The blog of photographer Kim Ayres

Preparations

"A fashion shoot in front of bold, colourful, urban graffiti," said Morag MacPherson as we bounced ideas around on how to photograph her textile designs.

"Sounds cool - do we know anywhere around here that has something like that on the walls?"

"Errrrrr..."

And so last autumn that idea was put on hold and instead we grabbed the opportunity to photograph her silk kimonos in a boudoir-style display at The Yellow Door Gallery (see Kimonos, Boudoir and Breakfast for Lunch).

However, a couple of months ago Morag was involved in the Spring Fling Rural Mural project, which saw her teaming up with Tellas to paint the side of a large barn which mixed both of their artistic styles.

This in turn led to the realisation it would be the perfect backdrop to photograph her outfits.

I had the idea of creating a spotlight effect with the models in a circle of light, casting shadows on the walls behind, but that would require an evening shoot. Slowly it dawned on us that there were seasonal limitations - if we left it until June, it wouldn't really be getting dark until well after 11 at night, but Morag was extremely busy for most of May. If we didn't do it soon, it would be several months before we'd get another chance.

Jessica, one of the models from the previous shoot, was available, and I'd recently met Katarina, who was completing a photography course at the college. She was also a model and happy to take part.

I'd also been in conversation with Ralph Yates-Lee, hairdresser extraordinaire and owner of Dumfries hair salon, Basement 20 who was willing to come on board and bring with him Jody, another hairdresser, and Jojo the makeup artist.

With a growing team of professionals involved in the shoot, I figured this would be a good thing to video. But because it would involve night time shooting, it would need someone who knew what they were doing.

Enter Helen and Jesse of Viridian Skies who specialise in astrophotography and Dark Sky tours and workshops.

And so it came to pass that on Tuesday evening we all descended on Morag's studio to introduce everyone to everyone else and get the models ready.

Photos of the actual shoot will appear in a future blog post, but here are a few from the preparation.



Katarina gets her hair done by Ralph





Jody and Jojo work on Jessica


Ralph cuts, Helen films, and Katarina teases the photographer


Jesse filming


Outside Morag's studio, looking in


Texture


Action man


Make up





Hair adjustments made on location by the light of an iphone


Preparation for the shoot.


The team

More to follow at a later date.

And they will be in colour...

4 comments

hope said...

Can't wait!

maurcheen said...

A lot of prep!
:)

Allen Capoferri said...

Love these, Kim.

Kim Ayres said...

Hope - patience... :)

Maurcheen - it was worth it though :)

Allen - thank you :)

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