This s just a quick entry, I feel like I've drained myself a bit on here recently and I don't want to write too much today. So this is really just to show you how much work went into this picture. It started off with me finding the Edwardian butterfly box on ebay late one night back in August. I often sit and type in random words and see what ebay comes up with, I can never find interesting things being too specific, so I usually use this 'lucky dip' approach and it sometimes comes up with treasures like the box. Originally we were going to shoot Katie holding the box on the day of the 'bookpit' picture... and then we ran out of time. It then dragged on and on, and every time Katie came over for a new picture, we never managed to do this character. Finally on the last day of shooting back in September, we ran out of time again and decided that we would meet In October once we'd all had a rest to take this last shot. Typically though the more time I was allowed to think about it, the bigger the idea became, and by the 4th of October, the 'box' picture had morphed into a 'giant hair, white witch' picture :)
Elbie turned up at my house with her suitcase full of make-up and hair extensions, and we spent the next 5 hours creating the screen of hair. We took an old picture frame and covered it with chicken wire. We then started weaving hair extensions and ivy I had collected from the woods through the framework. It was far more dfficult than we expected and took so much longer than planned. We tried to stick the hair and nothing would hold it, so we had to hand tie it with string, elastic bands and in some places actually sew the hair to the different layers we had created underneath it. Once Katie arrived, Elbie did her make-up and attached a couple of wig pieces to her natural hair, and then we spent another hour or more attaching Katies hair to the screen. It was the most preparation we had done for any of the photos... it took over 6 hours to get ready, and then 15 minutes to take the picture ! But as always it was worth it, and poor Katie was so patient. It was a pretty bizarre sight having this giant white witch sitting in my living room....... but after a summer of this kind of thing, it was strangely familiar too :) !
So here are the pictures of us making the gaint hair !! -
I know that things have sounded very sad recently, and I can't hide it when I feel that way. This week has been one of the hardest I can remember since losing her last year. I've been off work and rattling around the house, trying to rest and pull myself together. I've ignored my phone and gone into myself like I always do, and I feel terrible because I know so many people are just trying to help, but its my answer to everything.... hide.. hide.... hide. BUT this isnt about sad things, today I just wanted to remember a good time, one of the simplest and best days I've had in ages. Today I went back to my favourite place ...... the woods. Well, 'new woods' to be exact. I've begun researching for the new Wonderland pictures, and as always its the forests I return to. I have no idea why I am so calmed, and so relieved when I am there,.... but standing in the broken sunlight, climbing over stumps and jumping on fallen branches...... splashing in the mud, and just closing my eyes and breathing that air.... Its like washing my face in happiness. I am me, I feel free, suddenly everything is ok again, and I can focus on new ideas, instead of all the negatives I constantly drag around in my head.
So this is just for keeps ... basic snaps of magical places I found today (the tunnel above is my fav). While the rest of the world was battling through the streets Christmas shopping, I was knee deep in sludgy mud, with an enormous smile.
This felt good..... this felt real ............... this is all I need.......................
Nowadays I find myself hesitate before writing the truth down ….. but I can’t change what this is. Like taking the photos… this is me, my soul, my heart, the things I want to remember… come what may. Tonight the highs of the magazine seem washed away by my loss of her yet again. Its raining… it hasn’t stopped for what feels like days, and my heart is drowning in this swirl of memories.
I had to come home from work early again …. some days there is no hope, I am still so weak at times. Wonderland has become so much more than a project… maybe its my alternative world, somehow it comforts me, these storybook lands… these characters. I sometimes just sit and look at the colours and the scenes, and wish myself there again… some of those were the happiest days I have had since her death. Tonight I walked home in the rain… hands in pockets, hood up ……headphones blocking out the real world. Grey shapes pass, slide, splash my shoes, cold air against my sore skin… antibiotics fill my system… music fills my ears. I dream of new pictures…. beautiful creatures, colours… magical woods and distant star lit snow. Where would I be without my camera? It used to be a therapy… now it is a doorway to an enchanted place, where I am me, truly me. At night I see everything so clearly, I dream in hyper reality… the forests are damp under my feet, I see paper mache moons, a pale girl trapped in a snow globe…. Katie in the velvet circus costume I’m making for her….. dancing. Its like the pictures are already made, just waiting to be set free with the click of a shutter. This is making no sense….. but I’m beyond caring, I will remember this, and why I needed to write it down. I don’t know where it will end…. any of it, the pictures, the stories… all I know is that there is a sea of it inside me right now… raging, raging, raging. I want to push harder… make things bigger, embrace it, step away from the conventional…. This is where I can lose my physical self, and be free of this broken shell…and she is there with me…. always… I can feel it……… I can feel it.
