Winter sun... and opportunities for interesting landscapes (and model shoots)

I must have shot tens of thousands of photographs in and around Epping Forest over the years, both film and, in more recent years, digital. I've photographed the forest in its glory in all seasons, and with all sorts of lenses to achieve different effects - telephoto/zoom, macro, wide angle, wide-open aperture for shallow depth of field and pleasing bokeh, sunny f/16 for wide open vistas. But one constant was there - the landscape, the forest, the plains, those were the focal subject. I had never expanded beyond the role of landscape photographer whilst out in the woods, and was looking for new and unusual ways to break out of this mould. So when actress and model Samantha Tomlin (below) expressed an interest in taking her catwalk skills and haute couture into the mud and leaf mulch of Epping Forest, I jumped at the opportunity and we became eager conspirators in the "Ballgowns in the Woods" (or "Frocks in the Forest") project.

 (this headshot of Sam, taken at the 2013 British Fashion Awards at the London Coliseum, is actually a cropped group shot - you can see the strands of someone's hair blowing into shot from the left. The cropping, and the fact that it was an exterior night time photograph, has led to a grainy effect which I feel enhances the finish, especially in monochrome)

So, here was an exciting project in the offing. I started looking around for suitable locations, thinking about backdrops of dead trees and verdant foliage. It soon transpired that we were both thinking about this in different ways, and that Sam had in mind full-blown, ankle-length taffeta ballgowns, costing hundreds if not thousands of pounds - and which could on no account be spattered with mud! My carefully-selected locations no longer seemed feasible - at least for the ballgown shots.

And then I remembered Connaught Waters - a large lake between Chingford and Loughton featuring numerous islands, and a magnet for wildfowl and other birds - as well as photographers. When I was a kid, there were boating sheds where you could hire rowboats, canoes and kayaks by the half hour or hour, and a tea hut for getting refreshments. All long gone now - if you're lucky there'll be a Rossi's icecream van in the carpark on busy days. But what marks this location out now is that the City Corporation (trustees of the forest) have re-landscaped the paths and levelled them, to enable wheelchair access all around the lake, and, thanks to an army of volunteers, installed benches, piers and jettties around the circumference, and even created a zig-zag decking bridge across one corner of the mere. I may not agree with a lot of what the corporation has done vis-a-vis forestry management in Epping Forest (more on that in my next post), but the Connaught Waters restoration has been a triumph. Here was somewhere I could take my model and get some stunning shots - without ruining her wardrobe.

The following two montages were taken in early January, once I'd decided this was the location of choice, and I started framing possible backdrops. I shot wide with a standard kit lens (18-55mm wide angle/telephoto) - the exercise was just to give myself ideas (backlighting, sidelighting, flash-fill into the sun with rim lighting), and to show Sam what I was proposing. Have a look at some of these and imagine a model as the central focal point.

Needless to say, we haven't had a crisp, clear and sunny winter's day since, only rain, clouds and floods - until Sunday, that is. We had the cousins over, so we all went over to Connaught Waters, and I thought I'd try and catch some more images, this time populated with actual people (some ours, some strangers). I was hefting the 70-300mm telephoto lens this time, and decided to shoot in shutter priority mode at a higher shutter speed than the nominal maximum focal length (300mm meant 1/320th of a second). This was essential as I had no tripod, and moreover was shooting single-handed, as I had an excitable and energetic Beagle on an extender lead in the other. In those circumstances, I think they came out OK...

Sam then dropped the bombshell that she wanted a *horse* in the photos as well - I suggested that this might be difficult as we'd have to waylay a rider and persuade them to dismount and let us film with the rider out of shot (they'd be togged up in hi-viz jackets, and probably both horse and rider would be muddy). Also, all the rides are well back from the lake, so we'd have to up equipment and move around. By the way, Sam sent me this photo as an example of what she wanted:

 (photograph by Kareva Margarita)

I wasn't sure we'd be able to recreate that, but after a bit of driving around, found a couple of stables and riding schools at Lippett's Hill, near The Owl and the Met Police Helicopter ASU. Hopefully we can ask the nice people there for permission to shoot, in slightly cleaner conditions. Flash fill photography will be a no-no though, with horses around! I must admit it doesn't look quite as glamorous...

 

...so there we have it; "Ballgowns in the Woods" is awaiting a suitably sunny day, when both photographer's and model's diaries align. Watch this space...