘freeze time’ two month-period (the name I have literally just come up with while typing) that I’m taking off modelling to expand creative outlets in the physical sense. I woke up this morning and realised I missed modelling. It’s taken me just five days – I have to admit I really didn’t expect that. (I have always thought modelling was just an extension of my love of dance/performance though, so I suppose it’s all entwined.)

What I call my ‘mermaid’ costume, bought at a dance festival…

What I might call my ‘vibrant earth chaos collision collection’… Featuring my incredibly joyous skirt/dress multi-option wear silk piece (seriously, it came with a little card with diagrams demonstrating 19 different ways of wearing it – no idea where that card is now) from Playa del Carmen, Mexico. And some other stuff from my bedroom narnia to make me suitably be-jangled.

Salome… featuring my favourite sheer dance veils, chiffons and silks…

Please let me in on your favourite shots, as always! Thank you! 🙂

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.