Yelena Buck and I have worked together on a previous shoot back in 2013, so I was over the moon when she agreed to work with me on a new project. Last year I worked on several magazine editorials, and thoroughly enjoyed working with such incredible creatives. Together, Yelena and I assembled a team who we thought would be perfect for this shoot.

Yelena creates insanely beautiful lingerie, inspired by nature using earthy tones and delicate details, we focused on using the pretty, warm yellow Sweet Daisy set. I adore warm tones, particularly yellow, and wanted to find a location that suited these tones. We first started looking at function rooms within Norwich, but found they were too cluttered, or dark, or gave us little privacy for shooting underwear. That’s when I realised the perfect location was right under my nose, only a five minute walk from my house! We shot in an old court house, now used for events and clubs. The building still has a lot of character (still with creepy cells at the back of the building), the gorgeous wooden clad rooms and tiled corridors were perfect tonally and suited the feel of the shoot.

I got in touch with Lynsey at Pretty Little Rentals who agreed to style the shoot for us. I was fortunate enough to meet Lynsey at a wedding fair at the beginning of the year. I loved her enthusiasm for her business and all things pretty. We got on really well and I knew that I wanted to keep her as an important contact for future shoots and weddings. Her rustic and vintage style was perfect for the look of the shoot, and I was super duper excited to have her be a part of the team.

We wanted to find another creative who could add something extra to the styling, and suited the earthy, rustic feel we were going for. After scrolling through lots of websites and instagram accounts, we found Sophie at Moon and Moss Jewellery. We both previously knew Sophie and her beautiful pieces, and thought that she would be a perfect fit for the shoot.

That’s when we got in touch with Kerry at Sparkle With Kerry to be our make-up artist. Kerry has a wonderful eye for colour and eye-catching make-up looks (just check out her Instagram page.. it will blow you away!). I worked with Kerry previously for her Stardust Glitter Bar shoot and I absolutely adored working with her. She is such a friendly, kind person and her make-up skills are on point!

We put out a casting call for a blonde female model and had lots of interest for the shoot. Cathy reached out to me, and we felt that she would be wonderful for the shoot. She has lots of modelling, acting and dancing experience, which would help to portray the feel we were after. On the day she captivated all of us, her posing and expressions were flawless whilst making the styling, make-up and location all come together as though it was meant to be.

On the day we set up multiple areas to shoot in and tried to incorporate all of our areas of expertise where we could. Our plan was to keep it as simplistic as possible so that each individual image was impactful. I think Cathy helped us to achieve this by keeping the posing different in every shot. Yelena brought three sets with her for us to shoot and we tried two set ups per lingerie set. We would change Cathy’s hair style in each set up so the styling was dynamic. We wanted to use as many areas of the courthouse as we could to give the series variety and interest. The building is so interesting to walk around and explore, so we wanted to make the most of this. Variety was key throughout the shoot.

I love working with natural light, outdoors and indoors. Window light can be so affective for setting the mood in an image. Depending on where you pose your model and the composition, the directional light coming from the window creates depth to the image. Unfortunately when shooting in the corridors there was less natural light to work with. We had to shoot quite close to two pairs of double doors with mottled glass windows to get any form of good lighting to work with. We couldn’t open the doors to let in more light as they were locked (D’oh!). At this time of day, the sunlight was falling through the windows on the opposite side of the building, which made the corridors even darker. I always bring with me some back up lights just in case it is too dark to work with natural light, but I really didn’t want to use them. I didn’t want to use them because if I use the flash in one set up and not in the others, that set up would look disconnected from the rest of the series. We turned on the lights in the hallway behind Cathy and kept her facing towards the light through the doors. We were originally going to use the hallway behind Cathy to take the photos as we all really liked the symmetry in this area. However this area was too dark, the lighting was too artificial, and there was lots of signs on the walls which could not be taken down. The photos did not fit in well with what we had previously taken, but moving towards those double doors really helped to keep the photos working as a series.

Although the location was a dream to work with, and I wanted to capture as much of it as I could, I also wanted to get some detail shots of the clothing, jewellery and make-up. The beauty shots help to break up the full length fashion shots whilst showcasing just how freaking amazing the team are. All the pieces came together so well, from the location, the set, the lingerie, the jewellery, the make-up, the hair and of course Cathy doing her thaaang in every shot. Dayum, guurrl! :)

I really liked Cathy’s feminine, dancing, abstract poses throughout the shoot. The poses give character to her story, grounding her to the location. She interacts so well with the location, as though we’ve just walked in on her space where she feels so relaxed and connected, both physically and spiritually. I honestly cannot stop praising Cathy for how amazing she was on the shoot. Her poise and elegance is timeless. I’m truly in awe of her.

I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to work with this truly fabulous team. They all put their all in to the shoot, were really committed to creating some fab photos, which was a really lovely experience to be a part of. I’m also super duper proud because we are lucky enough to get our photos put in SHUBA magazine. Woooooohooooo! *High fives all around* Please take a look at the magazine and feel free to purchase your own copy (link below). I am so thankful that the magazine picked up our images and we have a really lovely feature titled “Court Of Daisies” in the magazine. Thank you to SHUBA for selecting our editorial and thank you to Yelena, Lynsey, Sophie, Kerry and Cathy for making it possible and being super stars.