Two Worlds and In Between

PART ONE: The prep...

" I've got this great wood yard you could use for your next shoot"

"er...? Thanks!"

And that was that for about three months until...

izombie. if you haven't watched it you should.. it's funny and quite addictive, oh.. and it's on Netflix so how hard can it be?

But I digress.. slightly. izombie's heroine is Liv Moore and it gives little away to say she's a changed woman and fortunately for me, changed in a rather fabulous way. As soon as I saw her super white hair and snow white tan I knew I has a basis for my next shoot and furthermore that her look transposed to a nighttime setting with say logs and smoke would be rather cool, see where I'm going here? that's right.. I'd found a reason to shoot in the wood yard!

Live Moore. iZombie's heroine and my inspiration for the shoot

So began what was to be probably my most ambitious shoot to date. Once I'd decided on the idea of beautiful zombies floating around the wood yard at night I just needed to think of a concept.

After a quick message to my friend Charlotte Howard, she of the opening line of this blog and one short car journey later I found myself staring at Great Chalfield Manor, which for those of you not addicted to historical dramas or from outside the UK, is a stunning Tudor Manor house situated about ten miles outside Bath and the backdrop for Wolf Hall and any number of period TV epics.

Great Chalfield Manor.. it's very old!

The aforementioned wood yard is situated a few hundred meters along a track from the manor and at the time of my visit, cold and impressively muddy.  I have to confess, that covered in lurid plastic sheeting and littered with mechanical machinery of every description I did start to wonder if I'd made a mistake, but once I got home and looked at my shots of the recce I realised it just might work.

One of the things that caught my eye on the recce was the large earth mover to the left of the yard, I was very wary of leaving anything in the shots that might force an unwanted colour palette on the shoot. However something told me that its inoffensive brown and cream hues might be OK. I can't recall exactly when the light bulb moment struck regarding the my idea to cover the digger in ivy and flowers, but strike it did and then we were off!

Logs and diggers pre the " magick"

It's at this point I need to mention Chris Liversidge, not only the man who's yard we were shooting in, but a complete dude to boot. When I called him up to ask if it was OK to use the digger in the shoot and that not only did I want to hang lights off it, but that I wanted it to be covered in plants, he simply replied, " so you want it to look like something from The Lost world as if it's been reclaimed by the undergrowth'?!

Respect....

Anyhoo location duly located it was time to find some models. I had been shooting with Ellie and Angelica recently as I'd got them into the studio to shoot some head shots for my new website    ( www.theportraitprofessional.co.uk if you're interested) so I got in touch and discovered Angelica was about to go traveling... FOR SIX MONTHS! suddenly my relatively large portfolio of possible dates had shrunk to roughly one weekend..

Not good...

Left to right Ellie and Angelica try on some costumes shortly before scaring the tourists... ( no really!)

Next I set about contacting Lucie Rose Donlan. Lucie is a model and pro surfer based in Cornwall and we had shot together a few months previously when I did some tests for her agency Mustard Models in Bristol. Lucie is fab and has a great look and despite living so far away, when I mentioned the concept to her she was in without a second thought. My last model was via the school of scouting as I like to call it or as my girlfriend likes to call it " did he spot you in Waitrose"?.. cheeky bizzum !  Enter Chloe, who despite many misgivings trusted me to turn her into a creature of the night time world and very beautifully she did it too.

So...location... check ...models... check.... concept...mostly check there can only be one thing I needed to do next..

PINTEREST!

I LOVE Pinterest. The sheer simplicity of being able to search for pretty much anything you can think of with just a few clicks is a Godsend. Add in the ability to create a board and the share it with everyone involved is invaluable. A few days later and I had what would become the mother of all mood boards and it did it's job perfectly as people began to e-mail me with a variety of "ooh and wows" that made it clear my ideas were hitting the spot.

You get the idea...

I decided that in the tradition of shows like The Walking Dead and Survivor this would be a world in which the social order had collapsed and those who survived would just inhabit anywhere that took their liking. Following on from the neat twist of i Zombie, the zombies didn't need to be decaying, so once I had decided that my zombies would be beautiful zombies, not " bits hanging off zombies" we went looking for what they should wear. I am a big fan of photographer Gregory Crewdson's beautiful otherworldly Americana and for a time I considered having vehicles in the shots, car headlights in smoke are a pretty cool look in any scene and thus I wondered if our heroines should have a mixture of modern clothing. Eventually I decided that I wanted the colour palette to be soft and ethereal and closer to something someone else I admire, the brilliant Tim Walker might shoot.

I talked extensively with my long term collaborator Felicity Keefe about what kind of look we should go for with regards to the dresses. We decided that we wanted predominantly long dresses that would trail behind the models or at least reach the floor and that the colour palette would be whites and creams and very pale tobacco colours. I was extremely fortunate to have been recently introduced to Alice Pickup who agreed to come on board to help with the Styling as Felicity was on this occasion unable to spend as much time as usual on the day of the shoot and I wanted a female eye on the proceeding's to reign in my "Smoke and Wolves" tendencies! With Felicity's brief duly noted I took Alice Angelica and Ellie to Bath Theatrical Costume Hire in Frome in Somerset. Despite planning to take four outfits per model we ended up leaving with around 40 dresses! not to mention feather headdresses, bags, ruffs and anything esle that wasn't nailed down or so it felt.

I had decided that I was not going to go into a night shoot with no idea if the dresses worked, so I'd arranged for Ellie and Angelica and Chloe to come to my studio for test shots. This gave Felicity the chance to see the girls in the actual outfits and with a quick and brutal " no.. no..no" to about half the dresses, we had the choice narrowed down to three looks per model. Once outfits for the absent Lucie had been picked and test shot with the other outfits we had our section.

The unholy trinity

PART TWO: The Rig....

Sometimes when I look back at all the preparation that goes into shoots like these I'm amazed any of us actually do them at all! It's the little things like "how am I going to stop four girls who are only wearing dresses from freezing to death stood on a wood pile for hours on end" or " how do I power sixteen lights and five smoke machines and a microwave and kettle and a Winnebago from a few 13A sockets in a barn" ? or " how much food do I need to feed up to sixteen people from Saturday lunchtime through to Sunday evening." or " how do I get half these people to a wood yard in the middle of nowhere when most of them don't drive and more importantly how do I get them home"?!! it's this kind of stuff that keeps you awake at night and it's nothing to do with creativity it's all just sheer logistics, and logistics on a very tight budget at that.