When you think you're too old, too young, too smart or too dumb
When you're laggin' behind an' losin' your pace
In the slow-motion crawl or life's busy race
No matter whatcha doin' if you start givin' up
If the wine don't come to the top of your cup
If the wind got you sideways it's one hand holdin' on
And the other starts slippin' and the feelin' is gone
And your train engine fire needs a new spark to catch it
And the wood's easy findin' but you're lazy to fetch it
And your sidewalk starts curlin' and the street gets too long
And you start walkin' backwards though you know that it's wrong
And lonesome comes up as down goes the day
And tomorrow's mornin' seems so far away
And you feel the reins from your pony are slippin'
And your rope is a-slidin' 'cause your hands are a-drippin'
And your sun-decked desert and evergreen valleys
Turn to broken down slums and trash-can alleys
And your sky cries water and your drain pipe's a-pourin'
And the lightnin's a-flashin' and the thunder's a-crashin'
The windows are rattlin' and breakin' and the roof tops are shakin'
And your whole world's a-slammin' and bangin'
And your minutes of sun turn to hours of storm
An' to yourself you sometimes say
"I never knew it was gonna be this way
Why didn't they tell me the day I was born?" And you start gettin' chills and you're jumpin' from sweat
And you're lookin' for somethin' you ain't quite found yet
And you're knee-deep in dark water with your hands in the air
And the whole world's watchin' with a window peek stare
And your good gal leaves and she's long gone a-flyin'
And your heart feels sick like fish when they're fryin'
And your jackhammer falls from your hands to your feet
But you need it badly an' it lays on the street
And your bell's bangin' loudly but you can't hear its beat
And you think your ears mighta been hurt
Your eyes've turned filthy from the sight-blindin' dirt
And you figured you failed in yesterday's rush
When you were faked out an' fooled while facin' a four flush
And all the time you were holdin' three queens
It's makin you mad, it's makin' you mean
Like in the middle of Life magazine
Bouncin' around a pinball machine
And there's something on your mind that you wanna be sayin'
That somebody someplace oughta be hearin'
But it's trapped on your tongue, sealed in your head
And it bothers you badly when your layin' in bed
And no matter how you try you just can't say it
And you're scared to your soul you just might forget it
And your eyes get swimmy from the tears in your head
An' your pillows of feathers turn to blankets of lead
And the lion's mouth opens and you're starin' at his teeth
And his jaws start closin' with you underneath
And you're flat on your belly with your hands tied behind
And you wish you'd never taken that last detour sign
You say to yourself just what am I doin'
On this road I'm walkin', on this trail I'm turnin'
On this curve I'm hangin'
On this pathway I'm strollin', this space I'm taking
And this air I'm inhaling?
Am I mixed up too much, am I mixed up too hard
Why am I walking, where am I running
What am I saying, what am I knowing
On this guitar I'm playing, on this banjo I'm frailing
On this mandolin I'm strumming, in the song I'm singing,
In the tune I'm humming, in the words that I'm thinking
In the words I'm writing
In this ocean of hours I'm all the time drinking
Who am I helping, what am I breaking
What am I giving, what am I taking?
