Anna
The Blue Room
These blue shots were my last with Anna and my penultimate shoot in France. It was a mixed day of weather but the sun was trying to make an appearance through the clouds. I opted for an attic room at the top of the chateau, it had nice light and importantly nice blue tones to the furnishings and wall paper. The week before I had been in a gallery and bought a postcard. A simple portrait of a woman sat on a bed, lost in thought and her bare skin pale against the simple tones of the room. I gave this postcard to Anna, not as a means to copy the image, but so she could see what inspired me and the mood I was going for.
In truth, Anna needs no direction, she is her very own artwork and enjoys investing in the personality behind the image. In many ways her modelling style is performance art that others miss out on because I am capturing stills.
This BTS is Anna picking out her favourite shots, the ones you can see below.
The Black Backdrop
I came to France knowing I was going to visit this chateau and wanting to juxtapose it with this back backdrop. A good insight into how my mind works! This was our first shoot together and if Anna was worried about my wild concept she didn’t show it. I explained I wanted a vintage feel to the outfit, something to match the scenery and her period look. She immediately announced: ‘Versailles!’ followed by the model equivalent of “hold my beer” and returned wearing this magnificent corset and matching accoutrement. Anna put on a playlist of classic music and was soon in character. It was as if this was a part in a play that she had always wanted to play but until now hadn’t had the right chateau.
The evening before we all shared a meal and everyone was encouraged to share a bit about themselves. Anna explained she was studying computer science which piqued my interest as that’s close to my heart (my day job). I asked what her favourite language was and much like the elegance in these images her answer was C.
My friend Dave and I share a view that the best art models are the sum of many talented parts with modelling being just the tip of the iceberg. Something I was reminded of as Anna chatted to me in Mandarin on our journey home. Not that I understood any of it, I was just grateful to be witness.
A few words from Anna
What is always deep about a shooting is to have a lot of fun but especially feel that something is happening through the camera. With Sam, I had this feeling that I could play a character, perform in a way and that the result will perfectly capture the moment. I was not wrong, the pictures translated what my mind imagined during the full shoot. I felt so free to improvise, Sam let me offer him a story to capture and he followed me with his lens, finding the best way to enlight what is happening. I think our work give maybe the impression that we worked several time together to have this kind of connected shot but in fact it’s not. Everything was spontaneous, smooth, we could just dive into the creation process.
