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Bed of Blue… Dreamy nymph or ‘blue steel’?

ERWhittington 5 Comments

Firstly: a big thank you to all the replies I’ve had to my recent (and extremely rare) email, which I sent out to those on my mailing list, announcing that I’m freshly available for some golden-hour nature shoots over the next few months. I now have a huge pile of replies to send and will work through them as quickly as I can!

In the meantime, some images to share… Anyone who’s been following my work for a while knows that I have a small (and actually unending) addiction to these yearly exuberances of blue…

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Fallen Giants & Rough Bark

ERWhittington 5 Comments

What a joy it was to finally work with Paul Veron of ‘Amazilia Photography’ recently, after two attempts at me visiting him during 2020-1 (but having to cancel flights due to covidia, AKA the world going mad). I’m so glad he decided in the end to simply visit me, to shoot in what I so often lovingly refer to as ‘my local woodland’. I call it this not because I am trying to imply any ownership of the land(!), but because it is so deeply familiar to me, having lived here for so long and modelled among its various trees, growth and flowers through all seasons, for years!

After some fairly violent storms over the winter, there were lots of fallen trees – quite dramatically so – hence the title of this blog post.

I find that photographers in general enjoy these woodland shoots so much – it’s a wonderland for the creative, and a deeply peaceful way to spend a morning or afternoon. People have visited me here from hardened, hectic cities (and are astounded by the calmness of the trees and open air), from other rural parts of England (sometimes casually identifying different bird calls, far better than I can!), and even from other countries and continents (it blows me away that people have so often done this, often incorporating a shoot with me into their itineraries after long periods of being in touch about the possibility of a shoot).

Paul is working on a ‘Location Nudes in Nature’ project and some of his previous books can be found via his website here. He was a pleasure to work with and perhaps I’ll even make it over to his own island, sometime, as originally planned (again not implying ownership; as far as I’m aware he doesn’t actually own an island).

Here are some of my favourites, which he’s kindly allowed me to share… Click on the first, to enlarge, then navigate through.

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Portraiture (a face off; one player only)

ERWhittington 3 Comments

I should be replying to quite a few emails rather than updating my blog, but it’s Sunday and I’m getting SO good at work/life balance these days (lucky, since I recently spoke as an expert on a panel about the subject, invited as one of Oxford’s female bosses in relation to my natural skincare range, Leafology) – and today although I did detour to the studio to make a fresh batch of the hair serum I make out of 17 different plants(!) and pack a few orders ready to send tomorrow, I also spent a hefty amount of time this weekend relaxing, going for an afternoon drink and a walk around one of Oxford’s parks, going for dinner, reading, booking flights for my quick modelling trip to Holland which is happening at the end of this month, watching Harry Potter with my fat cat on my lap, watering plants, pottering and getting some exercise…

STILL, a blog won’t update itself, and I love squeezing these posts in to give a little window into shoots.  I’m keen to share some photos from one of my all-time favourite photograpers to work with, Jeff Wilson.

The problem(?), I’ve just realised there are at least 85 photos to show you and, basically, I’m going to inflict them all on you, right here right now. These photos are from 3 of our most recent shoots, at Upper Mills Studio in Gloucester, Pozer’s in Swindon and a BEAUTIFUL outdoor location with 15th century ruins/walls in Oxfordshire, which I’ll take you to if you ask…. Jeff has this knack of making me look very ethereal and romantic and he also, like me, loves to do a mixture of outdoor natural light and studio set ups. I’m very grateful to him for taking and sharing so many excellent photos! They are collected with great gratitidude – and of course we’re working together again soon.

Here’s an update from a few recent shoots we’ve done…

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Piano & Leaves

ERWhittington 2 Comments

Catching up again… This time with a little handful of images by David, who I remember had an enviable poetry collection in his home as well as a load of creative enthusiasm. I love the moody whimsy in the first shot here, and everyone knows I can’t keep away from pianos. (…And I suppose the same can be said for leaves, this last being a clue as to my occasional absences here!).

