Bunny Pumpkin Boutique

So recently, I had the chance to shoot for Bunny Pumpkin Boutique - Bunny Pumpkin Boutique is a bespoke customised vintage footwear business that offers unique designed footwear which is created by hand, and that is exclusive to each customer who makes a purchase. The shoes are amazing and I had so much fun organising this shoot around the theme of the business. The theme was 1950's pin-up, so I had a lot of ideas and spent a lot of time researching what I thought would be best for this specific brief!

My make-up artist was Elle Darby. Elle posts her make-up tutorials on YouTube, and after only posting a couple she has gained amazing reception from friends, family and other make-up enthusiasts, so after doing abit of homework and with me being a fan of her YouTube videos anyway I thought she would be the best person to ask! We decided on a typical 1950's look, with the winged eyeliner and red lip look, this worked so well and I couldn't of been happier with the results from hair and makeup!! I will be keeping in contact with Elle so we can both gain experiences and help from each other! Check out Elle's wonderful YouTube channel here: Elle Darby

My amazing model Ami-Lou, who you can find on Facebook, Ami Lou, again was an absolute pleasure and joy to work with. When Elle and I arrived she was so welcoming and friendly, (made us both a lovely cup of tea!!) and time flew by! She was so easy going and brilliant to work with, she was also beautiful!! I honestly couldn't of asked for a better model for this shoot and I will definitely be staying in contact with her for future shoots!

Here are just a handful of my favourite images - I found the most amazing airstream diner for my chosen location, which I absolutely loved shooting at. It was such a quirky location and it was definitely perfect for the whole theme of the shoot! I hope you guys love the images as much as I do! :)

 

 

 

Let me know what you think guys! :)

Laura xx

Ghost Sign Secrets

So for part of our assignment for visual language, we have to produce three pieces of creative work that incorporates text and image into them. I decided to focus my attention on Ghosts signs. I find Ghost signs absolutely fascinating and I try and look for them wherever I go. A ghost sign is an old hand painted advertising sign which has been preserved on a building for a prolonged period of time.

Ghost signs are seen and preserved all over the world, some are visible, whereas some are occasionally revealed after buildings that were built after them, have been demolished to find these old advertisements behind the newer buildings. I wanted to use these as part of my assignment as something different, something that is part of our history and towns, and by preserving them conserves and reminds us of the historic side of our surroundings, that include text and image in a natural way.

I shot a few ghost signs I have seen on my travels, but because I only needed three, I picked the best three out of the handful I had to choose from. One ghost sign is from my hometown Chippenham, the second one if from Warmley, on the outskirts of Bristol and the last one is from Bradford-on-Avon.

Old 'Bookshop' sign in Chippenham -

I came across this sign just opposite the railway station, I spent a lot of time researching this ghost sign but I had no luck in finding out what it was, how long it has been there for and the history behind it. I really love this sign and I feel like it still carries a part of the town’s history during this present day. It also holds a lot of secrecy behind it as I was unable to make out what the first word says. I will definitely be researching this sign in the future to find out what it was.

Old 'Raleigh and Humber Cycles' Sign in Warmley -
The Rayleigh Bicycle Company is a bicycle manufacturer which was originally based in Nottingham, and it is now one of the older bicycle companies in the world. One shop, based in Warmley, which is called ‘Webbs of Warmley’, is one of Bristol’s oldest established businesses. It has been trading in the same shop for more than a century, in which recently it has moved to bigger premises. The shop still remains, the sign of ‘Webbs of Warmley’ and the ghost sign also still remain and it has been preserved very well, seeing as its been there over 100 years! The sign is very visible and because of the very interesting history behind it, I had to add it into one of my final images!

Old 'Swan Hotel' sign in Bradford-on-Avon -
Bradford on Avon is a very historic town and I believe this sign is a rarity amongst other ghost signs of this time. This is down the Swan Hotel still trading in the same premises, under the same original name till this present day from that of when it was first built, which dates back to the 1500’s, as seen on the front of the hotel. This is my favourite ghost sign out of the 3 I have taken, it allows the town to keep part of its history present, rather than removing it, the hotel has kept its original name and kept the sign visible for everyone to see. I really love this sign and it has to be my favourite out of the three.