But you try with your whole soul best
Never to think these thoughts and never to let
Them kind of thoughts gain ground
Or make your heart pound
But then again you know when they're around
Just waiting for a chance to slip and drop down
'Cause sometimes you hear 'em when the night time come creeping
And you fear they might catch you sleeping
And you jump from your bed, from the last chapter of dreamin'
And you can't remember for the best of your thinkin'
If that was you in the dream that was screaming
And you know that's somethin' special you're needin'
And you know there's no drug that'll do for the healing
And no liquor in the land to stop your brain from bleeding You need somethin' special
You need somethin' special, all right
You need a fast flyin' train on a tornado track
To shoot you someplace and shoot you back
You need a cyclone wind on a stream engine howler
That's been banging and booming and blowing forever
That knows your troubles a hundred times over
You need a Greyhound bus that don't bar no race
That won't laugh at your looks
Your voice or your face
And by any number of bets in the book
Will be rolling long after the bubblegum craze
You need something to open up a new door
To show you something you seen before
But overlooked a hundred times or more
You need something to open your eyes
You need something to make it known
That it's you and no one else that owns
That spot that you're standing, that space that you're sitting
That the world ain't got you beat
That it ain't got you licked
It can't get you crazy no matter how many times you might get kicked
You need something special, all right
You need something special to give you hope
But hope's just a word
That maybe you said, maybe you heard
On some windy corner 'round a wide-angled curve But that's what you need man, and you need it bad
And your trouble is you know it too good
'Cause you look an' you start gettin' the chills
'Cause you can't find it on a dollar bill
And it ain't on Macy's window sill
And it ain't on no rich kid's road map
And it ain't in no fat kid's fraternity house
And it ain't made in no Hollywood wheat germ
And it ain't on that dim-lit stage
With that half-wit comedian on it
Rantin' and ravin' and takin' your money
And you thinks it's funny
No, you can't find it neither in no night club, no yacht club
And it ain't in the seats of a supper club
And sure as hell you're bound to tell
No matter how hard you rub
You just ain't a-gonna find it on your ticket stub
No, it ain't in the rumors people're tellin' you
And it ain't in the pimple-lotion people are sellin' you
And it ain't in a cardboard-box house
Or down any movie star's blouse
And you can't find it on the golf course
And Uncle Remus can't tell you and neither can Santa Claus
And it ain't in the cream puff hairdo or cotton candy clothes
Ain't in the dime store dummies an' bubblegum goons
And it ain't in the marshmallow noises of the chocolate cake voices
That come knocking and tapping in Christmas wrapping
Sayin' ain't I pretty and ain't I cute, look at my skin,
Look at my skin shine, look at my skin glow,
Look at my skin laugh, look at my skin cry,
When you can't even sense if they got any insides
These people so pretty in their ribbons and bows
No, you'll not now or no other day
Find it on the doorsteps made of paper maché
And inside of the people made of molasses
That every other day buy a new pair of sunglasses
And it ain't in the fifty-star generals and flipped-out phonies
Who'd turn you in for a tenth of a penny
Who breathe and burp and bend and crack
And before you can count from one to ten
Do it all over again but this time behind your back, my friend,
The ones that wheel and deal and whirl and twirl
And play games with each other in their sand-box world
And you can't find it either in the no-talent fools
That run around gallant
And make all the rules for the ones that got talent
And it ain't in the ones that ain't got any talent but think they do
And think they're fooling you
The ones that jump on the wagon
Just for a while 'cause they know it's in style
To get their kicks, get out of it quick
And make all kinds of rnoney and chicks
And you yell to yourself and you throw down your hat
Saying, "Christ, do I gotta be like that?
Ain't there no one here that knows where I'm at
Ain't there no one here that knows how I feel
Good God Almighty, that stuff ain't real": No, but that ain't your game, it ain't your race
You can't hear your name, you can't see your face
You gotta look some other place
And where do you look for this hope that you're seekin'
Where do you look for this lamp that's a-burnin'
Where do you look for this oil well gushin'
Where do you look for this candle that's glowin'
Where do you look for this hope that you know is there
And out there somewhere
And your feet can only walk down two kinds of roads
Your eyes can only look through two kinds of windows
Your nose can only smell two kinds of hallways
You can touch and twist
And turn two kinds of doorknobs
You can either go to the church of your choice
Or you go to Brooklyn State Hospital You find God in the church of your choice
You find Woody Guthrie in Brooklyn State Hospital
And though it's only my opinion
I may be right or wrong
You'll find them both
In Grand Canyon
Sundown
I'm exhausted... I literally stepped off the plane from China at 5am this morning and have been dragging myself around in my pyjamas all day. I'd switched my phone to silent so I could sleep, and forgot about it ...... until late this afternoon, when I saw 15 missed calls from Elbie. I switched on my laptop, and read the first line of her email.... 'WE ARE IN CLICHE MAGAZINE!'. I felt a bit sick and typed in the address, and there it was ........ 24 pages of 'Wonderland' in full colour.
For once i'm genuinely lost for words.... I suppose its because this whole project has been such an emotional journey for me.... and continuous to be, as we are still working on it. To think me and Elbie made everything out of nothing, and were just helped by friends and our partners, the pictures look 'real' and don't appear amateur amongst the other shoots. If someone had sat me down and asked what my dream end result for the photos would be..... I would have answered 'to see them as a full set, as full pages in a 'real' magazine - not an amateur photography one' ...... and its happened.... already...before I've even finished the project.
We still have more pictures and characters we want to do, and I have to finish off the pictures from the last of the summer shoots first (I probably have another 4 left now). But Im getting really excited about the winter pictures already because the woods are looking so menacing now the leaves have fallen, and the darker images are always where my heart is.