I’m having what feels like the first concetrated ‘modelling admin’ day in forever, keen to book a few more shoots in Holland this summer and in July onwards. I model just a handful of days per month, now, so do catch me if you can! 🙂

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A Herring Factory, a Piano & a Window

ERWhittington 6 Comments

When Bragi Kort told me the next location during our week in the westfjords of Iceland in June was going to be an abandoned herring factory, I was half expecting (/dreading) rotting fish flesh and a bed of bones. But it wasn’t quite like that, thankfully, and in fact Bragi was right to be so excited – it was a fantastic location full of massive shapes, textures, industrial machines and window lights. A photographer’s dream and I love so many of his shots I’m accidentally sharing 40-odd here all at once… Including some taken at one of the hotels we stayed at which (to my absolute delight) had a piano (and an open-minded owner!).

I think a personal favourite is the set with the huge upside-down, rusting cone-shape (basically it was a space ship). It was a bit precarious and we had to be careful not to get too close; we were actually very kindly guided around by the owners of the land for our safety, before being left to do our thing.

As you’ll see, I’m suffering from a horrible bout of ‘colour or mono?’ indecision, so am showing some of both. I think I’m quite drawn to the colour ones for many – I love the muted tones.

If you like the images below, make sure you’ve also had a look at this other bumper post, which shows a totally different side of Iceland – the outdoor moonscapes and magnificent beauty of the landscapes (with little old me frolicking about among it all).

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The Sunflower

ERWhittington 2 Comments

Congratulations to Steven Billups who had the following two images juried into the Natural Nude exhibition at the SE Center for photography, Greenville South Carolina (one of the jurors being Kim Weston). The first is of me, hiding behind a sunflower (as one does) and the second, Dune Shadows, is of the wonderful Anoush Anou, a friend I haven’t seen in far too long (we once hiked the Grand Canyon together!) – hope to visit both of these people in the US when I visit next year! Anyone wanting info on that will hear from me once dates are planned if they’re signed up to my mailing list.

I can’t believe it’s been so many years since I was last in the US. I’ve been to Australia a lot in recent years and that’s taken over my far-flung travels a bit. Anyway, I’ve been home here in the UK for just over a week now – had such a creative time and shall be updating this blog with lots of results. I literally created a spreadsheet a couple of days ago listing all the shoots I am planning to blog; friends, there are 71 columns of photographer’s names. So, um, stay tuned..!

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Black Rocks, Snow & Rushing Water

ERWhittington 5 Comments

Hope all my blog readers are doing magnificently well! It’s been a while since I’ve blogged, and I’ve had quite a lot of extraordinary shoots alongside running my self-created natural skincare business, Leafology, and working on other projects… I hardly know where to start, but I’ll skip around in chronology as always, I think – it’s more liberating!

VEF_3576I was invited to go to Iceland with Bragi Kort (photo guide and Icelandic local) and Alex Nason (US photographer), for a week-long jaunt a couple of weeks ago around the westfjords of what, to me, feels always like another planet. Iceland is like something utterly unknown. It’s basically the moon, though surprisingly green in places (well, it is the summer, sun never going down, ‘n’ all; when I travelled back from Heathrow airport to my home in Oxfordshire I was dismayed to feel darkness closing in in the evening – even after just a week of permanent light it felt utterly alien – claustrophobic, even!). Alex has sent some absolute gems to me by email, since we’ve all been home, and Bragi has edited about a million photos and sent me tons of favourites in various processing styles. Can you imagine the absolute overwhelm (in a good way) of not knowing where to start with sharing them? I’ve decided to apply some kind of order to my thinking, and divided all his edits into 4 categories (we did all manner of things, from mermaid-esque stuff to shots taken in a quirky hotel in the middle of nowhere, from an abandoned herring factory (yes, really) to lupins (which I am obsessed with) and from outdoor pools to…. a piano (constant love of my life; I write this having just come back from a piano lesson, during which I nailed a few more bars of Grieg and sighed at my utter forgetting of basic music theory since I did grade 8 a million years ago and let it all go to rust…). I also managed to bump into good modelling friend Anne Duffy (Australian-based star some of you will know) and met (and posed nude with 5 mins later) the wonderful Icelandic selkie Svala, as well as spending the week road-trippin’ with my brilliant roomie, US model Lucy Magdalene.

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