Wayward Flame.
TALES OF IMAGERY #2
Welcome back to this mini-series of posts. I thought that rather than chronologically go through every notable shoot, I’d pick them mostly at random, give a little bit of background on the shoot, where it was published, what it was for, and who was involved, and show off some of the final images, and perhaps a few that were previously unpublished.
The shoot I’ll be looking back on is one that I ended up titling Wayward Flame. This shoot came about in collaboration with the lovey
, who I had worked with previously on a larger shoot in Lewes some months prior. This time it was just the two of us however, with Layla doing the hair, make-up and modelling, and me doing most of the styling and photos (although the wig, which really makes the shoot was already owned by Layla, and was made by a company called Annabelle’s Wigs). I always liked these smaller shoots, as they felt a little more impulsive. With less people to worry about, you have a different kind of flexibility on what you can create. Often these shoots are more basic, as with a larger team you can achieve more, but more often than not, you can get images that are just as creative and interesting. Another pro with a two-person shoot is that you can squeeze it in at the drop of a hat, and as the outfit we put together for this shoot required a little warmth (England often fails to provide in this regard), we had to bide our time for a rare sunny and warm day in early spring. Eventually the sun did shine, and on an early March weekend in 2013, Layla and I were finally reunited and ready to shoot, and I boarded the early train to London from Brighton, camera bag, a grey bodysuit, and a big pair of orange high heels in tow. I met Layla at the station and together we made our way to the Bethnal Green area. I had done some location scouting before the shoot and I had found what I thought was an abandoned building… well it certainly looked as though it was. It wasn’t, and the guy who lived there emerged just as Layla was sprawled across the doorway… He didn’t seem particularly bothered however, and we were able to keep on shooting as he went about his business. I spotted this guy’s place on a TV show a few months later, and wondered if he emerged half way through a scene… Looking now, the whole place has been completely redeveloped and is totally unrecognisable - a lesson can be leant here, that you should shoot on a good location while you can, it might not always be available.
After exhausting the outside of this blokes house, we retreated to a nearby café-come-hair-dressers called Hurwundeki a few streets away. I think it served Korean food there too, but my memory is a little fuzzy. Either way, it was a haven of warmth, as it was still quite cold (colder than we thought it would be) and as we weren’t particularly hungry, we opted for some (slightly Irish) coffee. The stop off for drinks was meant to be it for that place, but as we walked through the garden to enter, we found that it was filled with all sorts of strange and wonderful things - the big metal pumpkin carriage caught our eye first, as it matched perfectly with the wig we were using for the shoot. Old playground equipment, half rusted ornaments, and odd furniture adorned the rather rundown exterior, and we both knew we had to shoot amongst the artefacts. Some polite conversation with the owners got us permission, and before long we had put together a great set of images.
My editing process back then was pretty quick, and after some touching up, and getting the film developed (I shot this one digitally and on 35mm), I shared the images with Layla and got to work searching for somewhere to have them published. I’ve no idea if this is even a thing anymore, magazines are rarefied, and independent ones are rarer still. Perhaps as I’m not in the loop these days, I just don’t know what’s out there, but back when I was shooting full time, there were lots of placed to submit editorials to, and this shoot ended up in the Get Inspired Magazine, and on the front cover too!
A couple of years later, I submitted one of the images from this shoot to 125 Magazine for their 2015 Annual. I was overjoyed to have the image accepted and to have it exhibited in a gallery space at Old Truman Brewery in London along with a host of other fantastic work. The image was later published in the accompanying book of the show. Unfortunately, 125 Magazine is no longer running - another one bites the dust.
In looking back at the collection of edited images now, I find that my tastes have changed a little, and in revisiting I decided to remaster the images for this shoot and I’ll be doing the same for all of the subsequent shoots I’ll be featuring in these posts. An overuse of retouching was perhaps my biggest mistake back when I was a working photographer, and I no longer like the idea of the practice, and in stripping these edits from the work and utilising a lighter touch with colour grading has, at least in my option, yielded a better result. I never altered models bodies with my retouching, but I often focused on making skin more even, deleting flyaway hairs, or removing small blemishes and the like. Utterly pointless, as these imperfections are what make people unique, and the photographs themselves feel more real. At the time, it just felt like the done thing… so all that is gone now, and as I go through my archive, I am quite excited to revitalise my work with a more honest editing process.
Wayward Flame - 02-03-2013:
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