So that's it.... I just want to say that Elbie, if you are reading this..... I'm so, so, so glad I met you :) x
I've looked at it about a 1000 times now.... you can see the editorial for real here
What a day....what a day
(ps -i'll catch up about my far east trip soon)
I just landed in Tokyo, I'm staying 27 floors up in the city scape...... I have no time, I've had no sleep, I left my phone on the plane ......... but this is my view tonight, and somehow nothing else matters.........
I'll try and get some pictures, but I'm literally just passing through, I leave for Hong Kong in 2 days and then on to China. Its beautiful, it's quieter than I imagined I can't belive I'm here.
I'm afraid I fell apart....... mum died one year ago on November the 9th, and I just couldn't keep up with the blog. Luckily I have written about the more emotional stories behind the photos first, and as the shoots progressed I began to find things easier - confidence wise, although the amount of work was still really exhausting. So i'm catching up... mainly with the behind the scenes photos as they are the most important memories for me.
One of the most magical shoots of the whole series was when we went into the woods with Katie and she performed for us using her aerial hoop - she is a circus performer as well as many other things, and so this was just a dream come true for me. I made her entire outfit, and Elbie spent hours making a huge complicated plait that became the focus for her hair design. We started the day with Katie completely white, and as the day progressed we painted her eyes with black paint, added feather moth wings to her eyes, and finally I painted her white outfit with black paint to match the moth wings and metamorphosize her character into a darker creature. This character was an idea I have had of almost two years now, and has been in my head ever since I saw Massive Attack's video 'butterfly caught'. Katies naturally white eyelashes, and pale blue eyes made this whole look become so mysterious and unconventional, that for me it was really special to finally see it come to life and look so beautifully surreal.
The other behind the scenes pictures which I have been promising to show on flickr were for picture 12.... the girl with 4 legs :) I can't even describe how funny it was taking this photo, I'm amazed any of the shots were in focus as I was laughing so much. It was the end of a long cold days shooting, it was the worst weather I have ever taken pictures in - dull, drizzle, rain, cold.... miserable.... and typically it happened on a day when I had managed to get us into a very special location (which I will write about later). At first I had felt really disheartened about the weather, but actually, as with all the different weather we experienced during the project, it seemed to be just right for the character we had planned.
The main reason behind 4 legs - was simply that I wanted to throw in some really strange characters to balance out the more 'fashiony' / pretty characters - basically to remind people that this is still 'Wonderland' and nothing is as it seems :)
So... we dressed Katie and Jessica in matching outfits, and as Katie is extremely flexible, she ended up bending over the books whilst Jess sat on top of her! I couldn't believe it when the girls where in position, it just looked so real!! Everyone was squealing with laughter, and Jess was just fantastic, she starting ripping pages out the book and rolling her eyes in the back of her head... it was truly like standing in front of monster !! so here you go, as promised.... the funnies ........ :) !
Finally.....
Here are the first pictures of one of our hardest props - the hydrnagea wig. This character (the hydrangea fairy) was probably one of the most difficult characters to create, and came from a conversation down the pub between me and Elbie! It was taken really early on in the project and probably before we really started to get a grip on what we were doing. All we knew was that we wanted to create a fairy - a sort of flower fairy, with an enormous wig made of fresh flowers. I drew a few sketches and we agreed we wanted something on a huge scale, and in an unconventional shape. Once we had agreed on the rough design we were then faced with how on earth we could make such a thing....... and thats were ebay came in ! First of all we bought an old horse riding hat from ebay for £11, then Elbie bought 8 meters of chicken wire, and reel of garden wire and we made the rest up using old rubbish from my garage !
The main issue though was how on earth we were going to afford so many expensive flowers. i wrote to 3 florists, and to a neighbor who had a large hydrangea bush in their garden .... no one helped :(
Finally, after looking for fake flowers, contemplating stealing them from peoples gardens and then being wracked with gulit, out of desperation I placed an advert in 'freecycle' begging for hydrangeas. We half wrote the advert as a joke, but then a few days later to my amazement I got an email from a wonderful lady called Heidi George offering to let us come and cut down her entire hydrangea bush ! So I found myself turning up at a complete strangers house, and walked away with 4 enormous sacks of fresh flowers in the most incredible soft colours !! So here are the pictures, me and Elbie didn't have a clue what we were doing, and made things up as we went along. At one point the frame wasnt strong enough so we ended up stuffing half an old cushion and a paint roller inside for added structure !!!!! But we were thrilled with the results. I'll write more about this character and show further pictures of the set we made after i have edited the other full length shot.... the wig smelt amazing!!!!!
Oh and on a final note.......... something very exciting is happening regarding Wonderland.... It looks like we are going to be published. I'll write more when I know for sure what is going on... gulp :) !!!
