This shoot started off as something completely different. I originally had in mind a more Earth Mother Goddess shoot with white lace, lots of floral garlands and having it shot in the middle of the day. When the original Mango dress I was going to use fell through, I was scrambling for weeks trying to come up with a suitable alternative, and almost scrapped the shoot a couple of times.
Then while planning the Wuthering Heath shoot, which also had a change in location, I tried once again do plan this shoot only with an old red dress from River Island, and I decided to focus more on the gold crown and matching earrings. This shoot really took a back seat as the others demanded more of my time and energy, but the morning that I packed up for the Wuthering Heath shoot, I decided to pack the dress, crown and earrings too and see if I could pull something off on the fly.
Somehow it all worked out fantastically. We were at Richmond Park before dawn and walking through the vast pastures with not a single other soul around seemed to get me in the mood to do a dawn shoot with the sun first coming up over the horizon. There were plans to try and get a couple of the wild deer to be in the background, but as anyone knows, don’t try and work with small children and animals. They refused point blank to be coerced into the background, so we let it be.
Thankfully the end result turned out amazing and that’s what we have below. But to give you an idea of what the idea was, here are a few images that inspired this shoot and even a sneaky pic I managed to grab of a doe. Yay!
And I actually managed to grab a picture of one of the Farrow deer, a doe walking tentatively away from me. In fairness, I wouldn’t blame her, a strong flash gun would frighten anyone. 🙂
So originally, I’d planned a shoot much closer to the images found below this shoot, but while I was planning and researching for another shoot I came across this one from Harper’s Bazaar UK from April 2015. I loved the vastness of the shoot, the bright colours and how the dresses were sturdy and more suited to autumn winter. It caused me to rethink my original ideas, and though the model isn’t dressed in any regal accessories, I thought the Dolce & Gabbana crown and earrings would be perfect for this kind of shoot.
So thank you once again Harper’s Bazaar. You prove time and again that when it comes to innovative and beautiful fashion shoots, you’re miles ahead of Vogue and Elle.
An assortment of images from Pinterest that inspired the original shoot. I loved the lighting of all of them and had wanted to create that ethereal vibe, with the light shining through the sheer dresses. Though my dress was made of heavier fabric and the ethereal shoot went out the window when I spotted those Harper’s Bazaar images, they did still help shape the shoot I created.
