The styled shoot that made the cover!

In January 2018 I was so pleased to find that my styled shoot made the front cover of Your Hampshire & Dorset magazine as well as having a featured article in the publication.

As a photographer styled shoots are a great way to boost your portfolio and raise your profile.

When I set about preparing for my styled shoot I first had to think about themes, colour schemes and the style that I wanted to achieve. I found #Pinterest to be a great source of inspiration. I wanted the shoot to utilize the beautiful backdrop of the new forest and I wanted the shoot to be seasonal so I researched seasonal flowers and found some beautiful examples of bouquets that would be perfect for the shoot. I loved the idea of a furry shawl for the bride to wear to create a concept of cosines and opulence. I decided on a rich and warm palette of golds and reds.

Now I had a vision for the shoot I needed to find some willing suppliers. I advertised on local facebook pages to search for a florist that could bring my bouquet to life and stumbled across the fantastic Elaine Meli of floral fleurtations. Elaine was friendly and enthusiastic and very professional. Elaine took a look at my ideas and agreed to create my perfect bouquet and the groom's corsage. I gave Elaine artistic license and asked her to use her own professional judgement when selecting the flowers for the bouquet and I was very pleased with the result.

Mt friend, Anna Staworko-Snopko was very happy to lend her skills to give my wintry bride the perfect look with Golden lids and luscious red lips and a romantic up do! Kirsty, the model said she had a lovely experience and she felt like she was among friends when we prepped for the shoot.

The cake was sourced from a local cake maker, Kayleigh of Muffin tops in Pennington. I showed her photograph of the cake I wanted to recreate and she whipped an exact duplicate for me with beautiful brushed gold leafing.

I scheduled the shoot for "Golden hour" which is the hour/hour and a half before the sunsets. When it's not overcast the low sunlight at this time is perfect for those beautiful back lit photographs. I just love the Golden halo produced above the model's heads #goldenhour

The forest looks magical at this time of day!

To add an extra bit of magic and mystery we brought along Red & White smoke bombs.

Kayleigh the cake lady kindly stayed on to assist me with this and I can tell you it is so much easier with a handy assistant. Take a look at the results...

To finish off our winter shoot we found some lovely evergreen trees. Kirsty and Kieron were great models! This was one of my favorite photographs because I love the pose and the backdrop of the trees against the burgundy fur shawl and the portrait orientated version was used for the magazine cover.