I’m meant to be writing about the project, I’m behind with the words, and the pictures are taking so long to edit. There is so much to do, and right now I’m sitting here just falling apart for the millionth time this month. She died one year ago tomorrow and I can’t pull myself together. I’m so tired, I'm sadder than I can remember, I have felt like this for so, so long, to the point where I feel I can't even tell anyone any more. I’m a broken record, going round, and round, and round… Every time I think I’m getting there I’m smashed back down again, and I'm so tired of getting up. I don’t even care who reads this anymore, or what they think. I’m a schizophrenic to grief, I'm fine, I'm not, I'm broken, I mend, I look so bad. I cant remember what its like to look in the mirror and feel like myself, I'm permanently marked by the results of this strain, I'm scared it will scar me. I haven’t taken a self-portrait since May because I simply can’t stand myself anymore. I need this to stop; I need someone to take it away….. No one talks about her anymore, I feel like the only one who cries about her, she is everywhere, inside me, around me, fused into my soul, my shadow….. my heart beat…..my everything.
… I would give anything be my old self again, take me back 3 years before she was ill or I was ill, before any of the pain had begun. I feel like I can’t get through another day, I just want to sleep until I can’t remember anymore….. I miss her so much.
It was 6.30pm and we had just left the Book pit behind us…. The van rattled and shook as we sped through the late Saturday traffic to reach the lake. No one had seen it apart from me, and I was praying the evening light would be just as it had been that morning when my neighbour and I discovered it. I couldn’t believe my eyes, this tiny lake covered in the largest lily pads I had ever seen. The light had danced and sparkled through a dense surround of ancient trees, a heron stood in the centre ….. and it was silent, and beautiful and so perfectly still. My heart had started pounding; this was how I felt when I saw the lavender field in full bloom, this is what I was always looking for….. pure, radiant, vibrating natural colour. My head filled with Pre Raphaelite ghosts…. Ophelia, Camelot, The lady of the lake…. I could picture Katie standing in the lilies half submerged with waist length hair. All my preparation for the book pit shoot went out the window …. I fumbled for my phone and called Elbie, then Katie….. we had to try and get this picture as well…. tonight. I was hooked, … it was extraordinary.
The Van pulled up by the edge of the road and we piled out. I had two wetsuits, a stool, the old lace dress, and no time. I ran ahead down the slope, the sun would set at 7.30pm and it was now 6.40…… I ran through the trees….. please be the same...... please be the same… please…......................
It was, it was, it was….
The sky opened and the trees bowed down, and there it was, a sea of green and shimmering black.
My shouts back to the others echoed, squeals and whoops of “come on, come on, before it’s too late, the light the light!! “I don’t know why, but this place was so precious, it was so right… like a page in a book that had never been turned. It felt like the light had been waiting for us to arrive, it hung patient, soft and warm….. I was in awe somehow, this was our secret….
I put on the wetsuit the wrong way round in my excitement, it was too big and I looked ridiculous but I didn’t care. We wanted to protect Katie somehow… the water was dark and muddy, and smelt like it really was a thousand years old. We tried to put the other wetsuit on her under the dress, but it was too difficult and by now we only had about 30 minutes left. That was when Katie decided to just go for it, she stood there dressed like an angel with no protection what so ever and just stepped into the mud. I couldnt stop laughing, there was me sinking into the sludge in a full wetsuit and she just strode ahead towards the center. The underwater roots of the lilies were thick and tangled, and in places the water was chest deep. I was terrified of dropping my camera and even more terrified Katie would fall over in the dress. Matt came after us to help, but got completely stuck in the thick mud and couldn’t move, it was a hilarious sight. Elbie sat on the edge taking pictures laughing at me half drowning in the deep pockets, Katie staggering through in the vintage dress, and Matt shouting “I’m stuck I’m stuck !!”
Eventually we got to the center, and there it was possible to balance on the dense network of roots. The whole lake was sheltered with trees creating an almost black-out surround, apart from a break in the horizon that formed a halo of light above Katie’s head. I was so excited I crouched down too low for the first picture and immediately filled my wetsuit with cold stinking water! But it was worth it…. She was everything I could have hoped for, and so much more. The light fell across her pale hair and melted into the dark liquid mirror beneath us. It was the painting I had been so desperate for, this was real, and I was truly there….. it was happening and the hairs on my neck stood up. All our laughter had stopped, and now it was just the birds and the rush of the trees……. and there she was, our ‘lady of the lake’ . It was magical, her and this place were timeless, it was the simplest picture of the whole series, but one of the most emotional for me. We stood there together in this moment for what must have only been about 15 minutes and then the light was gone, and the world returned to normal. We waded back to the edge to a laughing Elbie holding out the towels, we smelt so bad it was unreal. Trying to get out of a tight wetsuit covered in slime was not a dignified thing, and in the end I was hopping about in my underwear, whilst Katie was tying to get the equally rancid dress off without ripping the lace. I was so happy we got the shot in the right light, we were all on a high,.. and so we picked up the bags of wet smelly clothes and walked back to the van wrapped in towels. I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face the whole way home.... it had been worth every minute.