Logistics resolved as best I could it was time to start rigging the shoot. I am indebted to my friend of many years Robbie Wood, who despite knowing this would not be a short day, agreed to help me on the Saturday. We eventually arrived at the site around 1pm after I had been to Bristol to collect the lighting. At this point we were joined by the lovely Charlotte Howard and here equally lovely husband Moray McDonald. Robbie and Moray set about running power cables to the various lighting positions I had pre visualized while Chris and I set about rigging   " The Crate" with narrow beam profile spotlights. The Crate had evolved from an idea I had to hang a wooden pallet from the jaws of the digger to hopefully create rather splendid shafts of light through the smoke. I had done this when shooting with fashion students at Bath Uni for a Bowie inspired shoot and it had worked really well.

Elevation.

As we rigged the crate Charlotte set about the rather Herculean task of fixing flowers and ivy to a net to then affix to the digger. The net would be added the following day by the ever awesome Dave Johnson who gamely rode a digger bucket armed with nothing more than a fistful of cable ties and a smile!

Ride 'em DJ!

Around 6-7 pm the lighting was mostly in place and our intrepid volunteer test lighting models Chloe and Angelica had arrived together with Felicity and our 11 year old son Jamie. Jamie had spotted the smoke grenades I'd ordered and was very excited about being in a photo with his beloved Nerf gun and a cloud of green smoke. Sadly the pyro company failed to send the green grenade so we had to make do with white.. Sorry Kiddo!

There's A Light Over At The Frankenstein Place...

The lighting in the crate did look atmospheric and the idea of putting a haze machine in the crate to force a plume of constant smoke in front of the beams also worked ( Thanks Will!) but the sheer distance combined with some of the light having to be be blocked to create the slots of light meant that the amount of light that made it to the models was somewhat underwhelming. As complete darkness fell I tried some test shots with Angelica and Chloe and realised Robbie's prediction that it was going to be along day was proving right. By the time I dropped Robbie home it was clear that my lighting concept was going to need some fairly serious re-thinking.     At Cleveland Pools the back lighting had worked because we had endless amounts of room to position the lights until the perfect rim light was achieved, whereas at the wood yard we could barely move them back a meter before we were in danger of them and us tumbling down a ten foot earth slope in the next field. Also Cleveland Pools is comprised of light Bath stone that reflects even a small amount of light quite efficiently whereas the wood yard on the other hand is dark and comprised of big dark logs and little else.

PART THREE The Shoot...

Sunday morning saw the welcome arrival of Dave Johnson and his girlfriend Ella who is also a lighting technician. Once I explained to them the shortcomings of Saturday's tests we set about tweaking my approach to get more light onto the set and the girls. While Ella and I rigged more lights Alice advised DJ on the application of the ivy and flowers to the digger. Alice was a huge help as despite the initial attempts looking quite passable, Alice has good eye for detail and kept gently insisting to DJ and I that it needed more. and she was absolutely right. She was joined by Hope Taylor who had assisted me on the Winter Is Coming Shoot and Hope was tasked with everything from spraying mud on to the (very green) ivy to finding ways to stop the girl's head dresses from either slipping off or digging into their foreheads.. thanks Hope!

The Prettiest Star..

One of the best things that materialized on this entire shoot was an offer from Chris and his wife to let us use their Winnebago. I was genuinely worried about how to keep the models warm and the potential for people to get really cold and understandably miserable. Not only did the Winnebago provide warmth but it doubled as a hair and make up HQ and almost equally important a place to cook pizza! never underestimate the importance of hot food on a night shoot outdoors people..

Zombies need pizza too!

As the day wore on we were getting closer to our finished looks thanks in no small part to the fab Clairelouise Bender on hair and make up. Claire runs House of Bendy and is the nicest person you'll meet, always up and super talented ( http://www.houseofbendy.com). Felicity had designed some great head dresses to give the first look a more earthy pagan feel. They reminded me of Natasha Khan AKA Bat For Lashes which is always a good thing in my book.

Headdresses ahoy.. Angelica must have been off drinking prosecco.. she does that a lot and very well too!

Much excitement greeted the arrival of Mandy Partridge and her friends from Surrey Search and Rescue and their gorgeous " Direwolves" or wolf/ dog crosses as the actually are. Those who read my previous blog will recognize the dogs from the infamous " you can't bring wolves into a girl's boarding school " line.. This time there were no school officials to pacify and the dog's arrival made for some joyful scenes as my zombie girls cooed over them and the dogs lapped up the attention.

" Sit" !

Just before we started shooting with the dogs we took advantage of the beautiful setting sun that lit up some equally striking cedar logs on the opposite side of the yard to where our main set was located. Despite a rather hair raising experience with one of the smoke grenades we got some great shots and Ellie showed no fear perching atop the pile, although keeping her headdress in place proved quite the challenge..

The Sun Always Shines On TV....

By this point we were ready to start shooting on the main set and much hilarity ensued as the girls kept warm by dancing to 70's disco which Angelica had on her iPod and somehow ended up replacing for a time my very different moody playlist, but hey.. if kept them warm and happy who was I to complain?...

We shot with the dogs and without, Mandy having come up with the cunning plan of hiding doggie treats in amongst the logs to try to get them into some kind of position that I could use.

Angelica and The Wolf...

I'd always loved the look of wolves roaming in urban cityscapes, the scene in the film Collateral where Tom Cruise sees a lone wolf crossing the highway at night whilst wrestling with his own feral nature made a big impression on me. In real life not Hollywood life we had the rather more ungracious issue of trying to avoid endless shots of the hounds with their bum's in the air whist foraging to contend with but hey..that's showbiz!

In the end the girls were amazing, I'd pre warned them that although we had the lovely Hope Taylor just out of shot with their dressing gowns to cover up between shots, there were going to be long periods where they would just have to endure the cold and " dig deep". Dig deep they did and I can't praise them enough.

Queens Of The Night Time World

Grace Under Pressure..

Their Satanic Majesties Request..

Creatures Of The Night...

It took me months of planning ( even in a blog of this length I've skipped a huge amount of what actually had to be out in place) and two very long days to rig. re -rig and shoot not to mention the logistics of getting forty costumes collected and returned and chosen and labelled. But in the end it was worth it. It took five smoke and haze machines and three braziers of constantly burning wood to get the amount of consistent smoke i needed and the unfailing support of sixteen people many of whom came as far as three hours drive away to make it happen but happen it did and the reaction has been amazing. so..

The next time a friend calls you up to offer you a shoot location.., just be careful what you're watching in the days that follow!

