The subject of Fairytale Couture has been milling around in my thoughts for a good few months now. It has been almost four years since Bitten – my picture book based loosely on Snow White – was published. In fact, its has been over five years since Wonderland was published, doesn’t time fly? I’ve been pinning away secretly on Pinterest for the last few months putting together some fairytale couture concepts to shoot early next year, so I was really happy to find out that the theme for this September’s residential Photography Farm was Snow White!

For those of you who haven’t come across Photography Farm before, its the brilliant brainchild of photographer Lisa Devlin. Providing a plethora of inspirational workshops that cover the entire spectrum of photography, Photography Farm is held at Ridge Farm – which was once a recording studio for the likes of Pearl Jam, Muse and Bowie himself. After making my debut as a Farm Mentor back in January, it is easy to see why so many artists have been drawn to the Farm and inspired to create. The place is buzzing with energy and there is also incredible quality of light that the farm always seems to bestow on us.

This week was residential Farm Week, which saw a wonderful group of new farmers head down for a jam-packed schedule of all things photography. Day one was the fairytale couture styled shoot, which Lisa had brought together in the grounds of the farm. Inspired by the darker side of Grimm and the original tale, the narrative that Lisa had planned for the shoot follows the demise of Snow White, leading to the poisoned apple that results in Snow White being laid to rest in a wicker coffin adorned with flowers in the middle of the woods. Our model for the day was Lucy, whose piercing blue eyes and ivory skin combined with chocolate brown hair made the perfect Snow White. For full credits from the styled shoot can be found at the bottom of this post.

On day two, the farmers headed into the dining room with their images from the styled shoot, where I gave a workshop on Adobe Lightroom workflows, showing how the farmers could speed up their post production by utilising a number of key features within the software. Covering everything from Import to Export, some of the key elements we looked at with this particular set of images in mind were hue shifts to make some of the image colours more complimentary, as well as custom variations on the tone curves.

After I got back from Photography farm, I also did a little post production work on these images in Photoshop, using frequency separation to tidy up a few of the shadows across Lucy’s face, as well as bringing in a dodge layer to bring out the shine in Lucy’s hair.

If you’re interested in coming to the next Photography Farm, Lisa has just announced that the next Farm Week will be 16-20th February 2015. Places will book fast, so keep an eye on the Photography Farm website for all the latest info.

Credits:

Shot at Photography Farm

Model Lucy Scarfe

Dresses The Couture Company

Accessories Flo and Percy

Set Design and Flowers Petal and Feast

Hair and Make-up Elbie Van Eeden

Assistant Alexa Clarke Kent