Peaches and cream :)

Plans for my first European Tour this summer are going well so far (yeah, I like to plan things 4 - 5 months in advance, what of it?). I'm especially looking forward to shooting for Buffies in an eighteenth century French chateau in June, woo! :)

I'll be shooting fashion and glamour assignments in Portugal for the last week of April then heading back to the continent again in June after my Scottish and Irish Tours are over and visiting various cities in France, Germany, Switzerland and Italy. I also want to visit Brussels, Amsterdam, Barcelona and Madrid, if I have time!

In the meantime, here are some more glamorous portraits by Barrie Spence, taken in completely natural light :)

Tomorrow's photographer had to postpone so I have train tickets to get me to Sheffield but nothing to do when I get there! I may do some Googling and see if there's any touristy things to do there so I can have a little day out :) If not, I might just stay home and prep for Tuesday's shoot in Kent :)

*yawn* Good morning :)

I have some new shots of my shekshee new haircut! More to follow soon :D

Check out the Agent Provocateur pants I bought myself for my birthday! Hee hee

Photographer: Barrie Spence

Hair and makeup: me

Liam took me to see The King's Speech at The Phoenix last night. It was well good! Better than I was expecting, actually. It's nice to see a film about the Royals that doesn't try to make some sort of statement on whether having a monarchy is a good thing or not, either being all misty-eyed and vomit-inducing if it's a mainstream film or self-consciously republican if it's an indie film. The only statement this film made was "being royal would be quite shit," which seems likely, on the face of it. Other than that it was just about a guy getting over a speech impediment and it's worth seeing just for the beautiful sets, costumes and photography :) I'll definitely be getting it on DVD when it comes out :)

Buffies Catalogue

I LOVE this dress! It's like something Nicky Wire (one of my personal style icons) would wear and you can buy your own here exclusively at bargainous high street prices! These photos have also been featured on the Buffies homepage as well as their online catalogue :)

 Photographer: Barrie Spence

Hair and makeup: me

I think I need to shoot this dress again with my ballet heels and give it a Black Swan theme :D

In other news, I just got a phone call booking me to shoot a hair fashion video with Stacey Broughton on Thursday for American company ScissorBoy, which has a readership of 30 000! I'll post the video here when it's done. Should be fun! :D

Quality or quantity?

I heart following the various Twitter feeds that only tweet quotes! Among others, I follow @AncientProverbs, who recently tweeted:

"Better a little which is well done, than a great deal imperfectly." - Plato

Despite being rather disappointed with The Republic I still respect Plato for basically starting philosophy (I know Socrates technically did but we wouldn't know about it if Plato hadn't written down what he said!) and I couldn't agree more with the above quote, especially when applied to photography!

I much prefer to work with people who are more concerned with the quality of each individual image than in trying to fill as many memory cards as possible within the set number of hours. I guess a lot of that mad snapping without actually checking what you're getting stems from insecurity ("the more photos I take, the more likely I'll accidentally end up taking a good one, right? Right??") but if I ever join the ranks of the "modographers" (model-turned-photographers) I will definitely take the approach of my favourite photographers and set up the shot carefully, taking care to control every last photon, direct, click, check, adjust and click again... basically I'd shoot like I was using a single gauge shotgun rather than an uzi as in my experience this approach yields the highest number of direct hits ;)

In this spirit, I will post just one photo today from a camera club I modelled for in London the evening I zoomed off to Scotland (I literally finished at the camera club and caught the tube from there straight to Euston to get the overnight train to Edinburgh!), by Steve Williams. I like the candid movie star sort of feel it has :)

Bra: Jane Doe Latex

Hair and makeup: me

I also think I got one of the most flattering references *ever* from the club organiser, Carl Batson!

"A killer face and body. Anita sat for our Studio Group on the 16th [February 2011]. Anita is punctual, professional and prepared, she models absolutely effortlessly and the camera loves her. You could shoot her all day and never get tired. Like Dietrich and Garbo wrapped in latex. Treat yourselves and book her."

Italics my own to highlight the part that made me very smiley indeed :) :) :)

The Adventures of Latex Stargirl & her new hairdo!

Woo, I now have a photo of my new Jane Doe star bikini from my shoot in Scotland with Barrie Spence! Apologies if you've already seen it on my Facebook fanpage!

