Quite alot of news since my last post

so it's been a little while since I made my first post...

so since april here's a rundown of some things that have happened....

I did a shoot again with the wonderful Tanya Townley who's amazingly natural beauty just shone through the camera

Tanya styled the shoot and did her own makeup so it was nice for once to just play along with someone else's ideas and try to capture them in the best way I can.
Incidentally it was the same day as the parade for the Blackpool Football Club parade as they had just won the team a place in the premier league which will bring millions of pounds in revenue throughout the tourist based industry within the town. So the town was heaving and it was suprisingly sunny... I ended up with 2nd degree burns on my chest a la sunburn (accursed ginger/red hair and fair skin!) and ended up loosing two layers of skin from my chest... PAIN. Note to all fair skinned photographers tempted to shoot on location: even if it's supposed to rain or looks cloudy. keep a small bottle of suncream in your camera bag and PUT IT ON if the sun comes out (unlike me LOL)

I did this on a day off while working at Debenhams. But I left my job in July for several reasons 1) I was fed up of being used by them and having my hours fucked around CONSTANTLY 2) I couldn't actually afford to stay in that job longterm 3) Doug (my american fiance) came over for the summer so I decided to save my sanity and leave the job and use the summer to do more shoots and spend time with him.

One of the shoots I did was this wonderful location shoot with Miss Ingwer (Tasha). Tasha normally does dark alternative work so it was a nice change for her to do something lighter and more fashion based - she soon got into it and was posing away like a natural fashion model =)

May I just also mention too how awesome she was to work with - It was our first shoot together and she travelled all the way from Wrexham in North Wales for the shoot in Lancaster in the old victorian butterfly house.

The concept was my own and I styled the whole thing and did the makeup and hair (to the amusement of some local bar staff)
The tunic/shirt is from miss selfridge and the broach is a gorgeous find from the store in town called dragonsrcute. I bought items for shoots from them before (the choker for the alice shoot for example) and they're always lovely in there, so if you get the chance stop in and have a nosey at their lovely shop.
Also I made the cream butterflies from feather cake decorations (ebay is my friend).

Some of you are going to be thinking 'but I don't have money to get stuff like this!' well 1) you can make stuff 2)raid ebay and charity shops and 3)I worked my ass off at debenhams at the end working nearly full time again while some people were off sick - I saved that last paycheck and used that to fund everything I did this summer, often buying items for shoots and then returning them as long as they weren't damaged - Tasha bought the clothes from this shoot cause she liked them that much =)
Also you can talk to your friends and family and see if you can borrow items or talk to your model and see what she has that might do.

I also spent most of the summer pulling my hair out while trying to organise two victorian (period clothing) shoots based on Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. I managed to get the Wuthering Heights shoot done (even with some crazy problems like not knowing the designer had only made a jacket for the guy and the female model turning out to be blonde even though all her profile images on modelmayhem are brunette, and the crazy rain you get in the BEAUTIFUL peak district. - Be warned, expect days/shoots like this regularily and get good at improvising). I will post photos from that shoot in the next few days and will write up what actually happened etc if anyone's interested lol

I also went and did a bit of touristy stuff with my family while Doug was here - we went to white scar caves and to the North Yorkshire Birds of Prey Sanctuary which is an amazing place and has given me cunning plans for a future photoshoot so keep an eye out for that in the near future.

But yeah I've started making an effort to get fit too now cause I'm fed up of being a huge blob. And me and my brother spent the summer turning Doug into a Trekkie as Doug had never watched Star Trek before! (and he calls himself a geek pssh lol)

I do have to mention the devMEET I organised in Manchester for deviantART.com's 10th birthday celebrations. Much fun and cake eatings was had by all.