The roots picture was the first shot of the longest day of shooting for us. It was an idea I have wanted to do for a very, very long time. The whole day was really hard work, but once again it gave me some brilliant memories that will remain in my heart forever. Simple things like Elbie gingerly stepping into the freezing cold stream in her bare feet to help me paint the roots of the tree, screwing her face up, waving her decorating brush with an evil glint in her eye… ! I wont write pages about this shot, but I just wanted to say it was another really exciting picture to take, because we did it all for real. Its too easy to just fake things in photoshop and I felt like it was cheating somehow, or rather it was stealing the magic for us. I have always loved the story of the Cottingley fairies and the fact that so many people believed the pictures were real . So that was really my starting point, to create a kind of underworld woodland fairy, that lived in the roots of a giant tree….. one that was so pale, everything she touched turned white. So we bought a big bucket of non toxic white powder paint, got some decorating brushes and painted the tree for real. I never realised how liberating doing this kind of madness on a Sunday morning could be, but by now we had shot book pit, the lavender field, and the lily pads, and so this kind of weirdness was becoming normal and it felt wonderful ;)
I made the outfit for Katie entirely myself, and now I wish I'dd taken photos of the development stages, but everything was so rushed it was only later I started thinking about keeping a record of the props and clothes being made. Elbie had spent hours creating a giant complicated plait for the hair, and somehow it just came together, even Katie’s pose seems to blend with the roots perfectly. Finally I stood in the stream with water up to the edge of my wellies and took the picture. I think its probably one of my all time favourites because it embodies so many elements that I love - the darkness, the magic, the woods.
Just as I finished a couple of kids walked by on the opposite bank and screamed… which I was really pleased about…. because I really didn’t want her to look like a good fairy after all ;) !!!!!
It is so hard to begin to write down what the lavender shoot meant to me…. it felt like the hardest shoot we did for the entire series and I suppose that is mainly true because it was the first. I want to write this honestly, and maybe that’s going to be a little embarrassing as I know that the people involved will be reading this… but at least now its all done, I can finally admit how absolutely terrified I actually was.
It’s easier to laugh about it now, but at the time there were points when throwing up with nerves was definitely a realistic option. The whole idea began at the end of June, I had been thinking about colour, and wanted to do something really wild and magical, but using a location where colour had occurred naturally as a starting point. I had remembered a lavender farm I used to pass by a couple of years ago, and decided to go back and have a look. I was lucky, the fields were in full bloom, and it was by complete chance that I had arrived at the height of the season. I left my card with one of the farm workers, and went home to write my first begging letter. After a few emails it seemed that the farmer had actually been approached by a number of people who also wanted to use his field, and all of them (some commercial giants) were asking for it for free. Suddenly my requests of “can I use your field, and can you give me a load of free lavender?” began to sound equally rude, and I felt my chance disappearing before I’d even started. However… I was lucky, really lucky.. Brendan the farmer looked at my work online and agreed we could use the field before the public were let in (9.30am) and on the condition he could use one of the pictures for a postcard to sell in the farm shop. There was also one final problem - The entire crop was going to be cut in two weeks…. My stomach twisted and heat went to my head……
I had two weeks to find a model, meet Elbie for the first time in real life, research and come up with a theme, an outfit, make props, and find a team of friends to help. I had no choice but to set a date for dawn on July the 19th.
I know some people may be reading this, thinking it all sounds a bit ridiculous and dramatic, but for me this genuinely was a big deal. I have always been so nervous of working with others because if I'm honest I have little self-confidence, and I suppose I didn’t want to be found out as a ‘fake’. The fact that I still don’t know what half the buttons on my camera do, and I have never hired a model or worked with a make-up artist properly before, was pretty terrifying. I was also worried it would end up looking ‘home made’ and unprofessional, but I’d reached a point where didn’t want to just carry on taking endless self-portraits and random street pictures. I wanted to see what would happen if I really tried my absolute hardest,….. and so I posted a casting for a model and waited for a response.