Hair and makeup courtesy of moi

Had a fun hair job yesterday with Stacey Broughton, one of the best hairdressers in the world, at Wella World Studio, and not just because it's always fun to get paid to have your done ;) I still have the cute jet black boycut but with a really geometric asymmetric fringe (as opposed to the smooth curving asymmetric fringe I got at my last Mahogany Hair job). I like it because I can either leave it as a sharp, crazy step for more edgy fashion and beauty shoots or give myself a ruffled little side parting for art nude, commercial and other work that requires a softer, more "natural" sort of a look. It's very versatile. Go Stacey!

<-- Ruffled vs. geometric fringe! -->

 Click on the individual pics to see larger versions!

And here's a full-length one, for no other reason than that I only posted one other shot of the right side of my new 'do and also because I want to show off my new Kurt Geiger shoes ;)

Randomly, I was offered a potential modelling job in Kiev while I was at Wella (which would be cool if it goes ahead as I've never been to the Ukraine) and also got spotted by a Brazilian fashion blogger on the way home, so an iPhone snapshot of me looking confused on the tube will probably be popping up on some Brazilian blog at some point, lol.

That's my news! Now I'm off to have a facial to help repair weeks-on-end-of-heavy-makeup damage!

Figure Studies from Livingston

I had a wonderful shoot in Scotland recently with Barrie "Entropic Tendencies" Spence. Those who follow my Twitter will know I had my first experience of the sleeper train as I had to leave Euston at midnight in order to be at Livingston at 8 am for a 9 am -  5 pm shoot. The train I needed to use had no berths or First Class section, which kind of sucked as I had to sleep in 30 minute bursts sitting up in a cold carriage with a group of lads who sat up drinking Stella until at least 2 am (the last time I checked the time) >.< I felt surprisingly awake after washing my face and brushing my teeth in the onboard toilet (!) just before pulling into Livingston, though. I didn't really crash until we stopped shooting. Then my body suddenly realised how tired it was and I fell asleep in the car both to and from the networking party in Glasgow that evening!

Anyway, we started out shooting some single light source nudes in Barrie's home studio. It was a lovely way to start the day, sort of like doing photographic yoga :)

Speaking of art nude, I've now been officially confirmed to model for Bryon Paul McCartney's Tuscany Fine Art Photography Workshop in July, alongside my friend Ulorin Vex (Chris) and another model called Ruby Slate Balthazar, who I look forward to meeting :) I like that we all have contrasting hair colours- Chris: neon orange, Ruby: white-blonde and me: jet black. It would be cool to get some colour shots of the three of us together with the contrasting hairz, methinks :)

Fashiony Nudes by Martyn Davis

If you've been following my blog, you'll remember these:

Well, here's the rest of these two sets from my shoot with Martyn Davis at Adrian Pini Studios! All styling by yours truly :) We also shot some stuff for a certain major latex designer... I may wait until those photos are published before I post them though, depending on my willpower, ha ha :p 

For now, have some arty/ fashiony nudes!

It's my first day off in a while today, after yet another FANTASTIC boudoir shoot sponsored by Buffies Boutique yesterday!

I had a wonderful yoga session this morning, made poached tikka salmon for lunch, played with the new Freeview box, cooked homemade chicken breast soup for dinner and then Liam's taking me to see The King's Speech at The Phoenix tonight :) This will then be followed by an early night complete with boyfriend, PJs and big mugs of skinny hot chocolate. Absolute bliss! I'll be glowing at my hair modelling job tomorrow ^^

What the well-dressed woman is wearing: a smile!

I follow @WomenOfHistory on Twitter and really liked one of their recent quotes:

"The expression a woman wears on her face is far more important than the clothes she wears on her back." - Dale Carnegie

Ain't it the truth! Even a fashion fetishist like me has to admit that it's the expression that makes the model more than the wardrobe. Great wardrobe makes a great model look really incredible, but as history has shown, a girl who knows how to express herself through pose and expression can make the most cheap and basic covering into a feature of a good image.

With this in mind, I thought I'd post a couple of photos where instead of wearing latex couture from a famous designer or posing in a huge, impressive, expensive setting, I'm just wearing my own clothes and playing around in an everyday setting, or even on a plain white background... and simply letting the photographer know that I've "gone to my happy place" :)

Photographer: Martyn Davis (19th January 2011- more from this shoot later!)

Photographer: Technical Boy (London, summer 2010)

Photographer: David Porter (Scotland, 19th August 2010)

 Photographer: Kenny Yeoh (Kuala Lumpur, 16th November 2010)

I have a lot to smile about right now (career, relationship, my first world tour, meeting new people and working with old friends) and I like to express that in my work whenever appropriate :)

Happy Valentine's Day, and all that shit

I'm overrun with treats today! Fantastic news #1: I'll be modelling for Bryon Paul McCartney's Tuscany Fine Art Nude Photography Workshop in July! I love Italy!

