Gabriella Howson: That Leggy Bird

My first subject since the upgrade to my beloved 7D, Gabby, was back again. This time for a studio shoot.

She got to Farnborough at 11am and we had our first cup of tea, unzipped the suitcase of womanly wonder and caught up a bit. She told me about all the bits and bobs that she had brought to wear including all the new holiday clothes, her 'Sienna Miller' dress and also, my favourite: ‘The Disappointment Hat’.

I have to explain the disappointment hat now that I have mentioned it’s name so that you know why it is disappointing: Gabby and Dom (brother) went to London Fashion week one year and Gabby found this really neat hat and belt, which she was dead chuffed with… at first… but then (the cheeky git) Dom ends up finding various amazing pieces including a really nice jacket, and I think a suit? and some other bits, leaving Gabby feeling a little disappointed with her items (or lack thereof) come home-time. Hence this becoming ‘The Disappointment Hat’.

Well, OK fine, I guess you had to be there.

So moving on (tough crowd…) O_O

We started out ‘Simples’ as is the norm. A bit of warming up. Howson got her green cardigan on and we did a couple of headshots. Literally a couple. Then we ended up chatting for about 2-3 hours drinking approximately… 120 cups of tea? Approximately.

Then we decided to change outfit. The cardigan was nice and all, but a bit boring, which Gabby is not.

Light green. Bracelet, top and necklace. Holiday wear to be precise:

What a face! So beautiful!

(I really am quite lucky in that I have so many beautiful friends really.
It sure helps with a profession like photography!)

Lovely. And looking a bit like Lena Headey again in that last one!

Our 121st cup of tea:

We went for an elegant black outfit, again on black and Gabby was looking amazing as per. She scrubs up lovely for a posh bird (as Bill Bailey would say).

OK, then we had the snazzy looking cardigan. Wicked colours for a good start on the white:

In which Gabby started pulling her Lena Headey face again.

Seriously, do you not think so!? Sometimes, she really does look like her. Or Lena Headey looks like Gabby. More than likely. I knew Gabby before I saw Lena.

I'll just have to dress her up as Cersei Lannister and then you'll see. Oh yes. You'll see...

OK. NEXT! Look at this dress:

I ♥ this dress SO much.

It's all officey, heavy material and grey (though I like grey) but then the cut is just fantastic. WANT!

And Gabby in this dress is just… well…

Thanks Wayne. That's exactly what I was getting at.

Party on.

So, While we're on dresses, we got through a couple of those too.

There was the colourful, patterned one with the hat:

There was the 'very expensive oneo (don't touch it, don't touch it, don't touch it...)

Cute as hell.

Then we had the extremely colourful holiday dress. Which I also love:

She looks so catalogue in that one. :D

Backlit, for a lovely headshot. Mwah.

Close up.

And then more of an artistic Beauty shot. :)

Finally, as is seemingly becoming tradition on my shoots (I swear that this is not mandatory!), we had a little bit of partial nudity...

And the last in a 300 style colouring... for no particular reason...

<_<

>_>

Well folks, that's a wrap for that shoot though keep your eyes open as one, you might fall down the stairs otherwise and two, our stunning, 6ft tall, leggy IT/LARP geek goddess may well be coming back to see yours truly in January/February for another round.

*ding ding*

Wicked.

Zachary Street: Featuring Emma Bugg

I met Zach at a Savage Media production (Butcher’s Blossom) in 2009. I was helping out in wardrobe at the time. In the last year, we’ve come across each other a few more times on various sets and at the last one, he mentioned a potential modelling portfolio being put together.

A few weeks later, he messaged me about this modelling portfolio and we decided to get together in November to get it started.

Important note: I met Zach’s girlfriend, Emma Bugg at the last film he was working on. She is also of the acting persuasion and is, frankly, stunningly beautiful. So I told Zach to bring her along to spice his portfolio up a bit with a girl here and there. :D

So Zach and Emma came down to Basingstoke on the train on the Sunday morning and theybrought so many clothes. Well, Zach has brought so many clothes. Approximately one million suits, maybe two. How many waistcoats does this boy own? I think we will never know. Also, major hat fanatic. So many hats.

We started off nice and easy. Black Emporio Armani shirt on white, with two soft-boxes. Came out all nice. He’s a natural. You can tell he practises his model-face in the mirror. :D

See.

Emma meanwhile, was set up on the sofa with her coursework, reading up on some stuff. Well, I couldn’t have that. That is way too much good behaviour!? So I interrupted her (of course) and got her into the dresses she had brought with her. Which were awesome.

We went with Emma in black first with Zach in his grey suit. Whit whoo. Don’t they look gorgeous, dahling?

And don't you just love that hair colour!?

And then Zach looking all handsome in black and Emma looking beautiful with her cream dress complete with massive vintage bow. We were fans of the bow.

Yay bow!

OK, so next we did a more rock scene look. Dressed them all in jangly chain-like accessories and dog tags and the like and then, we took it outside. My first experience with using studio lights outside (Squee! How exciting!) And here’s what we came up with this one:

I love this one SO much.

And this one's not bad either.

We also took a couple of these inside and played around with those ol’ gel filters again.

I started off with red…

… which came out pink:

Best image from that set. XD

So then we went blue instead (the old favourite). Nice and moody.

A nice bit of contrast between the orange-red hair and Zach's blue cheek!

Right then. Well, it was going to happen eventually. Next, Zach took all his clothes off.

