Halos

Shoot: Death and the Maiden (for Starlight Magazine)

My second shoot for the latest issue of Starlight Magazine. This shoot starts off along the lines of The Little Match Girl by H. C. Andersen and then tells the story of what can almost be considered the girl's marriage to death. Somehow both shoots ended up taking their inspiration from H. C. Andersen and both dance along the line of tragedy. I guess, I just didn't want to go too obvious on the Christmas theme :)

This time we, Tenna and I, brought in a fresh face along side one we haven't seen in a while.

Models:

Stine Holm Jensen

Ariellah Engel Salimanov

Assistant: Tenna Vinther Olesen

Photos & retouch: Me

Death and the Maiden

Bonus pics that weren't featured in the magazine.

Outfit
Dress: Handmade
Shoes: Bianco
Jewelry: Accessorize, offbrand.

Outfit
Cape: Handmade
Jacket: Vila (modified)
Everything else: offbrand, H&M 

Both Ariellah and Stine did so well despite the fact that it was absolutely freezing outside that day. The weather has been all over the place lately. In fact, we had to postpone the shoot because of it. 

We were supposed to do it a week before, but then there was this storm that spoiled everything. Luckily we all had time the following weekend. And then when the forecast started indicating that it would be stormy that weekend too, I nearly freaked, haha. Thankfully, the weather was okay the day we did the shoot, though it was a bit windy. Too windy to put up my light gear, so I had to make do with natural light and a reflector.

It was so nice, for once, to have an assistant, not just for the actual shoot, but also to help with hair and makeup. Thanks Tenna :D

As always a huge amount of preparation went into this shoot. I sewed Ariellah's dress and Stine cape and modified the wings.

I hadn't actually planned to sew a dress for this shoot, but I saw these two fabrics in the store and thought they would work so well for a maiden-like outfit. The fabric is this ivory tapestry thing and then there's a detachable lace overskirt, though it's not super visible in the pictures. ;)

The cape was an absolutely nightmare to sew. While it was actually a simple pattern, I messed up everything - I've only worked with patterns once before, so give me a break ;) So I spent forever recutting and redoing things. I ran out of fabric for the lining. Twice. It's ridiculous. And then the shop didn't have more of the same fabric, so the lining is made from three different fabrics. Oh, the books I could write about this cape. ;)

But in the end, I kind of love it. Even though it kept swallowing Stine's head, the hood is beautiful and also the reason why I chose this pattern. I kind of want one in red too.

The wings consists of two pairs of wings from ebay - one of the them, the upper pair, modified with a bunch of extra feathers to even out the proportions. They became really heavy and I was afraid they weren't going to last through the shoot in the wind, but somehow they got through it relatively unharmed. 

Stine put together her own outfit and she actually handstitched that black thread (and the buttons) on the front of the jacket. Pretty awesome, eh? 

Though, Ariellah brought the skull aka. Skeletor. :D

Also, we have this snazzy video from the shoot:

How did we get up there in the first place? It wasn't easy, let's just say that much. ;)

The location is an old church in downtown Copenhagen, which is now a Gallery of some sort. It was right next to a playground and when Stine was on the brick wall with the wings and Ariellah on the ground, the kids were all "Did he capture her? O_O". Lol, it was so cute. :D

Also there was this old-drunk-man-type-person that stopped and kept talking about drawing a horse. It was a little peculiar really :/

Don't forget to read the new issue of Starlight Magazine here!

Shoot: Doll Memories (For Starlight Magazine)

Once again it's time for the a new issue of Starlight Magazine and this time I did a shoot for them to go with the Christmas theme. I decided not to do a very literal interpretation of the theme, but rather just grab elements from the classic fairy tale by H. C. Andersen - "The Steadfast Tin Soldier". Well, basically, I just used the characters. So they're these two dolls in an attic full of forgotten memories and when no people are around, they come to life.

You can read the latest issue of Starlight Magazine here.

Models: 

Lone (Ballerina)

Tenna (Soldier girl)

Doll Memories 

Tenna
Jacket: H&M
Skirt:Homemade
Shirt: Dear Celine
Boots: Unknown
Tights: H&M
Jewelry: Accessorize
Hat: Asos

Lone
Dress: Homemade (two dresses from H&M combined)
Blouse: Asos
Shoes: Chinese Laundry (modified)
Jewelry: Miss Selfridge, Glitter, Homemade
Tights:: H&M
Hairaccessories: Accessorize

This shoot was very different from what I've done before in terms of location. This is up in the attic in my building. It was extremely difficult to light the rooms up there because of the dark wood everywhere and the lack of daylight. There are a few small windows, but the sun sets so early these days, so it was almost gone when we started shooting. It was definitely a challenge, but I tried to work with what I had and I like the result - They look so much like dolls :D

Shoot: Amy at the Waterfall

I was fortunate to stumble across a beautiful nymph at Melincourt waterfall in Wales.

This was one of the best days of my stay in Wales. We drove to Melincourt waterfall and after a short hike into this world that seemed so far from what I'm used to; A nature so lush and otherworldly, we crossed the stream to get to the good rocks and then we risked our lives getting into the water. Well, not really, but it was rather exciting ^^
The weather started out being just cloudy, but as soon as I had finished shooting the first series of photos of Amy, and we still had three series left, it started drizzling and became rather cold. But we stuck it out and afterwards we warmed ourselves in the car and stuffed our faces like we hadn't eaten in days and not just a few hours. Good times.



Shoot: Heidi - Pregnancy

About a month ago, I had a shoot with Heidi. She's pregnant with her first child and wanted to get some photos of her magnificent belly before this special time is over. So I transformed my living room to a home studio and during about an hour and a half, we had done three setups and were finished. Heidi had been so thoughtful to provide plenty of inspiration photos, so I had a very clear idea of what she wanted, which helped tremenduously, as I was very unfamiliar with pregnancy photography in terms of lighting, posing, basically everything, but I think it went well and we are both happy with the result. :3

So here are few of the finished photos:



Oscar Wilde & Bosie

Stine asked me if I wanted to take some photos of her and Cecil portraying Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas. Well prepared as always, she already had a location in mind: The Winter Garden at Glytoteket. We brought Tenna with us and made a day of it.

Stine and Cecil specifically wanted to recreate these two portraits:

And here are the results: 

Afterwards we walked about the gorgeous Glyptotek and looked at countless noseless statues. We also snapped a few extra shots:



Sleeping Beauty Walks

I went to Cardiff, Wales, on the 16th to the 26th of May to visit my fellow photographer friend, Amy. We got to do several photo shoots and I have finally pulled myself together long enough to edit a bunch from the first one. I'm so hopelessly behind, you have no idea.

Anyway, we did this at Raglan Castle which dates back from the 15th century. It was such a beautiful castle and really had that fairy tale vibe. I intended to submit some photos to Starlight Magazine, so I styled Amy in my Sleeping Beauty dress from AatP. You can see several pictures from this shoot featured in the latest issue of Starlight Magazine as well as a bunch from two other shoots I did in Wales. 

But onwards to the photos now:

        

The outfit:

Dress: Alice and the Pirates

Blouse: Mis-behave vintage

Shoes: Bodyline

Hairaccessory: Handmade by me