Next I had to think about props, the farmer said we could have 10 enormous bundles of lavender to help, and so I bought an old 70’s wicker chair from eBay to customise into a throne for the model. I began work on designing a dress, and researching what kind of mood / theme we could build on. I made a storyboard of my favourite shoots and fashion collections, and came up with the idea of using coloured smoke and powder paint to exaggerate the colours of the flowers and give a more magical feel. I finally met Elbie in person the Sunday before, and we spent the entire day working on the lavender throne. It took 6 hours to cover less than half the chair at which point we also realised that almost none of the props could be made in advance, as the fresh flowers would die and dis-colour before it was time to take the pictures,. We had to leave the chair and instead try and plan the hair and make-up. This meant we only had the next Saturday to make some of the biggest props before we started the shoot at dawn the following day.
I’ll try not to go into every detail of what had to be done because it probably makes a boring read, but I also feel like I had to explain this much because otherwise I wouldn’t be crediting the friends that helped us. After we met on the Sunday, Elbie and me spent the week emailing each other constantly with pictures of hair and make-up ideas. Elbie had to spend her lunch times going to theatre make-up shops, whilst I spent my evenings, sewing and spray painting parts of the dress that had been sent to me in pieces from a factory in China. We had to get together powder paint and smoke bombs, and just as things were going well, the first model dropped out of the shoot. I had to post another casting, and by now was beginning to feel out of my depth.
By the time the weekend of the shoot arrived I had managed to get the help of a few good friends, the model was arriving in the early evening and the van was being collected that night. The Saturday started with me getting up at 6am, I went straight to the farm collected the last of the lavender, then the shops for more spray paint and set about finishing the chair. I don’t think I had anticipated just how much we had to physically create in one day. We needed to make a huge umbrella from purple buddleia, the chair was a long way off being finished, the dress was now in two pieces and had to be sewn together, as well as spray painted and customised with flowers… hair and make-up trials, … garlands made, paint mixed up …. It was too much.
The phone rang and my friends Eva and Charmaine had arrived from London on the train, I grabbed 3 pairs of scissors and met them at the station. The first thing we had to do was steal some flowers – buddleia – it is the closest colour flower to lavender that grows wild and is big enough to cover large areas. Buddleia grows wild along the train tracks so we started cutting down great stalks of it every time the coast was clear. We must have looked utterly ridiculous as none of us are tall, and all the best flowers were way out of our reach and mainly hanging over the fence that separated us from the tracks. So we jumped and cut, jumped and cut, jumped…… Eva pulled down an entire bush, whilst I lost my footing and landed in nettles. We squealed, laughed, and hid the bunches in the back of my car thinking we had more that enough……. We were so, so wrong.
After stripping back the leaves and cutting down the stems, the enormous bundles of flowers looked tiny and not even enough to cover a third of the umbrella, we had taken most of the flowers we could reach and knew we would have to go back and get 3 times more than we had. So after making slow progress on the chair we went back again - this time my friend Kiem and Elbie had also arrived at mine and so there were now 5 of us,. We gave up waiting for people to pass and just pulled at the branches laughing and swearing, it had started to rain and we were past caring and were getting desperate. We stuffed the car to bursting point and headed back to mine, It was now past 4pm, and my garden was covered in stolen buddleia and bundles of lavender. There was a Chinese paper umbrella covered in glue that wouldn’t dry, or allow us to stick flowers to it., a half finished lavender chair, the dress was still in pieces and it was raining. Everybody carried on stripping the flowers and working on their various props whilst I went upstairs and sat on my bed panicking. It looked rubbish….. I had no idea if the flower umbrella was going to work, or even dry before tomorrow morning, I was going to have to sew the rest of the dress by hand and I had already run out of my last can of spray paint. The forecast was rain for the next day, and we only had 8 hours left until midnight. ……That gave us 3 ½ hours to sleep, and then we had to leave at dawn. I felt sick, this was embarrassing… the model would be arriving any minute to walk into this mad house covered in glue, flowers and bugs, to have her make-up trial done in my kitchen, while Kiem attempted to make some extra home made smoke bombs out of miracle grow fertilizer and food colouring in a frying pan next to her!
Time passed and the model arrived, she was actually an absolute sweetheart and found all the chaos exciting and didn’t seem to be too scared of what I had planned. Kiem soldiered on with making the buddleia umbrella with matt, whilst I finished the dress and Eva sewed garlands of flowers… by 9pm, we made some sort of a little break through and suddenly everything started looking really good. The umbrella looked amazing, but was incredibly heavy….. I could just about pick it up and it was soaking wet with glue. The dress was finished and fitted (thank god) and now we were on the finishing stages. By midnight everyone was exhausted, me and Eva were sitting in our pyjamas sewing the last of the buddleia onto the dress whist Matt worked on the garlands and Elbie finished preparing Natasha’s hair for the next day. We went to bed at 12.30.