The End..

Enjoy the pictures and until the next one.

Peace Out...

Footnote:

The eagle eyed among you will notice I've captioned some of the images with song titles. A shoot like this isn't everyone's cup of Earl Grey especially in the fickle world of fashion but I just finished a book on business by Gene Simmons of Kiss fame and infamy and he pointedly remarked that if he'd been put off by the naysayers in their early days, Kiss would never have become the most commercially successful band in the history of rock. Love 'em or hate 'em it's quite a thought. So I realised that whilst my style is often referred to as overtly theatrical it is MY style and what's the point in doing anything if you just copy everyone else? Kiss were never music biz darlings in fact quite the opposite but their audiences loved them and if they'd been swayed by what was trendy I wouldn't be taking my 11 year old son to see in two weeks time as they'd have long since hung up their platform boots so.. Gene and the boys you keep playing it Hotter Than Hell while I drink my Cold Gin and keep shootin'... after all I've Got Nothin' To Lose!

Kiss' Ace Frehley.. with his Gibson Les Paul with a smoke bomb inside. A man after my own heart!

 

 

Winter Is Coming

" You can't bring a wolf into a girls boarding school"....

Some might say that sums up my latest photo shoot in a nutshell really. Back when Georgette McCready the editor of The Bath Magazine asked me if I wanted to collaborate on a Game of Thrones inspired fashion shoot, I'm not sure she expected me to come good on my suggestion that " we really need a Direwolf" However thanks to the joys of the internet, one Facebook post later and I was in business.

The original plan for the shoot was for it to take place at Bath's well known and much loved folly Beckford's Tower, however having been caught out by the joys of an English climate in the past, shooting outdoors even a week after the end of August meant that we needed a plan B.

Plan B being the aforementioned girls boarding school which quickly developed into more of a plan A once my collaborator and stylist Felicity Keefe and I started mapping out how we were going to make a fashion shoot look Game of Thrones-esque, whilst also fulfilling the brief that it "not be too Goth like".

Hmmmm???

Ok.. well that's a no to ravens and skulls and their ilk then?  but a few hours spent on Pinterest and we realised that we just might be able to pull this off with the help of some theatre friends and their handy stash of props and also by calling on Candida at Savannah Home who's beautiful shop is based in the centre of Bath and who had previously loaned me some incredible chrome and glass orb like chandeliers for my recent Darkness Falls shoot. Fortunately you can't really go wrong with some out sized urns if you're doing a G.O.T based shoot, add in a great looking wood and iron chest and some sumptuous velvet cushions and you're starting to get a set that might just look the part.

It was around this point that a fortuitous impromptu drinking session in The Garrick's Head pub next to the Theatre Royal laid the groundwork for what is really the high point of the whole story. Us boys were adamant that we needed the Iron Throne or at least a throne with with a flip load of swords sticking out of it.. Felicity who also art directs with me was less than convinced. However never underestimate the power of too may G&T's and a text was duly sent to my good friend Mark Chapel, it being Mark that had helped me build a full sized shipping buoy and half of a wrecked boat for my Kate Bush inspired shoot entitled The Ninth Wave. Never in a million years would I have guessed that not only would Mark rise to the challenge but would exceed my wildest dreams and produce a throne that would not have looked out of place in the TV show. When you realise that he built this beast on the frame of an existing chair with a very tall back that came from shall we say an " interesting" background and only with toy plastic swords purchased from eBay the whole undertaking assumes a rather amusing air.

The "Iron" Throne..

My dear friend Diana Favell co- runs Shakespeare at The Tobacco Factory in Bristol and it was she who loaned me the other gorgeous throne that can be seen in the shoot together with a host of candlesticks, mugs and assorted old-y world-y nick knacks. We also fairly raided Bath Theatrical Costume Hire's array of swords and suits of armour and all manner of Night's Watch style leather and chains but sadly time and the constraints of shooting in a vertical format for a magazine meant that a vast majority of it couldn't be used or set up in the time we had to shoot. However their passion for all things Game of Thrones is such that we may well be collaborating on an ensemble piece featuring the men of G.O.T as well as the gals so watch this space...

We now fast forward to the recce to The Royal High School in Bath where our intrepid editor had persuaded the lovely Jenna and the school to let us use an indoor space in the event of rain at Beckford's Tower. It wasn't long however before Jenna twigged exactly what we were trying to achieve and gamely suggested she MIGHT be able to get us the use of the drama studio housed in a magnificent chapel in the grounds of the school. A number of pleading emails and phone calls from me later and she had made it happen, although our evening get-in to rig the kit the night before the shoot quickly resembled a scene from Phoenix Nights as we discovered we had been double booked with a twenty piece band.! Trying to set up shoot like this with sword thrones, smoke machines, dozens of props, armour, swords, two huge paintings that Felicity had created for the shoot and then had to be fixed together and a complex drape and stand system was made somewhere between impossible and hysterical as the band belted out a rather English version of some cult disco classics as we rigged.

pretty flipping far from ready!

I guess I should have known from this experience that the shoot the following morning might be a tad challenging. Although we didn't have time to rig any lights during our serenaded get-in we did at least get the throne assembled and the paintings rigged and the props and outfits unpacked. At this point I must give a big shout out to Felicity who did a quite amazing job of finding high street outfits that would not look out of place in a Game of Thrones style environment. In the end the outfits she chose looked beautiful and she accessorized them perfectly. Her task was made even more enjoyable by the loan of some quite stunning pieces of jewelry from my good friend Alexandra May, who's shop on Margaret's Buildings in Bath is veritable wonderland of exquisite jewelry and good taste. Alex has exciting plans for her emporium so keep an eye out for news in the coming months.

Game of Frocks..

Unlike most of my shoots my usual team of tech types were not available, this being a week day shoot and they being employed elsewhere. Thus it was down to my long suffering partner Sarah to help me get my vision realised and in quite a short time at that. Fortunately I had received an email from the daughter of a friend of Sarah's asking if she could assist me on my next shoot.. yes you can Missy! Hope was invaluable when it came to everything from adding and subtracting props, moving bits of set and lighting the special candles I had ordered from a company that makes candles for just about every moody looking film and TV show you have ever seen. These beasts don't blow out like a normal candle, being comprised of three wicks wrapped together and extinguishing them whilst not covering the set in wax is no easy task!

