Last weekend was a pretty busy one for me!

I had been to a murder mystery on Friday night, spent Saturday with Baby Bear having a lovely lunch and then Sunday arrived.

Friday Night

I had done some work previously with the wonderful Vicky of The PowderPuff Room  went I walked in a catwalk show for the company she works for. The evening had been captured on film by the fabulous Nils of Fotopositief Photography 

Mother of the Bride?

Vicky and I had visited a local factory that makes vintage rain wear (amongst other things) and they had very kindly gifted us with a rain coat each. Elements Rainwear have such a great range – read more here

At the Factory

We had spoken about doing a photo shoot when the winter weather had gotten a little better and finally that day had come around.

Arranging to meet in a local park on Sunday morning with props and accessories, I got up early to get ready. First of all I needed to choose an outfit!

I genuinely didn’t know what to put on. I knew I wanted something a little brighter than normal as the raincoat I had is opaque and so paler colours do not show up quite so well.

Eventually I settled upon my simple yet stunning Harley dress in blue from Pin Up Girl Clothing.  I paired this up with a hot pink petticoat, hair flower and even found my matching parasol, just in case.

The husband was roped in as chauffeur and we decided to take Theodore along for the adventure.

Loving the Sun in the Park

Meeting Nils and Vicky in the park at lunch time, we scoped around for a good place to start shooting. We were lucky, the weather was on our side with bright sunshine but it was freezing cold! Down around 0 degrees. And we were planning on standing around in a dress and a PVC rain coat.

Not the brightest idea we have ever had!

Anyway we stripped our heavy coats and scarfs off and slipped into the rain coats. It was like putting on a coat of ice. Nils had found a little wooded area where we decided to do our first shots. Vicky started off as I stood holding a reflector up, to get the best light.

Off we go!

I really like this one…

Vicky is a professional at posing. Whereas I really don’t have much of a clue. I stand around hoping I don’t look gormless!

Two lovely ladies

I think the length of the coat and dress work perfectly

It was a little tricky getting to the area we were shooting in. Branches, sticks and even stinging nettles abounded. I have to admit, I may have got stung a couple of times.

The blue and yellow really compliment each other

Simple but elegant

Definitely No Gurning!

Moving into a deeper part of the woods we decided to start using the parasols as props. I had managed to take 5 different ones but it turned out that the hot pink one and a flamingo one were just perfect.

Rain Rain Go Away….

Perfect Pose

Looking Wistful

I love the pops of colour in this

Happy Face

My second favorite photograph of me

We managed to find a fallen tree and decided that would be great to take some shots on. Not the most stablest of seats, but it did the job fine.

Love Vicky’s Pose

A different Parasol for Vicky

Petticoat on show

Watching the World go by

Eventually we moved location to just in front of a sparkling pond. There were several benches which we made use of, and also the pond as a backdrop.

You wouldn’t think it was February!

How elegant!

The park was really busy and we got quite a crowd of people watching us. Some of them even took photo’s of us having photo’s taken!

Love this shot!

The husband was wandering all over the park with the dog and came back to watch our shoot, He got talking to some of the ‘watchers’ who were absolutely fascinated by what we were doing.  Apparently they were fascinated with the whole process.

Perfect Backdrop

Working it!

I have to admit some of the shots were pretty scary. Nils was crouching down about 2 inches from the side of the very deep pond with some very expensive equipment. One loss of balance and he was going to be very wet and very upset. I have to admit Vicky and I were both relieved when we changed shots!

Such a great background

Finally we decided to go find a tree to use as a prop. Vicky again went first and got some great looks. I wasn’t quite so comfortable up against the tree, but hoped some of them would be okay.

Vintage Babe

Beautiful Lady!

I love the simplicity of this

We posed for around 90 minutes before deciding we had got the shots that were needed. Thankful to be putting on a big warm coat and getting snuggly, we made our goodbyes and I literally threw myself into the car and turned the heater up full blast.

I really enjoyed the whole shoot

For the rest of the day I just could not seem to warm up. I wrapped myself in blankets and had cups of soup. All I wanted to do was get into my pyjamas and wrap a duvet around me. However we were due to be going to see the New Purple Celebration show at our local theatre that evening, so I needed to get myself ready for that.

Where was the rain when you needed it?

Imagine my surprise when I arrived at the theatre around 630pm and got a message from Nils to say he had finished sorting all the photographs out.

Going for Sultry lol

He had taken 165 shots and had weeded them down to 64 of the best ones. I was amazed at the speed at which he had worked on them. Sadly my show was about to start so I had to wait to open them and have a look.

Happy with the shoot

Come the interval and I couldn’t wait to see what had come up. And oh boy, was I delighted?

It was such a fun process

I just wanted to get a shot or two where it didn’t look like I was gurning or had a resting bitch face.

I have come to realise that although I don’t really like smiling with my teeth, due to my gap and quite thin lips, if I smile closed mouth, the corners of my mouth turn down and I look either grumpy or angry.

When I try to look moody or seductive, I tend to look like I have lost the plot. So I was a little nervous when I opened the first one.

Well, I needn’t have been. Nils had captured some wonderful sides of me and I couldn’t have been happier.

Vicky looked a ray of sunshine in her yellow dress and I was really glad I had chosen the blue dress as it ‘popped’ under the raincoat.

A friend who saw these photographs after the shoot said we looked like we were Disney Bounding as Belle and Elsa and I had to agree with him.

Sunshine Ladies

Another friend said I reminded her of Merryweather the Fairy from Sleeping Beauty. Again… I can see where she is coming from!

All in all it was a fun shoot and I love all the photographs. We are hoping to do another shoot in the summer.

I better get in front of the mirror and start practicing posing and smiling!

So, what do you think to the results? Which is your favourite shot?

Till next time

Txx