We had to get up at 3.45am…. Elbie started the hair and make-up on Natasha, whilst I got my kit together and started drawing little sketches of how I wanted the pictures to look. I always do this when I'm nervous so I wont forget what my original idea was when I’m on the location. The boys started loading the cars and by 5.45 am we were on our way to the field. I sat in the front seat and stared out the window willing the clouds to break, it was overcast and dull. I remember I kept rubbing the ring my mum gave me for my 18th birthday praying she would somehow fix the weather for me,… I leant forward in my seat hoping it would some how get us there quicker.
We arrived, we unloaded, the model got dressed, and there I was…… starring at a dull, dark field without a clue how I was going to make this look good. Every time I had been to the farm it had been sunny and the whole crop had been lit up in a sea of bright purple, now it looked dead and drab and the wind was picking up.
The first picture I had seen in my head had been the umbrella scene, for some reason I had dreamt of a girl in an enormous dress clutching a parasol made of flowers with coloured smoke pouring from the top. This was the one picture I really wanted to get, so I started jumping over the aisles of flowers looking for the right place. We got the model to stand on a stool, as the dress was nearly 8ft long and then set up a stepladder in front of her for me to take the picture from. The field was swarming with bees and Natasha was terrified… I was then stung badly by a bee, it was agony and nothing was looking right. The dress looked too narrow and the light was terrible. Finally I decided we had to do something so grabbed a pair of scissors and slashed the entire back of the dress open, it instantly filled out and looked twice as big… Elbie and Eva then got under the skirt and held it out whilst the boys moulded a smoke bomb onto the top of the umbrella and lit it……… and then it happened…….
Just as the umbrella was passed to Natasha, the sun came out,……. it was still low in the sky so it lit her entre body from the front … The smoke bomb began to fizz and plumes of blue burst from the top of the umbrella…… and then the wind came. I could barely catch my breath, it was exactly how I had seen it in my head. The skirt of the dress started billowing in the wind, and filled up like a giant circus tent. The boys started cheering shouting ‘here comes the sun’ whilst Elbie and Eva were collapsing with laughter under the skirt….. It was amazing; it was all happening together, whilst Natasha held onto the umbrella bracing the wind like something from The Wizard of Oz. And so that was it, the smoke spiralled and danced, the dress rocked in the wind and I kept pressing the shutter, it was working, it was working !!!! After we got that first picture, I felt like we could do anything. We moved around the field setting up the different props and scenes, we ran over our time, and ended up with the public coming in to the field and following us around to see what we were doing. We even threw 3 kilos of powder paint over Natasha, which was such an incredible thing to see in real life. The colour was extraordinary, she looked liked she had died there and then in a cloud of purple in the flowers. It was exhausting – everyone ran backwards and forwards dragging props and buckets of paint but by 11 am we had finally finished. We packed up the car, went back to the house, had bacon sandwiches and tea, and then everyone went to the train station to go home.
Afterwards I stood in my empty kitchen and looked at what was left, there was lavender everywhere, paint on the floor, bags of equipment and cups and plates, and my crumpled sketches I had drawn in a panic that morning. We had done it, and it had looked good. I didn’t mess up, and it didn’t rain…… nobody knew how I had felt, and probably didn't until reading this,. It was such relief I could have cried. I went straight to bed and slept until 3pm, got up, cleaned the house and loaded the pictures into my laptop…. And immediately emailed Elbie the first raw shot of the smoke umbrella picture. Now I knew we could do this again, I knew it could only get a little easier after this. I sat and thought about all the help these people have given us – no one was getting anything out of it, yet they still worked till midnight and got up with the dawn. It had been chaos, but wonderful chaos – I suppose none of us would have ever sat in a field at dawn with a lavender giantess and a smoking umbrella before that day… and that is what it was really about…… creating something magical for the absolute hell of it . That’s when things changed for me, and photography became more about the moment, the experience you shared with these people, than the finishing of the actual picture. I was getting to do this for real and sharing it with equally passionate people, It felt so good, and I felt closer to all of them for it. We had laughed ourselves stupid and we all looked like hell, but it had been so much fun.
A moment later. Elbie replied with lots of squeals and exclamation marks, and ended the email with the words ’what are we doing next?” …..and that was really how Wonderland started..............
** Special thanks to Kiem for some of the behind the scenes pictures *
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