It is also about the time that I should mention the models. Jo Wright who graces the cover of this month's The Bath Magazine was, like Angelica who is featured in the middle of the three models in the shot at the top of this article, a somewhat last minute addition to the shoot. A change of availability of the previous models necessitating a mildly frantic search for models who not only has the gravitas to pull of a " Cersei or a Sansa or even a Melisandre" but who also had the kind of hair that would work without the need for gazillion pound wigs like the real TV inhabitants of Kings Landing. We were fortunate to be put in touch with Flora Katsouris from Mustard Models who had the kind of look that was suited to our Melisandre character, but in Jo's case she could give Cersei and Sansa a run for their money and despite her complaining to me about what a hassle her amazing locks over the years i think it's safe to say she's not complaining this week at least!

Jessica Ayliffe from Bath Academy of Media Make-up did a great job on make and hair, a last minute addition to Angelica's recently shortened locks being a particularly good call.

MUA at work.

But what about the wolves I hear you cry?...

Oh all right then...

The aforementioned Facebook post had gamely been answered by way of a lighting friend of mine ( thanks Jon B!) who put me in touch with a lovely lady by the name of Mandy Partridge from Surrey Search and Rescue dogs. I have to admit, like the throne I never expected to be rewarded with such a perfect outcome. Nook who is the youngest of the three dogs who arrived with Mandy is actually related to the Inuit breed used in Game of Thrones, how's that for authenticity? and Moon and Ace who is featured on the cover with Jo were just perfect as my Direwolves.

Direwolf about to get me into Dire Straights!

However in all the excitement I might just have forgotten to inform the school that there were three wolves arriving that morning.. oops! As you can imagine faced with the prospect of three dogs who were largely comprised of wolf DNA running around their very proper girls school The Royal High were not exactly keen. The words "risk assessment" were coming back to haunt me (see last month's blog) and in this case the lack of one in particular. There was shall we say a heavily underwhelmed element on set that morning when I tried to explain that yes... I was planning to use the dogs INSIDE as well as outside at Beckford's Tower. " why" ? seemed to be the most popular question, closely followed by " you are kidding right?"

Oh dear..

Anyhoo Jenna gamely agreed to go and see if it was even remotely possible to let the dogs out and onto the set for five minutes. Eventually the Headmistress appeared and was totally charming and I had my OK.. The problem was that in the rush and chaos that inhabits any fashion shoot I appeared to have been the only person to have received this rather crucial update. There thus followed a rather stressful five minutes where Ace celebrating his new found freedom after three hours in a van cage promptly set about re adjusting most of the set with either his tail, his paws, his nose or a combination of all three, to the consternation of just about everyone on the set!

This was followed by me trying to direct and photograph Jo and Ace whilst all the while being being informed by a not updated Felicity that " this is a really bad idea and you're p***ing everyone off!" Nonetheless discretion being the better part of valour I called it a day after only 4-5 shots. The irony is that I was convinced that the whole wolf saga had been a total failure and achieved nothing except upsetting most of the team and nearly trashing the carefully laid out set, so imagine my surprise when I received an email to say that not only was the front cover going to be my shot of Jo on the sword throne but that it was going to be the shot with the hound!!!

" you'll never work in this town again Mr' !

You live and learn I guess and the moral of the story would seen to be trust your instincts. Chaotic canine action aside I knew in my gut that the set up we had created together with Jo and her amazing " Sansa" like hair simply cried out for one of the dogs to bring it to life. Now it would be churlish of me to say something like I told you so at this point, but...

I TOLD YOU SO!!

It's only fair to say that with lighted candles ( albeit lit very sparingly) smoke ( that had to be used unbelievably sparingly to avoid setting off the sensors) and of course the wolves, The Royal High School could not have been more tolerant or supportive. Considering they had a drama class coming through the door at 3.30pm that day they had to trust that we would somehow get our mini Kings Landing clear of the floor space in time, which I'm glad to say we did.

Beckford's Tower and distinctly more relaxed hounds

After all the madness of the indoor location it was something of a relief to jump in our cars and head to Beckford's Tower for the final part of the shoot. By a miracle the cloudy weather that had hung around for most of the day thus far and was indeed forecast for the rest of the day, suddenly cleared and the beautiful golden hour light that all us photographers crave appeared in all it's glory. As we had agreed to keep the soles of the lovely Ted & Muffy boots scratch free, there was something of a return of the comedic element from the previous night as I spotted various locations and enticing light scenarios unfolding which necessitated a frantic dash by our two remaining models Angelica and Flora ( Jo having had to leave after rocking her Sansa look) sans boots trying to balance on one leg whilst Jessica from The Bath Magazine attempted to get their feet into said boots and NOT touch the gravel which surrounded the whole area!

Fortunately Nook and Ace our Direwolves had chilled out somewhat by this point and refrained from dragging our lovely models across a graveyard and as can be seen from the pictures were a model of good behavior for their new found mistresses.

Conscious that Mandy and Kate and the Woofers had a long journey ahead of them I called it a day and we packed up our traveling kit and prepared for the rather larger task of packing up back at The Royal High. it was suitably late by the time we had ferried all the kit home and I still had no idea that my "wolf" escapade would turn out to be worthwhile. I'd be lying if I said I though we had it in the bag that night as despite the generosity of The Royal High, once hair and make up and outfits were finished we only had just over two hours to shoot before we had to start packing down to clear the floor by 3.30pm and as poor Jo was supposed to meeting a friend who had traveled all the way from Cambridge to see her and who had fallen foul of Bath's notorious bus gate cameras, I had to rush at breakneck speed to complete her shots before she dashed off to rescue her rather distraught pal. My lighting approach is firmly based on my experience of shooting films and theatre and rock & roll shows and it doesn't sit well with being rushed, but in the end when I went through shots I was pleasantly surprised and with Jo's help (as she's not just Bath's answer to Sansa Stark, but a very talented photographer and editor in her own right) we got some really beautiful shots.

The story came full circle this morning as I literally encountered the delivery man from The Bath Magazine on my doorstep as I was taking my son to school, so I was rewarded with some crisp new copies of the magazine with Jo and Ace looking fabulous on the cover and if I say so myself it looks pretty cool!.

Winter Is Coming...

The Bath Magazine October issue with the Winter Is Coming fashion shoot is out now.

Smoke On The Water

PART ONE:

" Think The Lady of Shalott meets The X-Files"...

Those were the fateful words I used to describe my pitch for my latest photo shoot to the trustees of Cleveland Pools in Bath last Autumn. Fast forward many months and the threat of the unique Victorian lido being closed for years for renovation finally spurred me into action. Little did I or the trust know quite what an enterprise it would turn out to be....

