Spain, days 6 & 7

Day 6

Saving the best till last, the photographers took us to one of the most amazing locations I've ever shot at- an abandoned mining town. It looked like something out of Tomb Raider!

Greg and I shot these babies:

Corset by Heavenly Corsets

I like how I look like a reading on a heart monitor in this one

I love the tension picking out every muscle in my arm and shoulder in this one. The photo hasn't been rotated (as some people have guessed!), I really am hanging off a ledge in the wall :)

And then, after a smooth six days, I decided to go and deck myself. We thought it would be pretty cool to pose me in this window:

As I was starting to climb down, a bit of brick broke under my foot and I fell out. In order to avoid landing (barefoot and naked!) on all the broken glass, shattered bricks and general bone-smashing nastiness below I launched myself off the vertical wall with one foot as I fell, so I flew over the nastiness, over the thorn bushes, and into some nice springy heather, before finally rolling to a stop about 10 feet away. I was actually laughing when I got up because it had been such a melodramatic fall yet I didn't seem to have a mark on me (except heather juice).

But then I found I was limping a bit to the next location and realised that in pushing myself off the wall with my foot as I fell, I'd sliced all the skin off my heel and blood was now squirting out in time with my heartbeat :| I decided to carry on and channel some of the pain/ adrenaline into posing:

John Evans said we should disinfect it etc as there were lumps of gravel and dirt stuck in it, and as we didn't have a first aid kit with us we went on a bit of a journey into town to find supplies, which failed.

Eventually John, Greg, Iveta and I went back to the photographers' villa for some DIY surgery that involved me soaking my foot in warm water for a while, then resting it on Greg's towel-covered knee while we took it in turns picking the dirt and gravel out of the wound with a pair of tweezers that we boiled. That didn't feel good :( Yet after a while I found it oddly satisfying when I managed to pull out a good big bit.

Maybe I'm just weird :s

When it was as clean as we could get it we decided we had to disinfect it, and as we didn't have any Germolene or anything John had to spray some of his aftershave on there, which actually made me scream because it burned like mad for about half a second, taking me completely by surprise! I actually feel quite bad about that because my scream made Iveta scream too. She'd been drinking coffee all day so she had the jitters, lol.

Someone did manage to find some bandage to tie my foot up with, so then we were back in the car, back to the location and I shot with John Evans for the rest of the afternoon, all the while trying to think of cunning ways to pose that hid my obviously bandaged foot >.<

Roswell Ivory came and gave me a big hug when we got back to the mining town, which was a nice way to cheer me up. I felt so stupid >.<

Day 7

On our last day we spent the morning shooting at the photographers' villa before getting the plane home from Murcia to London. Note cunning hiding off teh damaged foot :p

  © John Evans

The morning light reflecting off the white walls and floor made for a giant softbox effect- that's "well flattering light" to you and me ;) © John Evans

And now, back to the present...

Turns out that that acting class I went to last night was 'Advanced Acting' not 'Introduction to Acting' so apparently my coach thinks I'm good enough to skip a level :) I'll be going to the last class of my 'Acting for Complete Beginners' course this evening then catching the last hour of the professionals' acting training (as in watching, not joining in!).

I now have to decide whether I am seriously planning on pursuing acting as my post-modelling career (sadly a girl can't model forever, in this world) because I can't really justify the expense of training as hobby. Life decision time! Cue up the vodka and late-night soul-searching!

Spain, Days 4 & 5

Wow, England got well and truly pwn3d by Germany yesterday. I felt sorry for them when that goal wasn't counted but as the game went on it was pretty obvious it wouldn't have made any difference anyway! At least now maybe I'll stop hearing about football every 10 seconds!


Anyway, back to my recent trip to Spain...


Day 4

Day 4 was probably the most chilled out :) In the morning we shot outside this gorgeous little church by the crystal blue sea under the stunning blue sky:

L-R: Roswell Ivory (Faith), me and Iveta Niklova. Iveta being the only one not wearing a faintly offensive top.

I'd been commissioned to model for Drac-in-a-Box so Greg and I decided to shoot one of their outfits outside the church.

© Gregory Brown

(the outfit's available to buy on Drac's website now)

We also shot some nice blue-sea nudes. The various old people wandering along the seafront didn't even do much of a double-take. I love Spain!

© Gregory Brown

We had the afternoon off, so me and the girls went for a play on the beach, followed by a walk around town and ice-cream ^^

Iveta and me

Bolneuvo beach

It felt great to be on a sunny beach in March, having come from cold, rainy England!

Bolneuvo is a very sleepy little town with not much to do, so after our ice-creams we wandered back to the villa to sunbathe by the pool with beers and our books. Faith is a journalist as well as a model and was writing in her travel journal a lot, which was great as I am now cheating by reading her blog to jog my memory of what we did each day ;p

Day 5

Day 5 began quite crazily with all three of us models posing nude at an empty railway station. Unlike on the other days, we attracted an almost unbelievable amount of attention with cars parked everywhere and loads of people watching. They were being perfectly friendly but it still felt a bit strange and I was quite happy when we had got the shot and could move on to somewhere else!

Me and Iveta have the exact same "feck, it's freezing" body language, lol

After that we were shooting in a burned out building, which I much preferred, despite all the mosquitos!

