Creating A Bubble
In class this semester we got to pick our own photo projects, whatever we wanted to do. And I being the basic bitch I am I decided to do one of those fun boudoir shoots in the woods. The goth ones with the witchy vibes but with a darker twist, gorier more Halloween than sexy. But alas given the state of things when I fell ill over the weekend I intended to shoot and by the next weekend the icy cold had set in making it unbearable for models and even if they would all the pretty fall colours faded to the bleak winters grey.
Now by this point I am in an absolute panic due to the fact that my next few weeks revolved entirely around the outdoor setting. In my state I decided I had to do what I must...bring the woods into the studio.
To Pinterest I went on a long journey looking for some possible inspiration but found none, I did however keep coming back to fairytales something and the fairy world intrigued me into wanting to make my own, wanting to create a narrative surrounding the childhood stories we grew up on!
To the dollar store I am going to be frank my bank account hated me after this project, I spent 200$ on fake flowers by the end of it with no guarantee that I will use this in my professional life afterwards and that’s completely ignoring any added costs.
To start I decided to make my bubble universe floating in darkness I needed flooring Ideally circular, but I rugs are expensive and I had already broken the bank on plastic plants. So homemade will do to make the base of my rug I used 4 bathmats and a black tablecloth I glued/taped all parts together and cut it into a large 5ft across circle... this would turn out to be the easy part as I would lose many hours (and my fingertips) to hot gluing plants down in a pattern, the edge of the base being flowers and the inner circle being leaves and green plants being laid with more green foliage and the more brown leaves reaching the end, but a bit mixed in both to give the illusion of a more natural arrangement of things. This would create a fairy circle type of bottom or my images. Next would be my crescent moon, which was used in an attempt to give a dream like image for my sleeping beauty character. The moon was made out of various sheets of Bristol board with stems from my flowers used to keep it straight, I also used a sliver piece of fabric I had lying around (this is why I can’t throw things out) This would wrap through the moon and flowing by the flowers making it more of a dream than a reality.
We finally got to shooting but I knew that background would only go so far, I whipped out my handy dandy dressed I got on sale for this purpose alone and popped them on my lovely classmate Hannah. Her makeup pink and colourful and I wanted flowers coming through her face... because you know if you sleep in the woods for 100 years magical coma or not, I think the forest would probably reclaim you at some point. Now I Needed to ensure she was not only well lit but full of colour much like the storybooks I grew up on
These images are honestly some of my best and I think prop building is something I am going to continue over my career as a photographer, but I also hadn’t intended to end with just one model for the shoot it is absolutely my intention to introduce a number of characters to my mini universe while I am still in art school and have the time to work on passion projects. It is my intention to continue with a mouthless author, a feral and bitten Red Riding hood, a poisoned Snow White, a pinned back evil queen, a huntsman, and a bloody excited Maleficent. If you have any interest in following the progression of this project follow me here on my artist account. https://www.instagram.com/regnanesephotos/