A Friend:" how are you going to get the boat out of the river and into the pools"?

Me: " we'll row it up river then lift it out of the water then carry it over the fence"? "

A friend: " how big is it"?

Me: "twenty two feet"

A Friend: " you're insane"...

He had a point....However row and lift it we did ( well actually mostly the rather amazing people at Bathwick Boat Hire actually, but it's the Royal We you understand)

That would have been fine if it were the only complication, but on this shoot that was never going to be the case. Once I had discovered that the best way to back light the keeper's cottage adjacent to the pools (given the meager power available onsite) was to use a highly efficient light called an Arena Vision by Philips, I arranged to hire three units from my good friend Gary Churchill at IMax lighting in Bristol. What I didn't count on was that they would come flight cased in what I have now christened " The Block of Flats On Wheels" I exaggerate very little I assure you. Add in that these beasts although quite light themselves come with a ballast that takes two men to carry them and then in a very ungainly fashion and it became clear that my earlier plan to collect the lighting in an estate car would have been somewhat akin to arriving at The MOD's redundant plant site to collect and tow home a used Chieftain Tank with a mini..

" come on we can do it, its on wheels isn't?!" ....

" it's a f** *ing tank you idiot" !!!

You take my point...

Philips Arena Vision floodlight, doesn't look that heavy but don't let that ballast at the bottom fool you and don't get me started on the flight case!

One very large hire van later and it was time to collect the generator I had booked, the aforementioned meager power on site meaning that the two smoke machines and one chilled smoke/dry ice effect machine together with the Arena Visions I had hired would need far more than the available power could manage.

That's when things really took a turn for the worse/comical depending on your perspective.

The very lovely people at Brandon Tool Hire here in my fair city of Bath had kindly offered me a much larger and apparently quieter generator for the same price as the somewhat modest one I had first considered. Yes, I knew it would be large.. very large as it happens but I realised I had really underestimated its bulk when all 460Kg of it came trundling out of the yard on a fork lift.

Whoops...

the mains distribution unit was the only thing from the generator hire that made it out of the truck

There was probably was a time when I was younger and less experienced/stupid when I would have tried to actually offload and use this monster, but after only three trips back up the very steep slope that winds it way down to the pools to offload the kit, I realised there was no way we would ever get it back up the slope and the prospect of being stuck neither halfway up nor down at 1 am with an exhausted crew was just not an option. There then followed some delicate negotiations with one of the neighbours to plug into their tool shed for the cost of about ten times what we would use in electricity but.. hey... what's a photographer Hell bent on lighting up the night sky in a cloud of Ridley Scott inspired haze to do?!

PART TWO:

Rain....

Ah yes the weather part, did I mention the forecast was " iffy" no? well the weather forecast said cloudy with a chance of light showers..

Lying b****stards.

It rained.. then it rained again and then it rained and rained and rained and .. well, you get the picture. Now I'm something of a veteran when it comes to shooting outdoors in the UK in "Summer" so naive I was not but boy.. this was a drag and then some. Still being stoic British types we donned wet weather gear and carried on. Well actually that's not strictly true, one of us had wet weather gear the rest of us idiots just got properly wet.. oh how we laughed.

Not...

Wet Weather crew of one...

Despite all this "hilarity" the boat did arrive and looked as magnificent as I remembered it being and so did a while later our model Angelica for whom a similar adjective might be applied but well.. that's probably not quite appropriate, Angelica not being 96 years old and not made of wood for a start, or if she is she's looking bloody good on it!

The Skiff.. hand built in the 1920's..

Angelica our model in distinctly more sane environs at Bath Theatrical Costume Hire prior to the shoot.

Oh my aching sides I can hear you cry in unison.. Master of light and shade and stand up comic to boot .. who knew?!

I digress... neighbourly power duly applied to said smoke and haze machines it was time to light up the cubicles ( having removed an unsightly door covering one of them naturally) with our spiffing battery powered SMARTBATT LED lights, which being wireless and controllable via DMX from the lighting desk are a thing of beauty.  David Johnson our intrepid lighting tech about town was patience personified as he constantly tweaked the position of all 12 of these little beasts as I equally constantly informed him " it's nice.. but not as nice as cubicle 5/6/9...  you get the picture.

SMARTBATTS.. love these little gizmos.

After a brief if rather dangerous foray into the upstairs and downstairs rooms of the derelict cottage to place lights behind all the windows and despite the rain stopping play for a time we were still about on schedule.

Eventually cubicles up lit, cottages back lit and model front/45 degree top lit it was time to start shooting.. (FINALLY!... I hear you cry in the aforementioned unison)

Look.. no one said this nonsense was gonna be easy ok? if it was easy everyone would be doing it as an old Liverpudlian friend of mine once dryly observed.

The best bit for me was having originally observed with a very sad demeanor that my " Ridley Scott " back lit clouds of haze behind the house were looking distinctly more X-Factor than X-Files I suddenly looked up from behind my iMac where I had been engrossed for thirty minutes to see a sight of true ethereal beauty. Dave J had let loose with a mighty burst of haze on full power a few minutes earlier and the daylight having receded just enough to let the Arena Visions do their thing, the cottage was indeed a vision to behold.

Arena Visions on full behind the cottage but you wouldn't even know they were on at this point !

The Boom of Doom as Robbie " wet weather gear Wood" would no doubt have christened it ( he wasn't convinced)

Getting Angelica in and out of the boat in heels and a variety of impractical head gear was a task I delegated to my partner and long suffering assistant in all things photographic Sarah Lillywhite. Fortunately when she's not assisting me or whipping people into shape in a responsible corporate environment at work she's busy whipping often equally reluctant people into actual shape in her role as a running coach & personal trainer. Thus crouching just out of sight holding the boat in exactly the same spot every time despite the kind of muscle burn that would have you or I running to the nearest physio was all in a day's work for her. Although I think she did draw the line at Dave J and his ever increasing arsenal of smoke bombs that crept ever nearer to her position towards the end.

Talking of smoke bombs, it's at this point I should point out the shadowy figure in the top hat and frock coat is the incredibly patient Matt Nesbeth who is also a trained lifeguard and a thoroughly lovely person too. So engrossed was I in my directing of Angelica and constantly battling with the chilled smoke machine and it's willfully poltergeist-like behavior to my right, that I completely failed to notice that while DJ was smoking up a storm with his box of bombs before every shot, poor old Matt was quietly being asphyxiated in the archway, but like the zen-like trouper he is he never said a word ( probably incapable of speech more to the point!)

