tête-à-tête

Coming back from a road trip around Wales with Stylist Kim Howells, I was asked to make some paper head / hair pieces for her shoot for Dazed Digital. The shoot was actually part of an interview with Laura Mackness a new designer with a very hot pop coloured collection. Kim could not wait to shoot this!! So I went to my studio the following day and set to work. You can check out the full story on Laura Mackness on Dazed Digital.

http://dazeddigital.com/Fashion/article/4369/1/Laura_Mackness_Shows_Us_The_Bright_Side

And on Kim's blogg too.

http://kimhowells.blogspot.com/2009/08/laura-mackness-dazed-digital.html

Summer Work & Summer Fun

Summertime in the UK can get a bit quiet, everyone jets off in search of Sun, going down to Greece or escaping to Ibiza, although I hear we are not as quiet as Paris in August!

So this year I was determined to enjoy the summer with a few fun projects. Going Low Fi, low budget or simply trying out some new things was my ethos. Here's a few things that we got up to.


Latitude Festival

I was asked to step into the shoes of Beck Rainford for a comedy Theatre piece at Latitude festival this year with the Time Cat's Directed by Hamish Pirie. It was a fruit themed piece and so Fruit Bikini's or Fruikin's were made along with Fruit Suit's and Cardboard Rocket's, The Kid's seemed to love it - And the Parents............well let's not talk about that!

I was lucky enough to have a great team with me, the brilliant David Curtis-Ring and Christa Holka. Some useful finds was that bing a performer at a festival is sooo much more fun, we got accesss all areas wrist bands, performance tent pitches and a performers bar, all o which helps with the festival experience.

Highlights from the festival included performances by:

Ladyhawke
Fever Ray
Grace Jones
Camera Obscura
The Pet Shop Boys

Also readings by Vivian Westwood in the literature tent and the forest art gallery were equally as great. Unfortunately I missed the Johnny Woo Performance however good sources tell me it was amazing. Next year we hope to return, our mission will be to take our own club night. As unfortunately Latitude had an awful lign up of DJ's and club venue's appealing to the masses but really not breaking any boundaries, it all felt a bit too 'regional' post 11pm.

Photo's by Christ Holka

Gay Shame

I was asked by Johanna Linsley to perform in her piece for Gay Shame entitled House of Hysteria. It involved the punters of Gay shame choosing from a selection of Hysterical Women such as the Tragic Poetess the Raging Feminist or Pop star Diva and more. My Role was of the orderly greeting the punters and dressing them in their chosen persona, then flinging them into the spotlight where Season Butler took charge as the Doctor and gave them their therapy, I'm not sure exactly what she did but they all came back to me with a sheer look of enlightenment on their face. Johanna as the receptionist however was having to turn some people away as the que for the stall was becoming slightly uncontrolable with the ammount of punters wanting to see the Doctor.

Photo's by Christa Holka

Contemporary Fashion Photographers Book Published

About a year ago I heard from my Photographer friend Timur Celikdag that a shoot we had done for Süddeutsche Zeitung supplement had been chosen as part of a series of Timur's images to be featured in a new book on Contemporary Fashion Photography. Today the book has been released by DAAB publishing.

'Fifty contemporary, cutting-edge photo-graphers open our eyes to the magical artificiality embraced by fashion photography today'

http://www.daab-online.com/books/Photo_Books/Contemporary_Fashion_Photographers.html

Below is a spread from the book featuring installations created by myself, photography by Timur Celikdag

Vincent Cassel

Here's a photo shoot I did with Vincent Cassel and a little video of the set up.

Photography Vincent Peters
Set Design Alun Davies
Stylist Nicolas Guillon
Make up Charlotte Willer
Hair Pierrine Rougemont

And Stretch!

Recommendations to stretch or not stretch change from year to year and from expert to expert. Stretching has been promoted for years as an essential part of a fitness program as a way to decrease the risk of injury, prevent soreness and improve performance. While researchers continue to look at the benefits and pitfalls of stretching, there is limited evidence to sort out these conflicting opinions.

Going mobile

Mobile blogging that is.