lookbook

Playful Promises Halloween Campaign

I haven't written in here for a while as I've been so busy! In the interim, I travelled to Chicago and New York, and have been assisting my partner on some video projects. More about those later!

If we have time, we always attempt to take a Halloween photoshoot at Playful Promises (last year's theme was Victorian Spiritualism), despite this being one of the busiest times of the year, leading up to Christmas. I wasn't quite sure what we could do that would be different to previous years (in 2013 we did a semi-B-movie style shoot and 2012 was cat inspired), and not be typically "spooky".

I started thinking of '70s horror films, in particular the strong colours of Suspiria and some of Lauren Thurman-King's amazing work.

Miss Deadly Red is one of my favourite people to shoot at the moment, and she was such a good sport about wearing smelly fangs, being covered in blood and having a fake eyeball shoved in her mouth.

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Shop for the lingerie featured in the images here!

2014 Through The Lens

I did this last year, so I'm doing it again this year!

As I've mentioned before, I don't have a lot of spare time (or the budget) to organise creative shoots, but I've managed to squeeze a few in here and there. I feel like although I've not shot all that much, the quality of my work is getting better! You can view my entire 2014 portfolio (and previous years) here, and let me know what you think.

 

 These are my favourite picks from the "non-work" creative shoots I've done this year.

Very early in the year, I shot the beautiful Suri Sumatra (top left), who I've known as part of the cabaret scene for a while. There was a *little* difference between this shoot and the rest of my work; she was very pregnant! She's since had an adorable baby girl, but it was wonderful to shoot some different pregnancy photos. Suri has an amazing wardrobe full of costumes, and I love the old gold theme she worked with for this styling - she looks like a mythical goddess.

I worked with Miss Betsy Rose (top right) a few years ago, and she's just so wonderfully photogenic! She told me she had some corsets to shoot for Ava Corsetry, and wondered if I'd like to join in. We shot so many different styles, I still have more shots to edit! I particularly love this one :)

I finally teamed up with aerialist and contortionist badass, Jackie Le (bottom left), for a circus-esque shoot at The Aeronaut in Acton (if you haven't been yet, make sure you do!). This was the first time I've shot anyone on an aerial hoop, which was a lot more difficult than I first imagined... but I love the results!

Betsy Rose was back in my studio with fellow burlesque stars Jolie Papillon and Missy Fatale (the 3 of them being Gin House Burlesque). We did some triple shots as well as singles, but it's this shot (bottom right) of Missy Fatale that I love because of her awesome snake!

 

 

I think my Playful Promises lookbook total this year has been 6.. not including the lookbooks for Wolf & Whistle! Some shoots took multiple days! I'm so pleased with the results, both photography-wise and for our brand.

Top left was the AW'14 campaign, where we swapped out elaboate locations for a minimalist '60s inspired look. Top right was for our 10th Anniversary circus collection, so I could be a bit more creative with lighting, and I loved the results (probably my favourite shoot!). Bottom left is our SS'15 campaign, and bottom right was our quirky, creepy Halloween lookbook, inspired by victorian spiritualism!

 I've just shot the AW'15 campaign, which I absolutely love! Three of my favourite models, Miss Miranda, Miss Deadly Red and Veanne, in one of my favourite locations (we actually used this for AW'12, my first lookbook for the brand).

Here's a cheeky preview of two of the shots

 

Here's to 2015!

 

2012 Through The Lens

When I look back through my 2012 portfolio, I feel, perhaps for the first time, that my photography has improved throughout the year.

I shot 5 commercial lookbooks (two for clothing, one swimwear, one lingerie and one unreleased lingerie) plus the Love Bomb independent brand campaign.

 

Two of my favourite lookbook shots. Left: (Shot in November) Miss Miranda modelling one of the design competition winning entries for PP. Right: (Shot in November) Chantal modelling the Playful Promises AW13 collection.

 

The Love Bomb Campaign featured 10 independent UK lingerie/swimwear/accessory designers and was designed to raise awareness for KICK-ASS indie brands. We were shortlisted for the "Marketing Campaign" UK Lingerie Award, up against two mega-brands with buckets of cash to spend on their campaigns. I'd say that's pretty awesome.

 

I'm incredibly lucky in my job for Playful Promises to be able to work on creative projects too!

Top: Halloween mini-campaign featuring Anita de Bauch and Dexter. Left: Leah Debrincat as Cleopatra for one of our online magazine features. Right: Miss Miranda inspired by John Willie/Bizarre Magazine of the 1950s for a blog post.


I also took on the lookbook for a more risque brand, Fabulously Fetish, a kinky shoe/boot company. This was a tough, 9 hour long shoot, but I do feel like it's one of the best I've ever produced. 

Yeah, I've worked with Miss Miranda a lot <3 

 

I've worked with some amazing creative people on collaborative projects, including Amerlia Arsenic.

It's interesting to see how other people edit the shots I take! Love how Amelia has done this!

 

As well as some of the most jaw-droppingly beautiful burlesque artists.

Marianne Cheesecake and Vicky Butterfly. As intelligent and inspiring as they are beautiful!

 

I've also taken a fair share of self portraits (though, not as many as a few years ago!)

 

I'm pretty happy with what I've produced this year. Fingers crossed, next year I have the time to create even more!

For the past few months, excluding lookbook work, I haven't been working on my photography as much as I would have liked. DJing has taken up a lot of my time, with photography taking a back seat while I learn and perform. There's a lot I want to learn and do in 2013. Let's see.

 

Playful Promises Design Competition Results

One of the things I love about my job is being able to watch lingerie being created.... from initial sketchy design through to CAD, to first sample through to final piece! Then I get the joy of photographing them!

In December last year, Playful Promises had run a design competition which would allow one budding lingerie designer the chance to see their design created (a pretty awesome thing to put on their CV!). After a facebook vote, Emma, the brand director still had a tough choice narrowing down to just one design. So she thought, fuck it, let's do three of them. 

You can take a look at the final CADs here, and how they work so well as a mini-collection!

Last week, when shooting the PP AW13 collection we took an hour out to quickly shoot these with Miss Miranda. 

I'm pretty chuffed with these photos too! What do you think?