I eventually realised that the model who was representing a phantom of the past was in danger of taking the role to a new and hitherto un-dreamed of level of realism and explained that he was totally at liberty to step out of DJ's "Nam style" levels of battle haze between takes.

Like I said... what a trouper!

finally it's all coming together ( DJ.. get out of the shot!)

Mindful that the wonderful Sally Helvey, our contact and champion at Cleveland Pools ( and also intrepid holder of the line at the other end of the skiff) was wary of upsetting the neighbours who hadn't accepted the previously mentioned " electricity subsidy" around midnight we finally called it a night.

It was 3.30 am when Sarah and I finally dragged our shattered bodies into the van after what was a grueling load out.. (that slope taking on Everest like proportions after working non stop for 14 hours) but I thanked all manner of Deities for my expensive but oh so sensible decision to leave that Generator of Doom in the van.

Poor Sarah was up two and a half hours later and I a couple of hours after that to start the process of returning all the lights, costumes and van. However, despite aching limbs and a large hole in my bank account it was all rendered worthwhile when the lovely Natalie who works at Savannah Home from whom we had borrowed the beautiful chrome globe at the front of the boat exclaimed on seeing a tiny picture on my iPhone " holy shit! that's amazing"

One of the final images from the shoot, Angelica looking gorgeous after Felicity and Clairlouise have worked their magic

and that's why we do it folks..

I did mention the chrome globe?? run from the mains?? across the water?? no really?!

Ah, well I guess that's a story for another time....

P.S you can see a picture from the shoot and read more about my idea behind the look of the shoot and about Cleveland Pools ( and the truth behind the shadowy figure) in the September issue of The Bath Magazine and also in Bath Life.

BIG Thanks to:

Felicity Keefe for styling and art direction and for always making sure my shoots are " a little bit more Grace Coddington and a little less Wookey Hole sweetie", Angelica Baines and Matt Nesbeth our fantastic models, Clairelouise Bender Make Up Artist, full time babe and all round lovely person, Sarah Lillywhite, camera assistant, boat wrangler and soulmate, David Johnson, Andy Russell and Robbie Wood lighting and rigging crew and some of the best friends a chap could wish for, Candida Molyneaux at Savannah Home for the beautiful chrome globes, Rusette Auton for the always amazing outfits and props, Sarah Hardick at Bathwick Boat Hire for the oh so beautiful skiff, Gary Churchill at iMax lighting for Lighting hire, always cutting me a great deal and for lots of free advice, Nick Hobbs at Technical Hire for the loan of the lighting desk and for always supporting my endeavors, and last but not least Sally Helvey and all at Cleveland Pools trust for trusting me and letting me get this crazy image out of my head and into print.

Lights Camera Action.. Clothes Music Girls!

A few weeks ago I finished an amazing book by Viv Albertine, former guitarist in seminal 70's all girl punk band The Slits. The book is entitled Clothes Music Boys and details Viv's struggle to believe she could compete with the all male dominance that existed in the music biz in the 1970's. Encouraged by her then boyfriend Mick Jones of soon to be world conquering Punk heroes The Clash, she set about learning the guitar and eventually joined The Slits. The Slits ultimately signed to Rough Trade and for a time everything was perfect, until one day an interviewer caught her totally off guard by asking her if she knew what her beloved record label had just confirmed to him, that they had dropped the band ( she didn't for the record)

At a stroke everything she had battled to achieve was gone and to make it all the more painful, The Clash's success went through the roof, this a band that had literally planned their ascent in her kitchen. Her best friend Sid Vicious , with whom she would regularly spend days ( and nights) at a time planning how to conquer the world, went similarly stratospheric with The Sex Pistols.
Cue Viv moving back home with her mum and whiling away days by watching the washing spin round and round at her local launderette, punk rock it was not....

Eventually she pulled herself back to life and the book chronicles her remarkable struggle to regain her sense of self, whilst battling with SIXTEEN failed IVF attempts and nearly dying several times in the process. Domestic bliss not turning out to be quite what she had expected, she embarked on an extraodinary journey that just leaves you wanting to punch the air in salute by the end. It's a brutally honest book, Albertine leaves nothing to the imagination and her time spent among the likes of Vivienne Westwood and her good friend Malcolm McLaren as well as legends of the punk world such as Johnny Rotten and Johnny Thunders reads like a who's who of the New Wave scene but from the point of view of a woman, a perspective mostly lacking from of the punk history that has come down through the intervening decades.

I literally didn't want it to end and I dragged the last three chapters out for an eternity before finally coming to the end. After tweeting our Punk Poetess ( who liked my tweet I'm delighted to report) I decided to pay homage to the book by starting a new portrait series, which with startling originality is called Clothes Music Girls! ( see what I did there?)

The idea is to reference what Viv does all through the book, namely show photos of her at different ages and describe in detail the clothes she's wearing in the picture along with which boy she was currently dating or obsessing about. Albertine loves clothes and saved up her money to buy whatever small items she could afford at Westwood and McLaren's shop SEX on The Kings Road. Dame Vivienne once sagely told her in blunt terms to buy a pair of boots that at the time Albertine hated.. she took the advice and they are now her favourite possessions.
In Clothes Music Girls we don't need the boys to be referenced as it's all about featuring my circle of brilliant, beautiful and funny female friends. However all of them have been forced to choose a favourite record(virtually impossible) and a favourite outfit (completely impossible!)

Clothes Music Girls NO:1 Ellie Ekers: Actress

Clothes Music Girls NO:2 Sarah Lillywhite: Run Leader/Personal Trainer/PA

Clothes Music Girls NO:3 Susie Glatt: Costumier/Performer

Clothes Music Girls NO:4 Charlotte Rogers: Author and Artist

Clothes Music Girls NO:5 Sophia Maili: Poi Dancer and Linguist

Clothes Music Girls NO:6 Angelica Baines: Artist and Photographer

So far I have photographed six people and I plan to shoot another five but it's taking on a life of it's own so it might still be going by X-Mas! The idea however is to have it completed in time for an exhibition I'm mounting at The Proud Gallery on The Strand in London in May....

Oh and possibly a book too..

have look at

https://www.facebook.com/Marc-Aitken-Photography-185886451478091/?ref=hl    

for the full details of all the people involved.

