wild roses and a hampstead heath meetup..

Here's a small series featuring the beautiful Little Twiglet which was taken during the open-to-all flickr meet up that the girls and I held back in April in Hampstead Heath, London.

The inspiration for the edit came from the pink flower wreath that I'd brought along with me. At the time I wished I'd brought the white one instead to contrast against her dress but somehow in the edit experimenting I fell in love with mixing the pinks and blue hues to create this light/dark ethereal feeling.

I was quite pleasantly surprised with the way they turned out as I literally grabbed Twig, put some flowers on her head and placed her in an area which had the prettiest light. Somehow, between talking to people and directing her, I only managed to take 7 photos! Usually it takes a (hell of a) lot more before I get one I really like let alone four!

Anyway please take a look and let me know what you think :) 

And now for meetup photos! I have a confession. I managed to run late and get lost along the way so by the time I reached the location some people had arrived and left! So, here was the group I met and although at first I felt a little intimidated seeing all the new faces, it wasn't long before we were all laughing and getting along well :)  

I can't help myself but do the typically British thing of mentioning the weather(!) but really,  we were all SO impressed with it! The forecast for a ENTIRE week leading up to that day was rain, rain and more rain! Which I suspect deterred some people from attending but then when the day arrived somehow someone somewhere was smiling as us because it was suddenly a sunny, warm spring day!

Anyway! Here are some pictures :)

Group shot with links! So from left to right: 

Me, Henry, Twig, Sarah, Jack, Sam, Sevgi, Amy, Nizaad and Rich

Henry!

Jack and Rich

Sam, Amy and Niz

Amy

Little Twiglet, Henry and Sarah

Sev and Jack

Niz

Niz and I taking shots of each other through purple glasses!

Sev applying the lipstick that soon everyone was wearing, yes even the boys! Haha ok ok maybe not the boys ;)

Chilling out at a local pub and checking out everyone's images from the day. 

So that was it! Our first open-to-all-meetup! It couldn't have come together without Sarah, Niz and the super organised Sevgi! My god.. this girl is good. 

 Personally I think it went really well. Everyone came with a good attitude, ready to engage, share and help each other. Some came not knowing anyone and I think we all went away having made lots of new friends! Which I think is what it should all be about anyway! Yes at times we didn't really know what was going on but fortunately with a small group of people it was easy to just set up a scene and marvel at the different approaches people had.

I think the girls and I will definitely do this again. So keep checking in and we'll let you know when the next one will be!

Here are links to everyone's pages and do check their versions of the day! :) 

 Henry, Sarah, Jack, Sam, Sevgi, Amy, Nizaad 

And finally! This series of Sev was also taken on the same day and the link to that blog post is... here!

Phew!! Thank you so much for reading!

Coming soon...

Somehow unbelievably it's been exactly 2 weeks since I got back from Kenya. In that time I've shot 2 weddings, visited Germany, relaxed at the foot of the Alps and now have a backlog of images and stories to share!

This was taken on the beach in Mombasa.. the town where I spent the first 16 years of my life. I'm looking forward to sharing more images from my beautiful home town with you :)

David Trumble

David Trumble is a talented artist and director who also happens to be a good friend of mine. A few months ago he commissioned me to take a series of images that reflected him and his personality to use on his website and also in his TED talk. YES that's right... TED TALK. 

For someone so young he's achieved a fair bit! I've attached the video at the bottom. It's beautifully delivered and talks about issues that I think every artist can relate to so please do check it out when you have a chance.

So, back to the session! A couple of coffees and a long country walk later, we'd outlined the images we wanted to create from the locations, to the props and to what he would wear. There were several things we wanted to incorporate such as his sketchbooks, signature red hat and the concept of duality (since David has a twin brother, Stephen). The images were taken in central Oxford and later in a field behind David's house. So.. (finally) here they are!

Stephen and David

Cheesy group shot!

And just for fun here's a dramatic outtake ^_^

David's website  and facebook page

And here's his TEDxYouth Talk - "The Journey to Indifference and Beyond"

Thanks for reading!

lady in the woods..

A quick series featuring the lovely Sevgi taken at the recent meetup in London.

This was such an impromptu set up. I literally grabbed Sev, spied the veil and ivy from Sarah's prop bag and placed her in the space that had the prettiest light and interesting tree features. 

I love setting up little daydreamy scenes and Sev was very patient whilst I danced about trying to make that veil reach new heights. As it so happened all around Sev were creepy thorny vines, perfect for a picture but not so perfect for my little ankles which were scrapped at mercilessly! 

Still, it was totally worth it :p

The three images all have the same colour way. I guess I just fell a little in love with the colour palette and wanted to explore it further. 

  I confess!! I couldn't resist playing with a b/w version.

Ahhh I'm so torn as to which version of this picture I like best.. which do you prefer?

Birds of Prey shoot

Model + Creative Planner: Little Twiglet

Clothes: Naturally Bohemian

Hair & Makeup: Siobhan Drew Makeup

Featuring: Aaron the (big) owl, Fraggle the falcon and Fred the little barn owl

Walking past rows of big beautiful owls, I felt like I'd walked through a portal and found myself contemplating which owl would be my partner in crime (and correspondence) a la Hedwig in Harry Potter. 

To be honest whole day was a surreal and enchanting dream. Everyones happy and positive energies came together creating an experience I'll never forget. For that I'll have to thank Little Twiglet for coming up with this concept (over a year ago I might add), figuring out how to execute it and for asking both Sarah and I to document it. I was deeply honoured and humbled to be a part of it. I loved every minute of it and now you can see for yourself how beautiful the location was, how the day played out  and some outtakes :)

Beautiful birds.. 

Location One

Whilst Twig was getting prepped, Sarah and I along with Gemma (the designer) took a walk about the premises to get an idea about what locations/ backdrops stood out the most and how they would work with the clothes. This little bridge, walkway with the sun streaming through was literally 2 minutes into our walk and yeah.. it blew my mind O_O..  

I think this little figure is Sarah coming through :)

Twig handling the owl like a PRO! Seriously you wouldn't even know that it was her first time.

Hahaha! The shot before this one was the one I uploaded on flickr.

Location Two
We loved the dappled light in this location and knew that the bokeh created by the leaves and light would be beautiful. Plus you know.. it felt magical..

It was Fraggle the falcon's turn to shine and I felt Twig was really great to be so calm whilst so close to him as he wasn't as docile as the owls.

The wings shot actually came about when the trainer was holding Fraggle behind Twig's back as she was straightening out her dress. I remember looking up and boom the girl had wings.

Lol she does not look fazed at all! 

Location Three
It was Sarah who spotted this beautiful tree with all its winding, creeping limbs. And it made for a perfect location to feature the little owl who stole our hearts, Fred.

He looks like he has such a mischievous little smile !

They make a cute couple ^_^

Location Four

We'd used up the hours that we had allocated for the birds and since we still had some light left we decided to go deeper and shoot at some of the locations that we'd picked out earlier.

The first was beside the river. I loved the light, tall trees and reflections I'd get from the water. 

I had brought along with me the feathery head piece I'd made a few months ago from all the feathers I'd found in my garden (I suspect the cat had something to do with it) and was glad I brought it along to this shoot as I felt it allowed the story to continue.

Location Five 

Sarah loved the long limbs of the fledging trees erupting randomly from the ground. 

This is why I loved shooting with her. We're both such nature girls :)

Group shot with Sarah, Gemma, the trainer, Twig, Siobhan and I.

All in all a very good day and I leave you with this little moment caught here.. 

I'll be releasing the final images through my facebook/ flickr so if you're interested keep an eye out :)

B xo