We (I mean to say, Zach and a very keen Emma) oiled him up a treat with an oil based moisturiser. And then I (and I do mean I, this time) sprayed him all over with water.

Pa-choo! Pa-choo! Got you.

This is what happens next:

Note how his ‘model-face’ has become much more intense now he’s finally got  to take his clothes off...

  

Such an intense look, Mr Street!

(My favourite. Look at that lighting! Phwoar!)

... And there's that old Tungsten setting again. :D

Needless to say, this was a wicked shoot and I had a great time with Zach and Emma.

Sorry Ladies, this one belongs to Miss Bugg and I can't see that changing as they're quite possibly the most loved up couple in the world but expect to see more from Zach again early next year!

Toodle-pip!

Mary Luke: Wardrobe Extraordinnaire

Mary is a long-term friend of mine from my college days.

We spoke recently about shooting and, being busy bunnies, we arranged them over two evenings rather than over the weekend.

Evening 1: Wednesday 19^th October, 7pm

Mary brought a small portion of her wardrobe to my house. This ‘small portion’ FILLED my house. There was the most MASSIVE suitcase I have ever seen in my entire life, being carried in by Mary (who is about the 3^rd of the size of said suitcase), a massive shoulder bag heaving with shoes, and then a further bag of shoes. And another box of shoes.

Now of course, this was totally my fault. As Mary said (repeatedly) “you didn’t specify!”. I had said, bring as much as you can carry. Fill a suitcase. Literally, as much as you can. My mistake. Sorry Mary. I didn’t realise that you owned one of every outfit ever made and that you happened to have a suitcase the size of the UK.

We got set up, chatting for a while and got Mary made up and into outfit one:

 

We had lots of awesome clothes to choose from. There were corsets and dresses and tights and trousers, chokers and shoes, the list goes on!


Outfit two was a bit more lacy and gothic and this was our best image:

And then, of course, because she can’t envisage a shoot now without her presence, Ceri “Look At Me” Williams turned up! Apparently, Mary invited her. A likely story indeed… >_>

And so Mary and I tried to carry on uninterrupted, which of course, was now proving difficult with Ceri jumping in front of the camera at every given opportunity and stomping her feet when she couldn’t have her own way.

She’s going to hate me when she reads this but it’s all true, look!:

Still, regardless of our unexpected Diva waltzing in and making us laugh uncontrollably, Mary and I got a good few shots to use from evening 1.


Here was outfit three. A Religion silver dress:

Then there was the black red and blue corset which was AWESOME:

The purple netted top, which was my personal favourite:

(Beware: too smexy for the naked eye.)

... and then there was actual nudity. Wa-hey!

We ended on that happy note. :)

Evening 2: Thursday 20^th October, 7pm

Disaster struck!

Unfortunately, everything went wrong on Evening 2. My car was at the garage being fixed and so I had got the train to work. Some pilchards on the M3 then decided to have a bit of a pile up and Basingstoke was a mess. I got out of work and got the train back to Basingstoke. I was picked up by Martin and then by the time we had fought through the traffic back to the garage, the service desk wasn’t open and so I couldn’t get my car. If I had got to the car, the shoot would have started very late anyway, but I was miffed.

Not as miffed as Mary must have been though as she had not got my messages due to driving to Farnborough to meet me there and got them when she arrived. Oh dear. Worse still… Mary had gotten me a present. And it was amazing (though I didn’t know that at the time). O_o


I obviously apologised profusely until her ears bled and we rescheduled Evening 2 to the following Tuesday. It did mean that I could start on the edits from Evening 1, though.

Evening 2B: Tuesday 25^th October, 7pm

Evening 2 was epic. I love the whole thing.


We started off punk-rock with big 80's hair and tassly bits. :D

And then we moved onto this pink gangster outfit that was, quite frankly, amazing!

Ain't she a character!?

 

And a beauty.

I love those. :D 

We did get a variety this time again with a lot of awesome outfits and things.


We had the awesome black lace parasol and dress:

This one is quite funny because, for those of you who don't know, Mary is pretty darn short (approximately 2ft tall ;D). For this one, as the skirt was so long, we stood her up on an upturned bin to get some height on the girl! Ha ha. I think it looked pretty cool though actually:

We had this wicked leather outfit:

Phwoar.

*Jelly Legs*

And then finally, we couldn't resist the inevitable Lolita outfit opportunity.

For those who don't know Mary, as I said, she's a bit of a short arse (sorry Mary, please don't bite my ankles), she's also obviously into her gothic stylings, however, she's also a fan of the ol' Lolita styling which she can really, truly get away with incredibly well due to her diddiness. That is a word. I just wrote it in the dictionary myself.

Now I have this giant teddy bear, Mister Ted (is there no end to my genius) that I won at Chessington (I know, is there anything I can't do, right?) and so with Mary literally looking like a little gothic doll and Mister Ted being as oversized as Mary is undersized... what a fookin' pair they made!

Observe:

HOW COOL IS THAT!?

As my avid fan, Adam Gould says, she looks like a little borrower! Awww. Can we keep her?

Anyways, amongst other things, Mary is also interested in Cosplay (eurgh) as is Ceri and so there may be some of that soon *shudder*.

Aside from that, doing these images in the evening kind of limited us to the studio due to lack of lighting but all those who would like to see more gothic Mary images on location, say 'aye'!

Must... buy... portable... battery... pack... for... lights...

... so... expensive...

*cries forever*

Goodnight Kids!