Watch this space...It's been such fun shooting all these fantastic females and a great opportunity to see some of the people from whom I've spent far too long apart.
The final aspect to this journey that has been such an enjoyable project was the e-mail I received this week from a well known singer songwriter I admire enormously, who responded to my rather cheeky request to be a part of the project with..... a yes!!
Score...
Peace Out and Happy Imbolc
Oh..and lest we forget, sweet dreams to the man who inspired me to be/do any of this ...

David Bowie. R.I.P

Marc Aitken: Photographer and David Bowie lover.

Under The Radar but Back!

Well... It's been a while, no scrap that it's been a ridiculously long time since I updated this blog. Head will be duly hung in some form of half mast shame position for at least thirty seconds.. scout's honour and all that.

" Hilarity" aside, a lot has been happening in Marc world of late, especially including having to find a new home, thanks to owner of " Fashion Towers Mk i" deciding they wanted to sell it.

Inconvenient much.....

So much looking later Fashion Towers Mk ii has been found and duly moved into.

Phew!....

Waking up in and walking home to Bath's Royal Crescent has much to be said for it. Beautiful views across the lawns and Autumn showing it's new leafy fashions off like some erstwhile designer intent on creating a splash. The endless peering in the windows by multiple tourists is somewhat challenging, but also has it's comedy potential, especially when you come out of the shower!

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The Royal Crescent Bath. © Marc Aitken 2015

So that's home life in a nutshell so now what's been happening in the world of fashion and music snapping.

First up although not strictly chronologically accurate is London Fashion Week SS16. Once again yours truly was working with The Body Shop to photograph their latest catwalk make up looks, in the chaotic world that is Fashion Week Backstage. Safe to say that curling tongs and hairdryers and 200MM lenses do not happy bedfellows make. My partner and assistant was once again called upon to execute the impossible and try to raise a soft box above the heads of models who stand 6ft tall before they're wearing heels. tricky! but manage it she did and we managed to get some great shots.

I always tease The head of PR for The Body Shop that most people I talk to don't realise that The Body Shop does the make up for London Fashion Week, at least at Fashion Scout anyway. Their make and especially their chief make up artist Lan do an amazing job and the girls always look incredible. Ladies.. if you haven't checked out The Body Shop for make up you're missing a trick, trust me. In between covering backstage I managed to shoot a number of the shows in both the venues at Fashion Scout. The results will be up on the website soon,

Pam Hogg always draws a capacity crowd, dotted with the great and the good and the glam. It's a given that Pam's shows will always go up late, 30- 45 minutes even an hour isn't unusual. Us longer serving Fashion Week types are well used to this now and know better than to agree to shoot any shows after Pam's show has finished, but the look on the faces of the newer guys and gals when they realise they're going to have to get across London to their next show in about ohh.. 30 seconds or buy a time machine is priceless.

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Pam Hogg SS16 © Marc Aitken 2015

Marko Mitanovski hosts extremely elaborate shows, to describe it as facial jewelry doesn't even begin to describe it. It's very easy to shoot Marko's models backstage and assume they're finished only to look back 5 minutes later and discover some elaborate headpiece or extra facial decoration you had no idea they were due to wear and have to shoot them all over again!

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Marko Mitanovski BTS SS16 © Marc Aitken 2015

CCUOCO BTS SS16 © Marc Aitken 2015

London Fashion Week eventually finished on the Tues just in time for Sarah and I to hot foot it to North London's Alexandra Palace, home of the first BBC television broadcast as well as legendary 14 hour Summer Party in the swinging psychedelic 1960's amongst hundreds of other landmark gigs and happenings. The occasion this time was a date with Florence and The Machine supported by The Staves. I shot The Staves at WOMAD festival back in the summer and their management discovered one of my photographs on Twitter and asked to see more. One thing led to another and we were offered photo passes to come and shoot at Florence's Tuesday show.

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The Staves photo by Sarah Lillywhite © Marc Aitken 2015

The Staves were fab as always, although it frustrates me that the hoary old " Three Songs No Flash" rule is so embedded in the music industry these days that no one even knows why they're doing it... literally. That aside Sarah and I rushed around the photo pit like demented ninjas and managed to capture the girls in all their glory. The Staves over we turned to Miss Welch, a different vantage point this time, but that doesn't phase this old war dawg. She really is a force of nature that girl, I have to 'fess up to being one of the doubters when she replaced The Foo Fighters at Glastonbury this year, but both her performance at Glasters and at Ally Pally left firmly in the " I'm a fan" camp. A beautifully executed set with a great band and lit by the man who seems to light everyone these days Rob Sinclair, made for a night to remember.

I had one particularly serendipitous moment, after getting used to her swirling, twirling forays across the stage I raised the camera on instinct and took a series of what turned out to be rather amazing shots of Florence in full flight. Trust your gut I say.

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Florence and The Machine © Marc Aitken 2015

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Florence and The Machine © Marc Aitken 2015

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Florence and The Machine © Marc Aitken 2015

Add to that my other fav rave of the moment Wolf Alice and it's been a fun Summer and Autumn

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Wolf Alice © Marc Aitken 2015

Oh and I also stumbled across the Supernova of talent that is Lucy Rose too. Dipping my toe into my older world of concert lighting last month I was initially aggrieved to be informed by her management that she doesn't like red...DOESN'T LIKE RED???!!! Doesn't she know who I am? Apparently not!. That bombshell ingested I set about creating some equally dramatic looks avoiding the R word and even a whole bunch using just white light. ( Aitken's been kidnapped by Aliens I hear my older friends cry). The set turned out to be a total joy to light. The girl is a genius and it's up there with my favourite gigs I've ever lit. Ironically earlier in the day Lucy had rather sheepishly handed me a bag of three "Redhead" ( 800W tungsten units that are the staple of interview lighting the world over)  lights still in their wrapping. Informing me that some gigs have so few lights she had taken to carrying her own !

Lucy Rose © Marc Aitken 2015

At the end of the night I was eager to catch up with her and tell her how fab I thought she was, I decided to use the " redheads" after all and put them behind her as a back light with lots of smoke ( ahh that's The Aitken we know, it's alright they've returned him) and it looked rather spiffy!. But I needn't have bothered looking for her, as she came into the auditorium after signing autographs at the merchandise stall out front and as soon as she spotted me, held out her arms and said " dude.. you totally nailed it" it followed by a high five and a big hug..

it's the little things folks..

:-)

Anyhoo, that's War and Peace Blog style completed, so I'll leave you with the main reason for my being in cyberspace,

The photographs....

Keep the faith Spooky Kids

Peace Out.

What's been going on..

