Photoshoot 2016
Photo Shoot Thursday 24th November 2016
I don’t do a photo shoot every year these days, but when you reach a significant birthday a gurl’s got to do something to remember the occasion. I started the planning for the shoot a year before by putting money in an envelope every week. I must admit a few times I did raid the funds, but in the end saved enough for the photo shoot and the Scotland Weekend.
I had talked to Jodie about the shoot and decided that I wanted to a big shoot and we agreed on 100 pictures. In my previous shoot, I had turned up on the day with my outfits, only to find that I could not get into a couple of the dresses. To avoid this happening this time I arranged to visit Jodie a few weeks before and take as much clothes as possible and then whittle it down to our outfits for the shoot. I must have taken at least 20 outfits along with me and we managed to reduce it down to six.
I have been getting most of my dresses from a shop in Chigwell and about a week before the shoot, there new winter dresses arrived and there were some lovely ones in there. I arranged to visit the shop and tried on about a dozen dresses and ended up buying two. I had also had a corset made for the shoot and that arrived a week before.
The final thing to get done was my waxing and I managed to get an appointment a few days before the shoot. The girl that does my waxing is great she is so quick and I am in and out in less than forty minutes having had everything (well nearly everything) done.
On the day of the shoot I somehow managed to get all my outfits into one case and even more surprisingly managed to carry the suitcase down to my car. As my hair was going to be put into curlers we agreed on a 9am start, which is sometimes difficult for me as I hit the traffic going into London. It’s only a 10 mile journey, but I allowed myself over an hour to get there and just made it on time.
After a quick cup of coffee it was time to unpack all my outfits and for Jodie to start the long process of putting my hair in curlers, I do love the results this achieves, but it is time consuming and can be quite painful. Eventually after stabbing in the head a few times the curlers were complete and Jodie could then start on the makeup, which is another time consuming task, but it’s the most important.
By this time Victoria had arrived and she was going to be helping out on the shoot, and not long after Mike the photographer arrived. After a brief catch up with Mike it was time to order sandwiches and then start getting ready for the first outfit. Over the last few years the pounds have somewhat piled on, and so we put on a waist clincher to try and achieve some shape. I could not believe how tight Jodie managed to get it, the overall effect was great, but I could not bend or sit.
Outfit 1
This was a top that I had got from Coast, last Christmas and I had yet to wear it. It was a little to big, so we used some clips at the back so my new curves could be seen. The rest of this outfit was a tight black pencil skirt, restricting my movement even further and sparkly black shoes. I become my usual self as soon as the camera started shooting, but with the help of Jodie and Victoria, I think we got some good early pictures.
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Outfit 2
This was a full on Karen Millen outfit, with both skirt and top being bought several years ago and not seeing the light of day much. I was originally going to have a sparkly top with it, but Jodie told me I had to much sparkle. We changed the shoes to again provide less sparkle and also changed a couple of the Jewellery items. We mainly did the same type of pose, but a different chair was used as a prop. I think the smile count was again high in this section.
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Outfit 3
This was a lovely dress from a shop in Chigwell in Essex, the dress has sheer back which looka like a built in cape. Also got a great silver belt to go with it. We changed to my highest heels for this look. That was fine until we tried to do a pose where, I was standing with my back to the camera and was trying to show the back of the dress, but look over my shoulder. I just could not keep my balance, and almost fell over a couple of times. I think eventually we did get the shot.
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Outfit 4
Time for another outfit chang, I went into the changing room. I managed to be get my black tights off, but because the corset was so tight, I could not bend down to get the flesh ones on and had to call on the assistance of Victoria. She is not a lover of feet and so was closing her eyes as she helped me. This dress again cam from the shop in Chigwell, its a lovely colour and I worn it out to lunch on a couple of occassions. The above mentioned tights were from Wolford and felt lovely, but looked very yellow, but came out well in the pictures.
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Outfit 5
Another dress from the shop in Chigwell. I am beginning to like this length of dress, getting to old to show my legs all the time. The only problem it, is that is very figure hugging and if you are carrying a few extra pounds, it does not do any favours. Luckily I was being tortured by the corest and was able to look quite shapely in the dress. With help, I managed to get down onto the floor during this section, but getting up was tough.
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Outfit 6
I suppose dresses was really the theme of this years shoot. Another one from the shop in Chigwell, I only purchased this one the week before, so ther than in the shop this was the first time I had worn it. I really like the stripes on it, they could be in my top three favourite dresses at the moment. No rolling on the floor this time all standing up poses. Smile count a bit low.
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Outfit 7
This is my favourite dress, I actually got almost a year before my actual birthday, with a plan to wear it at a big glam event. Didnt quite go to plan, but it had a couple of wears. It again cam from the shop in Chigwell. With the extra corsett on the curves look great and I even managed to smile a few times in this section.
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Outfit 8
I wore this outfit at the Hallowean night at Miss TV Scotland this year and ever since Jodie has taken to calling me a Big Fairy , so I thought I might as well get another wear out of it in the Photo Shoot. Its actually meant to be the good witch from the Wizard Of Oz.
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Outfit 9
I have always loved Underwear and try to do an underwear set when I do my photo shoots. Unfortunately the expanding bwaistline means I cant do so muchn these days. I thought if I get a corset made I will be able to pose in that. I got the Corset from Valkerie Corsets in Brighton and it was hand made in about 6 weeks. I had two trips down to Brighton to try it on.
It was finally time to stop smiling and take the make up off. Whenn it came to taking off the corset, it had been on so tight, that it had cut into me and I had blood on my stomach. The scar is still there as I write this two months later. I somehow managed to get everything back in the car for the drive home.
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