Reading

You are currently browsing articles tagged Reading.

Teaser: A Sense of Culture – A Photography Exhibition for the Museum of Reading

April 20, 2011 in My Shoots | 16 comments

Not that many people realise this but I’m from Reading, a town about 40 miles out of London. I’ve never really done that much ‘stuff’ in my home town as to be honest, pretty much everything happens in London and that’s where about 90% of my contacts are. However when local photographer Neil Horne of Eye Imagine Photography called me and asked if I’d like to be included in an exhibition he was putting together for the Museum of Reading entitled ‘A Sense of Culture’, where he’d be photographing a selection of artists in the town…well I jumped at the chance. Hell, I went to this museum on primary school trips!

The shoot took place yesterday and here are just a few teaser pictures of what we got up to.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Moi, Pink hair, Reading, Short dress, Tattooed Bride

Laura & Ian’s Hollywood Glamour Wedding

April 19, 2011 in British Brides, Wedding | 23 comments

Three week’s ago photographer Annamarie Stepney was in Reading (where I live) so she popped by to say hello…to my cats. Yeah people never come to see me any more, it’s all about the internet sensations that are Henry & Rachel! Anyway, as we walked Henry round the back garden on his lead (I kid you not) she was telling me all about the wedding she was shooting the next day….at my wedding venue…well in actual fact, what should have been my wedding venue. You see, as soon as Gareth & I got engaged, I knew I wanted to have our wedding at The Forbury Hotel. It’s an amazing venue and I wanted it. Bad. But sad face for us, it was already booked on our day. However I am really excited to see how Laura & Ian’s Rock n Roll wedding turned out at the venue that should have been mine!

The wedding had a glamorous Hollywood theme. With Laura being a hair & make up artist, she sees a lot of weddings in her work, so she was keen that their wedding was really different. “We had a very short think about a theme and instantly came up with old Hollywood glamour!” Laura told me. “We both love old fashioned styles and music. As a hair and make-up artist I absolutely love this era its beauty and artistic flare.”

“It could never have been anything else for us. All our guests spent hundreds on outfits and everyone conformed to our theme! Very well dressed wedding. We thought it was really nice for ladies too, to wear the outfits they always are dying to wear but would usually feel too overdressed or think they might upstage the bride. At our wedding there was no such thing as too overdressed!”

The couple really went all out with their theme, DIYing a lot of the details and hiring a popcorn machine, a photo booth and a 1952 yellow buick convertible (“Which is the car that all our feature stars on the day – Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra and Audrey Hepburn etc used as their chauffeurs” Laura continued.) The couple even made their own invites to look like a cinema ticket stub with an ‘admit one’ part for the RSVP.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: DIY, Glamour, Reading, UK, Vintage

Abbey Ruins – Part One

July 17, 2009 in My Shoots | 24 comments

Woo! I have been dying to share the results from my photo shoot with Chanelle & Craig Segerius-Bruce so much so that I don’t even have the full set yet so I’m going to do it in two parts.
I met Chanelle for Sushi a while ago and we got a-chatting about doing a shoot together. We knew we wanted to come up with an idea that wasn’t ‘overdone’ (even non brides-to-be worry about doing the same as everybody else…maybe I should read this article I wrote!?)
Anyway, we came up with an idea revolving around an old castle and black…lots of black. This little inkling of an idea then evolved into the shoot you see below.
Despite buying a black dress from Ebay for the shoot, when it came to the crunch it just didn’t look right so we went back to old faithful, my Maggie Sottero wedding dress. The necklace and bracelet I’m wearing were custom made for me by Jo of Your Something Borrowed. I made the black veil myself out of some black tulle, a hair slide and lots of glue(!) and also brought along some various other colours of tulle which ended up coming in very handy (yes that is me splayed across a big rock and no it wasn’t comfortable..or glamorous!)

We trekked our arses all the way down to the Abbey Ruins in Reading town centre but when we got there it was all gated off with warning signs for potential falling rocks. Oh noooo! So what’s a Rock n Roll Bride and photographer(s) to do? Hell break in and do the shoot anyway of course!

Chanelle & Craig were fantaaaastic and played around with a new technique called ‘painting with light’. I had to stand very still in one position for a number of shots while one of them moved around me flashing a flash in different areas to highlight various spots. I think you can see the results are pretty darn spectacular and give the images a real high fashion, edgy look. Chanelle is also an amazing re-toucher and has worked for Mario Testino (oh yes!) so I knew me and my far from perfect skin were in good hands.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy looking at these as much as we did shooting them - stand by for part two!

(For the full part one set, head over to my flickr)