Photoshoot - Dress Me up Shoot Me 2012
Dress Me up and Shoot me Photo Shoot
20th October 2012
I am always on the lookout for new clothes, despite an expanding wardrobe and credit card bill, I had noticed that the 1950’s look was very much back in fashion. After doing a bit of research on the web I managed to find a shop fairly close by http://www.vivienofholloway.com. Rather than just go up there I sent a couple of emails to the shop to explain my situation and asked whether I could turn up and try on some dresses. They were fine with me coming in, but preferred that I made an early morning visit when the shop was not too busy.
I visited on a Monday morning and had to stroll about outside, for twenty odd minutes until the shop was open, once inside I made contact with the lady I had been emailing and was then measured for dresses. I was shocked at the size, but was told that vintage sizes are about 2 sizes greater than modern sizes. I had already made up my mind that I wanted a red dress with white dots on it, and I tried this on together with the huge white petticoat, luckily for me the tape measure was lying and I was able to go down a size. The second dress fitted much better and I ended up buying the dress, petticoat, belt and a decoration for my hair.
Upon getting home I carefully put all my clothes away, whilst unpacking there were a couple of leaflets enclosed, one of which appeared to be for a photographic studio. Dress Me Up and Shoot Me http://www.dressmeupandshootme.co.uk and I looked at the website and was impressed by the pictures on the site, so sent off an email to find out what their position is regarding TVs. I had a fast and positive feedback and therefore set the wheels motion to arrange a shoot. After a few emails we finally agreed on a date, which gave me a couple of months to get ideas and get any items I needed.
Dress me up offered a few different photo options including Burlesque and 1950’s I had originally thought about the idea of doing both, but eventually decided on sticking to just the Burlesque. Dress me up have a full wardrobe of both Burlesque and 1950’s clothes so for once I was able to travel to a photo shoot with only one bag. The studio was based in Staines which entailed a journey around the road to hell which is the M25, I did however manage to find an alternative route and set out having given myself plenty of time to get there.
The journey was fine and I managed to arrive over one hour early for my appointment, unfortunately the studio were not ready for me yet, so I had one hour to wander about looking at the delights of Staines. The train station was about as far as I got where a coffee and paper were purchased. After a slow walk back and a reading of the paper I was ready to go into the studio. Steve from Dress me up, met me at the doors and gave me a guided tour of the studio, before we sat down to discuss the shoot over lunch and a gin slushy. Steve then introduced me to his helpers and, I’m sorry but I can’t remember their names at the time of writing this. There were three of them one was going to be helping with the pictures, one was going to be helping with the wardrobe and the third was doing hair and makeup.
After finishing the lunch, I was taken to see the two wardrobes which were both bursting with clothes, having seen all the dresses I was tempted to do something different but stuck to my guns regarding the Burlesque shoot. It was then time to go and have hair and makeup done. Every makeup artist has their own technique and it’s interesting to watch them and try and pick up tips along the way. I’m not that talkative when my makeup is being done and usually try not to look in the mirror. I had provided some of my own stuff to help with the beard cover, but the rest was her own and she did a great job. We then came to the hair which was given a few curls in before being layered on top of my head, unfortunately this left one of my ears showing and for some reason I don’t like this, so I had to ask her to undo some of the curls and have more hair done the side.
It was then time to go off to the wardrobe, the first decisions were whether we were going with an over or under the bust corset. As I don’t have a bust I thought the over option would be better and then we could try and create something to give the illusion of a bust. After trying on a couple of corsets we settled on black corset with some purple trim, this we teamed up with black knickers, suspender belt and black seamed stockings.
After getting the underwear on we tried to create making a cleavage, but we could not get the fake breasts to stick, despite numerous attempts. Eventually we came up with a solution where I pushed my flab together to create a cleavage and then surgical tape wrapped around to hold the cleavage in place. It did the job really well, but knew it was going to be painful taking it off later. Next we looked for shoes and picked a very high purple sparkly lace up pair. After putting the shoes on it was time to lace up the corset, now Steve the photographer must have some kind of fetish about lacing up corsets. I’ve been laced into a corset before, but never this tight and I had to hold onto the door frame to stop myself from falling over as he laced me up, this was not easy as I also had on the aforementioned high heels. When the corset was finely done up, I could barely breath, but it had done the desired effect of creating a cleavage. Unfortunately the bottom of the corset was sticking out, this I hope was due to the design of the corset rather than my stomach, but it did not look particularly good. They managed to find a little feather skirt type arrangement which was able to sit on top of the corset and stop it from sticking out. After adding some gloves and jewellery it was time for the shoot to begin.
Although it was only 10 yards from the dressing room to the front of the camera, with the high heels and tight corset it was very difficult to move. For the first couple of pictures had to mount a few stairs and stand there posing with a top hat and cane, the cane was ok, but I was not so keen on the hat. There was also a giant star behind me which lit up when the pictures were being taken. When then moved onto another prop which involved material being wrapped about me and moving it. It all seemed a bit strange, but Steve assured me it was all ok. Next it was on to the rocking horse which again was very difficult to get onto with corset and heels, once on it was a weird sensation to be rocking back and forth. Initially you don’t trust how far the horse is going to go back, and it takes a couple of rocks before you are confident that you are not going to fall off the back. We did various pictures involving rocking and then some where I was leaning back as far as possible.
The next pictures were done on a swing suspended from the ceiling, and we almost had an accident here, that would have been interesting if I have had to visit casualty dressed up as I was. Getting onto the swing was the first problem, I had to get onto the steps, before perching myself onto the swing and then pushing off. The first couple of pictures I was turning my torso round to look into the camera, but then Steve wanted me to lean back and look into the camera, I tied initially but Steve wanted me to lean further back. Unfortunately I lifted my legs too far and a gentle lean turned into a downward plunge and Steve just about caught me before I fell crashing to the floor. After adjusting all my underwear it was time to try to get back on the swing again, this time adopting a vice like grip on the handles. I managed to lean back without falling off this time, but was not sure if my screwed up face gave Steve the chance to get the pictures he wanted.
We took off some of the clothes, but added a dressing gown for the final pictures which involved me lying on a Chasie lounge and holding a glass of champagne (which was empty). We took about 6 pictures here before it was time to finish. Steve showed me the pictures he had taken on a pc, but to be honest without my glasses I could not see a great deal. After removing the makeup it was time to