Liam and I don't usually celebrate Valentine's Day as it's a bit commercial and crass, not to mention only three weeks after our anniversary (so we've just had our annual lovey-dovey celebration) but I did get Liam a gift this year as I found something that was totally perfect, a navy Burberry trench coat to replace his disintegrating non-designer black one, which he was really pleased with :)

Liam's cooking us meze tonight and opening a bottle of bubbly. I don't know if I mentioned before, but on our seventh anniversary he finally popped the words that every girl, deep down, wants to hear from her S.O. at a certain point into the relationship... "Buy any shoes you like, darling, and I'll pay." :D :D :D

I had a £200 budget, so instead of going to a shop and buying one nice designer pair, I've raided my local charity shops for second-hand bargains and ordered several cut-price designer pairs from eBay ^^ Shoooooooooooooooooe lurrrrrrrrrve!!!!

 

I'll probably use the grey and white ones for bridal modelling, and all of them for various styles of boudoir :) And I couldn't resist buying myself a new pair of vintage fully fashioned seamed nylon stockings to wear with them!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone- and if you're single, buy gifts and celebrate with your friends! :) This year, I sent Gemini Rayne a wall calendar full of vintage fashion photos and some chocolate that I thought she might enjoy! You don't have to be in love to show love to your loved ones on Valentine's Day, it's a great thing to do at any time of the year :)

Make me happy and be mine, be my Vintage Valentine!

I took these at 7 am in a vintage 1950s sweetshop just around the corner from my house that I managed to source for my client :) They have a tearoom next door that does lush coffee and homemade cakes :)

We only had 2 hours to shoot three latex outfits before the shop opened to the public, so to save time I wore the first outfit under my trench coat on the way there, like a proper old perv, and showed up in full makeup with rollers in my hair and a scarf wrapped over the top. Shexy! But it meant that we could pretty much get stuck in straight away :)

 Pretty much all the stuff you see on the shelves is for sale at very reasonable prices, if you happen to want to buy a vintage tea set in North London. I sure do ^^

 I like the way the stripes on the skirt perfectly map out the 3D shape of my bum in this one :p

Designer: Peccatus Latex Couture

Photographer: Roy Rookes

Hair and makeup: me

Location: Emporium Fancy Goods

I also liked this outtake type shot- I think it may have been one of those times where I thought the photographer was just taking a lighting test so was just chatting and chilling instead of posing. It's probably too casual to use in my portfolio but I like it as a "this is what I looked like when I was 24 and had hair long enough to curl" picture for my memories box :)

You can see the rest of the shoot that we did in the tearoom next door here, if you're interested :) This is the reference that Roy, the photographer, gave me, regarding this shoot:


"Had the pleasure of working with Anita early today, it was a shoot she had arranged with another photographer who had to pull out. His loss was my gain! The venue Anita had sorted was fantastic.
 
"Anita arrived with the fist latex outfit on under her coat and most of her makeup done. The three latex outfits she brought along were perfect for the location. Anita posed without direction on most of the shots but took direction when needed.
 
"Anita was hard working and fun. I highly recommend her."

<3

Behind the scenes at Cradle of Filth's 'Lilith Immaculate' video shoot

I just got sent this behind the scenes photo from the making of Cradle of Filth's latest video for the song 'Lilith Immaculate' by the talented and ever-so-tolerant-of-my-continuous-inane-babbling Scott Robinson! When they say that much of a video shoot involves waiting around and drinking coffee, they ain't lying :p It felt so odd by comparison to photo shoots, where you're in front of the camera almost constantly and usually only get a quick breather here and there. I definitely spent about 7 of the 8 hours I was being paid for in the green room, getting twitchy on instant coffee and refined sugar and burbling about all sorts of crap including my new invention: biscuit teacups! Dani reckoned this would be about as useful an invention as kipper slippers, but I think we all know which would do better on Dragon's Den, Filth! ;)

Anyhoo, here is the aforementioned behind-the-scenes shot by Vlad Barin of me playing a beaten opium whore in the 'Lilith Immaculate' video. My mummy will be so proud when the video is released next month :p

Someone had been smoking something nice in that hookah prior to it becoming a prop. It tasted really good!

In other news, I'm planning my first ever World Tour this year! First stops: England, Ireland, Scotland, Canary Islands, Europe and the USA, followed by Asia, Australia and maybe New Zealand later in the year. Look out world, here I come! :)