Journal

Lara jade Rocking Horse Photo Shoot

08 April 2008

My partner Metso does a lot of my shoots, we have worked together for years and enjoy the creative process of doing the photography shoots for our various projects but we were both so busy with preparing and working on the Rocking Horse album, we felt that it would be good do a shoot with an outside photographer for the first lot of our Rocking Horse press shots.

I knew that I wanted to work with Lara the minute I saw her portfolio. Then on reading her blog I read that she was still at university, i couldn’t believe that such a young photographer already had such a striking body of work. I contacted Lara and found that she was based pretty close to me, so in the break I had between recording the Rocking Horse album, we arranged to do a shoot.

I wanted to shoot in a magical place for the Rocking Horse photographs, either a castle or a forest. There is a forest near to Lara and she suggested that we could shoot there.

I have always loved the Cottingley Fairy photographs which are world famous and taken by two sisters in the early 1900’s. For years people speculated if the fairies which appeared in the sisters’ photographs were real. if you’ve never seen the photographs you should check them out, they have a magical innocence and beauty to them. I asked Lara if she liked the idea of doing our own fairy pictures and she agreed that could be cool.

I had trouble finding fairies which had an antique look to them, I wanted paper cut outs as opposed to ornaments, finally i found some great fairies that are usually used for decoration purposes. I spent all night gluing the fairies onto thick card and cutting them out. I also ordered a neat flower head dress which I felt would look good in the shots. Closer to the time, I went shopping for pretty dresses and found plenty for the shoot.

When I met Lara for the first time at the train station, I was struck by her beauty and sweet nature. her mom had given her a lift and had agreed to drive us round and be Lara’s assistant for the day. Lara’ s beautiful little sister, Karis also accompanied us on the shoot.

We had such a fabulous day and Lara’s mom was so kind and helpful. In the woods where we shot, She stuck the fairies on branches and placed them around the scenes of the shots so well. She was also great fun to be around and I enjoyed getting to know her.

On arriving at the woods, we did my make up and I got changed into my costume. Suddenly, a huge bumble bee came from trees and sent us all running!
This happened a couple of times and we were all in hysterics about how silly we were being over a little bumble bee. The bee came for us a third time and we scattered, however, Lara’s pretty little sister Karis, had been stood in the centre of a tree and the bee came and landed right on her head! I suspect the bee thought she was a pretty little flower!

We all stopped in our tracks, not wishing to disturb the bee incase it stung Karis. A sting from a bee like that to one so small could be dangerous. Poor little Karis, on seeing the fear in our faces as we gradually closed in on her to try and get the bee from her head, started to panic and her mom, courageously ran over and batted the bee away from her head. Phew! After that, the shoot went very well and I really enjoyed Lara’s way of shooting.

She shoots fast and knows what she wants. the whole day was a lot of fun and we shot near a lake and enjoyed being chased by the swans there! Little Karis was a star and even though it had grown chilly by the end of the shoot and we were all pretty beat, she was very gracious.

At the end of shooting, we dined on Fish and Chips and I got to know Lara and her mom. Lara is so talented, it’s just a matter of time before she is doing photo shoots all over the world. Not only is she an amazing photographer and artist, she is thoroughly determined and prolific, someone with a real vision and gift.

I think that the photographs turned out very well and I am looking forward to working with Lara again in the future.

You can check out her brilliant work and fascintaing journal on her site at : http://www.larajade.com/

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