"Been a long time"

To quote the words of Mr Robert Plant, whom I had the enormous pleasure of seeing last weekend.  An amazingly Zeppelin filled set BTW... Dazed & Confused, The Rain Song, Trampled Underfoot, Black Dog, The Lemon Song, Whole Lotta Love, amongst many other gems from his other work, never thought I'd hear him do half of those again!

My rocket fuel strength pre-mixed/guessed G&T ( no glass no cans "no...umbrellas"..WTF?!) combined with the aforementioned set list made this boy one very happy, if somewhat tipsy camper.

But, I digress...

I have been re visiting some of my concert shots as I realised when you shoot up to 1500 images at a gig, you tend to miss some of the better ones whilst trying to favourite so many shots.  I also experimented with cropping into some of the wide shots to bring the band members a little closer. See The shots of Chvrches below and more to come on the Facebook photography page.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Marc-Aitken-Photography/185886451478091

I also went through my archive of the day I spent shooting The R&B legend that is Usher.

For those whose don't know, whilst filming him at his shows at The O2 a few years ago, I was asked by my good friend and all round video legend Mr Dick Carruthers, if I would be up for sitting in with Usher while he went around London on his day off.

yeah... go on then :-)

I expected his security guard to be sat in the back of the limo with us, but no. Just me and him for the first hour or two. We talked about our kids and what they listened to. His kids naturally listen to a lot of their Dad, but my boy tends to hear a lot of the stuff his Dad plays around the home. At that time my son ( who was 5) had been watching The Aerosmith video for Dude Looked Like A Lady... a lot! also things like Zeppelin's Black Dog and Rock & Roll, mainly because he's an inquisitive kid and we end up on long music history chats that even I can't recall the origin of after an hour.

After relaying Jamie's music video choices to Usher he pronounced.. " Man you've got yourself a ROCK kid there!! accompanied by a big grin. Judging by how many times Jamie's made me play The Foo Fighter's The Pretender video at home and their Greatest Hits CD in the car, not to mention my current Fav's The brilliant Wolf Alice lately, I'd say he was right.

Usher was a pleasure to be with. He was totally exhausted after three nights giving it his all at The O2 and even apologized for keeping me waiting in the Lobby while he slept in for a few hours. He gamely let me interview him for the upcoming DVD and chatted about all things UK including about Selfridges which it turns out is his favourite store. Gifting me the line:

" Man I would shop in that place all day, in fact forget it, If they gave me a bed I would eat there and sleep there and shop there all over again the next day and the day after that" 

Safe to say he's a fan then?..!!!

We also had the extraordinary experience of springing a surprise visit to the kids academy in Fulham that he runs. I had a brief insight into what it might have been like to be with one of the Beatles in their heyday, when the class went completely nuts as he walked through the door. Stunned faces followed by screams of disbelief giving way to sheer joy.

Memorable and then some...

Later we shot across town to a studio in North London to shoot a promo video for his single MonStar, the Thames Embankment providing an quintessentially English backdrop to the view from the famous American's window, before we finally rounded the day off with a visit to The Gagosian Gallery. His take on the work he was shown was amusing to say the least but.. modesty forbids and all that.

We parted company back where it all started at his Hotel and I headed back to home to Bath musing on what a bizarre day it had been.

Actually that wasn't quite the end, I was asked by a good friend earlier in the week if there was any chance of an autograph for her daughter who adores Usher. I initially replied that there was no chance, as at that point he was surrounded by a huge entourage of managers and security and was never alone for a minute and even filming him was hard work. However our  day tripping/Selfridge's admiring/ kids bonding experience made for a considerably easier opportunity and I walked away with one for Jaz and one for " The Rock Kid"...

Score....

The Snapper gets Snapped.

The "Rock Kid" gets his soon to have girlfriend Impressing memento.

The Ninth Wave BTS Part Two.

Some equally wonderful pictures by erstwhile crew member and general invaluable geezer Pete Emery. Including some from his vantage point at the top of a very tall ladder, where he gamely operated the wireless Speedlite pole to light our beautiful Sirens.. A head for heights that boy!

The Ninth Wave Behind The Scenes ( BTS)

A wonderful selection of pictures taken Jo Wright one of my sirens and a very talented photographer in her right. Also check out make -up artist Marissa Anderson at her site http://www.web-ism.co.uk/threelittlebirds/. She is flippin' genius!

The link to Jo's photos is here.

https://www.facebook.com/joanna.wright.142/media_set?set=a.10155474085455711.1073741835.594685710&type=1&pnref=story

The Ninth Wave

Last Sunday the 12th April saw the realization of a project that not only has been months in the planning, but if you read my reply to a Kate Bush Fanzine that interviewed me after a fashion about the shoot... years in the making.

"Growing up by the sea and sailing my own boat for many years meant I was exposed to a lot of the imagery contained in The Ninth Wave for real, giant shipping buoys wreathed in mist greeting your return home on foggy nights, unpredictable weather and storms, and the constant excitement, tinged with danger informing your every outing. Inevitably The Ninth Wave has always been "the one" for me and when I revisited the area in which I grew up after my brother died recently, and saw a red buoy blinking at me through the darkness as I walked along the beach, I knew what my next shoot would be about. The memory of the Before The Dawn show had opened a box that had been long shut and it was too late to put the genie back in the bottle!"

So... after a lot of head scratching and a lot of very " creative" set building, I present some of the first images from The Ninth Wave. It goes without saying that Kate Bush has been the bedrock of inspiration for this shoot, and one of the most enjoyable aspects of making this shoot a reality has been listening to her Magnum Opus again and again. I you haven't heard it I urge you to seek it out. It comprises the second half of her album The Hounds of Love, or in the modern aeon it follows after the track Cloudbusting.

enjoy...

Bath In Fashion 2015

Bath get's it's fashion groove on this week, with as series of catwalk shows, talks and presentations across the city. I shot two of the catwalk shows at The Assembly Rooms, in it's heyday the scene of many a fluttering fan and raised eyebrow when in the 1800's it played host to the cream of society's great and good and downright unmentionable. The backdrop for the film The Duchess starring Keira Knightley and any number of Janie Austen inspired bodice ripping dramas.

The collections were representative of the most popular brands and stores to be found in our fair city. From the redoubtable House of Fraser flagship Jolly's,to high street staples such as French Connection, Moda In Pelle and L.K Bennett to name but a few.

The shows were staged by Catwalk supremo John Walford of Fashion Scout fame and featured a host of familiar faces from London Fashion Week amongst it's models.

Enjoy!