Me doing my best Donnie Darko impression with a fishnet top on my head. © John Evans

We were shooting in this really black, sooty, burned out room for a while, where the walls were streaked black and everything on the floor was crispy and broken for a while before I decided that the shots needed that little extra "something". I eventually concluded I needed to look less pristine and more a reflection of the location, so I promptly started rubbing my hands on the walls and smearing black stuff all over me :)

© John Evans

It turned out that Faith had had the same idea but had really gone for it, actually lying in all the black stuff on the floor, so we had a fun time in the backseat of the car on the way to the final location for the day using every wet-wipe and ounce of body lotion we had scrubbing it off her xD

The last location was my kind of location- an abandoned tin factory (or something)! It was so post-apocalyptic/ industrial and cool-looking ^^

If you'd like to order a printed copy of any of these photos you can email John Evans for his ones, John Tisbury for his ones or Greg for his ones :) I'll blog about my last two days in Spain, with even more new photos and a bit of medical drama, tomorrow!!

I'm going to check out the 'Introduction to Acting' class at my acting studio tonight, which is one step up from the 'Acting for Complete Beginners' course that I'm about to finish (last lesson is tomorrow evening *sob*). I'm hoping that it won't be too expensive if I want to join it (which I'm sure I will)!

Spain, March 2010, days 1 - 3!

It just goes to show how far behind I am with my blogging that I'm writing about my trip to Spain three months after the event! The summer is always crazy-busy when it comes to shooting and by the time I get home I'm often too knackered to do anything except wash off my makeup, answer my emails and fall asleep!

Anyway, enough excuses!

March found Iveta Niklova, Roswell Ivory (Faith) and me shooting in the south of Spain for a week with John Tisbury, Gregory Brown and John  Evans. The week was hard work but it was great how well everyone got on and I came away feeling like I had made new friendships :)

Iveta (blonde), Faith (redhead) and me on Bolneuvo beach our afternoon off

 We were staying at two villas in Bolneuvo, one for the photographers and one for the models. I quickly decided that this one *had* to be the models' villa!

Day 1

We were shooting art nudes for the photographers' upcoming book about the trip (more about that later!) at an abandoned two-storey monastery that still had the rotting pews inside, broken mosaics, and beautiful sand-coloured walls all lit by the sun ^^

 Outside...

Inside...

 

 I discovered I can do these kind of diagonal handstands in doorways, which was rather fun. I will definitely be bringing this new-found "skill" to future shoots! I have a vision in my head of using it to sell shoes one day, randomly enough!

 © Gregory Brown

L-R: John Evans, Iveta and me in the monastery's courtyard

The weather was sunny but chill for most of the week, so by the end of the day I was freezing! The look of pain/ discomfort on my face in this photo I shot at the end is therefore mostly genuine :p

As a fan of big pants, I have to commend John on bringing these knee-length Victorian bloomers for me to wear. They even had a split around the crotch so you can go to the bathroom without having to hitch various garments up and down. Genius! (And yes, that is the official reason for the presence of the split!)

We were all impressed by the Spanish attitude towards nudity- they really don't give a toss. One or two families with kids and dogs turned up to check out the monastery while we were there (it was a weekend) and they all gave us nude models a casual wave and friendly "hola" without batting an eyelid. I wish the rest of the world could be this sensible about the human body!

© Gregory Brown

Day 2

More location joy :)

In the evening we shot on these amazing rock formations in Bolneuvo:

© Gregory Brown

 © Gregory Brown

I love that golden light you get at sunset! <3 <3 <3

Day 3

We spent over an hour hiking up the side of a mountain to get to today's shoot, which sounds like a bind but it was such a sunny day and the views were so spectacular that I really enjoyed it. Plus, I wore my new FitFlops all the way to the top and all the way back down again and as a result had absolutely zero fat anywhere on my legs the next morning. My legs weren't actually thinner, but the entire girth had turned into muscle OO

View from near the top of the winding road we'd just taken

Tisbury's backpack attachments made me lol

I got really inspired by watching Iveta model; it's interesting that her "default" facial expression is one of vulnerability (at least, that's how I interpreted it) whereas my "default" tends to be haughty and/ or aggressive. I tried to break this down and give myself the opportunity to be vulnerable in a photo for once. It felt challenging but good!

Thank you, Iveta!

Then normal service was resumed ;)

L-R: me, Iveta, Faith

I have tons more photos from the rest of the week but will post them tomorrow to stop this post getting too insanely long ;) See you tomorrow!

The Bridal Boudoir Academy

On 8th June I was at Maunsel House modelling for the Yerburys' workshop again, one of my very favourite jobs :) This one was part of The Boudoir Academy focusing on bridal boudoir, so Ivory Flame and I were modelling lots of pretty white lingerie and corsets :) These workshops always have such a wonderful atmosphere that filters down from Trevor and Faye's auras of quiet, comfortable competence and friendly loveliness, not to mention the fantastic setting, a 13th century manor filled with ancestral portraits, secret staircases, taxidermy, huge open fires and antique weaponry!

Faye did her usual magic on my hair while Trevor started the seminar. Instead of her signature fingerwaves, this time I had the most perfectly styled 1940s curls I've ever seen. Faye's hairstyling literally makes me jump for joy xD

Makeup: check. Hair: in curlers. Wardrobe not there yet, still wearing what I arrived in.

All ready to be a bride for the day! Just need to put my other shoe on.

The grounds were absolutely full of peacocks, guinea fowl and white doves all chasing each other around! Guinea fowl really are just made to be eaten, aren't they? They have big round bodies with a tiny pea-head and little twig legs underneath that seem like they struggle to hold them up. Or maybe these were just particularly fat, stupid ones :p

They're quite cute though!

I'll be modelling for The Boudoir Academy again in Guildford on 18th October, so if you happen to be coming, I'll see you there :)