Alice Cushnan: The Blossom

A lovely man, by the name of John Summers, contacted me recently about his niece. He told me that his niece Alice, was definitely model material, etc, etc, but doesn't everyone think that their sister/daughter/niece/cousin is model material? Probably.

John, was right though.

Alice (John's niece, keep up) messaged me via Facebook after I said to John that if she was interested in giving it a try, she could contact me. I took one look at her face and thought 'yes'.

It soon occurred to me though that Alice actually lives in Gloucester, which is not exactly around the corner but then again she is also very pretty. So, here's what I did:

I invited my good friend, Rachel Nicholson (note: ever-fabulous makeup artist... I think you see where this is going...) and her partner Simon out to Gloucester for the day with Martin and I. The plan being, Rachel and I work with Alice for the first part of the day whilst the boys entertain themselves, and then we all meet up for dinner. Yum yum. They were up for it. I win.

Of course, by this point, Martin has already followed any mention of Alice by singing "Alice? Alice? Who the..." you know the song. I am still suffering from this fatal mistake 3 weeks later. Seriously, it's just not that funny anymore.

So ANYWAY we pick up Alice (Hello Alice) and head to the Rococo Gardens which are beautiful but you have to pay to get in. Oops. Missed that memo. Rather heroically, Martin paid for everyone's entry. Thanks Martin!!!.

Now, Martin and Simon wandered off and entertained themselves somehow. Wandering around and making fun of something, no doubt. Meanwhile, Rachel got started on the make-up.

By the time we got shooting, Alice's nerves had kicked in. Happens all the time but it did mean that she couldn't loosen up to begin with. Regardless, Alice happens to be incredibly photogenic. Here's one of our first shots:

Lovely black and white headshot. Nice and easy. No pressure. Didn't even had to look at me. :D

Throughout the morning, however, Alice slowly got more and more comfortable and I think it showed. We went from some fairly awkward shots to some more relaxed poses like these:

LOVE THIS ONE!
(This was only about 15 mins into the shoot too)

  

(Surely you've seen Snow White? You never choose the red one, Alice!)

Even caught a couple of smiles :D

  

Lovely!

Then, we dropped Alice back home (after inviting her out to dinner, of course) and then Rachel, Simon, Martin and I all went to a lovely pub for a roast dinner. And pudding. Yum yum. But that's not why you're still reading, is it... ? 

You want to hear (read) more about the model. *sigh*

Alice and I are hopefully working together again later this year (nothing yet officially arranged) in studio.

So watch this space for a bit more from Alice!

Jo Wood: Inside and Out!

For my shoot with Jo Wood (Pure Curvation models) I met with her at 10am in Cranleigh and we had a quick cup of tea and then went straight out to find the gardens where we got our 'Alice' pictures as I like to call them. Reason being, Jo had a beautiful blue dress (with little white rabbits on) and of course, those big blue eyes.

I'll show you.

This one was taken in a sculpture garden in Ockley which we poked around and found to be incredibly interesting!

Then, on the way back, we found a beautiful hydrangea bush that matched Jo's dress perfectly and so we made an emergency stop and got the following image. Pleasantly lit by the lovely Mr. Sun.

Next we found a gorgeous iron wheel. So, naturally, Jo changed in the car and promptly started climbing on it! (Can't take her anywhere). Meaning we got this one:

And then there were also some pretty pillars. So she started draping herself all over them too ;) Giving us this rather lovely headshot:

It got to about 1pm (I think) and we got back to Pete Baldrey's to do a bit of work in the studios. We started on black and Jo brought a stunning vintage golden jumpsuit, which it turned out, was rather tight around the bum! The colours were lovely and played out rather lovely against the black.

By this point we were joined by Nickilee Hallett (another Pure Curvation model!) who was also shooting that day (their shoot details can be seen on Pete's blog here)! We had a giggle and then we tried a little something else on the black!  We decided to get a little bit cheeky and colourful and I think it's safe to say, that even with more colours, nothing stands out quite as much as those icy blue iris'!

And finally, our last look was actually a first for Jo. We decided to get a little bit rocky with a band t-shirt which shall remain anonymous (;)) and some skinny jeans. The make up was a bit darker and we had a small zigzag design pencilled onto her undercut making her look much punkier!:

I loved working with Jo and definitely hope to again! I think we got some awesome looks on this day and I think she enjoyed it too! ;D

See!