So by now, you all know Rosie - at least in the two dimensional world of photography anyway. So I won't bore you with paragraph after paragraph of how beautiful she is, what an incredible model she is, how wonderful it is to work with her. As I said after my first shoot with her, she is the most beautiful girl Ive met, the best model Ive ever worked with and such wonderful company. For each and every image of her from now on, every statement in the previous statement is implied. So I got in my car this morning, and after the habitual stop at Costa's to wake myself up, I arrived at a set of wooden security gates at the entrance to Rosie's house. As they opened and I drove in, I parked the little Mini Cooper between the Ferrari and the Porsche and was greeted by a pair of dogs who were both bigger than the car I was too nervous to get out of. They are, for the record, named Panther and Bear; which did little to quell my worries about them eating me, or even worse, my camera. But I do them an injustice, as they are two of the sweetest and funniest dogs you are ever likely to meet. One, the aforementioned Panther, is a labrador the colour of milk chocolate and the other, Bear, a Rottweiler with a head larger than my camera bag. Luckily for me, they seemed to like me and I was allowed to proceed towards the converted barn with an furry escort on either side. However, I digress, as it was not them I was here to work with. Rosie makes a mean cup of coffee (even if it did expire around the time of the Russian revolution (1917 for anyone who cares). And it was over this cup of coffee that we spent at least the first two hours of hour shoot doing nothing else but sitting there talking. See this is the problem when a model and a photographer get on so well - they never take any bloody photos. I arrived at 11am and it was at least 1pm before I even fired off a test frame. We talked about everything, from the size of the universe to the problems with contemporary music. She listened, I spoke, I listened, she spoke. We talked about the big things, the little things, and the big things. I read her some of my book (Im an author too), we sat, we joked, we got sat on by dogs. The only thing we didn't do, was take photos. As the hour arrived somewhere around 2pm, we finally decided to take some photos and even though the light was incredibly erratic, we managed to capture some fairly authentic looking images in the various rooms in her house. Actually, its not so much of a house, rather a villa. Its a huge barn conversion with original beams littering the ceilings and a light and airy feel with allows an enormous amount of light to perforate the windows and cut its way across the room. We worked in her lounge, her landing, her hallway, her bathroom - everywhere. We got about 400 photos in all and in my opinion, they are better than the previous set we did the other day. They are more real, more believable and I think the viewer will feel part of the image. I think you will feel like her boyfriend. And speaking of her boyfriend... I met Carl at first in the morning, and finally as I was about to leave. What a great guy he is and he is Rosie's perfect match. Normally in life, people gravitate towards their opposite but with Rosie and Carl, they have found in each other someone who is both their twin and reverse. They are poles apart but on flanking pages and they are two of the loveliest people Ive met. Carl is a fascinating guy who, in some ways, is similar to myself (though I don't own a Ferrari and Im not 6ft 4). He's great guy to talk to and before I left, he, Rosie and I resumed the subject of absolutely anything and continued to talk until the sun disappeared. They are an amazing couple and Im glad I got the chance to spend a little bit of time with them in their amazing home. For once, as this doesn't happen very often in the world of photography, I think Ive gained a pair of friends. Thank you both!
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