 I really enjoyed shooting these signs and finding out the history behind them, and I cant wait to find more in the future!

Until next time, Laura xxx

Editorial Throwback!

So I have recently been looking through my images that I shot during my first year of University. I came across a really exciting shoot that I did back with Steve, a photographer who also studies with me. During this specific shoot, we spent the whole day with the model and the MU artist. We took our cameras over to the media make-up studio in the other building and photographed the model getting ready and transforming into a beautiful mystical creature!

These things take time, so I spent atleast 3 hours chatting and photographing the model as I went, capturing stages of the transformation. It was such an amazing experience, being able to see the model being transformed, and the stages the MU artist went through to complete the look was fascinating and definitely needed someone with a lot of patience and a model who was willing to sit that long!

Here are just a few shots during the transformation stages. I love the depth of field within these images, which really allowed me to focus on the model and the makeup artist. Blurring out the background really helped me to create attention to detail in the models face and how delicate the whole process was. I also love the imperfections with some of the images, the mirror is slightly smudged and none of it was staged, which definitely makes these images stand out.

I then got onto shooting the model in the studio, Steve and I set up the studio whilst the model was having the final touches of her make-up done so we were organised and ready for when they came over. I was so excited but nervous because I wanted to capture some really striking images to do the work justice! I took a lot of images but there is one that really is in a league of its own. I love the way the light has fallen on this particular image, almost as if it is lighting up the most important parts of the image, creating and leaving shadows on the face, the ears and the dress to create depth and contrast. I absolutely love it, I think its beautiful and it was definitely worth the wait capturing an image like this one!

 

 

 

 

 

Ill be blogging again soon, thanks for reading!

Laura :) xx

 

Digital Imaging - Smoke Trails!

So our task for last week was to photography smoke trails. I was abit optimistic about photographing smoke trails as I have never tried to shoot smoke before, especially trials which are usually shot at close range and which are very detailed. I always thought it would be very hard to get the perfect picture. But I spent abit of time (which was only about 20 minutes due to work commitments!!)setting up a backdrop for some 'trail and error' photography smoke trails.

The setting for my images were my window sill funnily enough! I propped my laptop on my window sill as the black backdrop and used the flashlight on my phone as a 'softbox' on one side to light up the smoke, if you can picture that! Almost like a miniature studio for tiny people! It actually worked better than I expected as I wasn't expecting to get anything first time round! I got my dad to light the match and blow it out so I could focus on capturing the smoke trail in detail in which I only managed to get one good image in the short time I had! But I will be trying this technique out again after Christmas to see if I can get some more to add to my collection :) for now here is the smoke trail I shot which I am really quite pleased with!!!

 

 

 

 

Laura xx

Who doesnt love a film camera?!

So during my weekly visit to my grandparents house, my grandad thought he'd surprise me by getting out his old Canon AT-1 50mm film camera! I was so excited when he opened up his old camera bag to find inside this little beauty! We sat there for an hour or so talking about the camera and what he used to shoot with it and so on! He has a big pile of old film back in the day when him and my nan went on holidays and outings! Although I am a Nikon fan rather than a Canon user, I found this camera absolutely fascinating, to the weight of it and how heavy it was to the way it almost looks like a toy camera when you hold it in your hands!

 

 

I love the old fashioned way of turning the dial to set the correct aperture and shutter speed, although it requires a lot more thought, it just shows how photographers used to work and what they had to work with back in the day before digital cameras were even invented! It was also amazing the condition the camera was in, being almost 50/60 years old, all the numbers were still perfectly bold without any that were worn away! (It must have been in the back of the cupboard for a while haha!) My gramps still had the old fashion camera flash unit to pop on top of the camera body too!

A short but sweet blog today, showing you the wonders of a vintage family film camera! I absolutely love this old film camera and I honestly cant wait to try it out!!


Love,

Laura xxx