I AM FAWN

Blog / Fashion Photography / hair & make-up / Icon / Style / styling / vogue / June 3, 2015

From Fawn to Stag.

From something vulnerable & delicate can grow something bold, powerful and regal; this is the essence that Monika and I wanted to encapsulate in this photo shoot.

I’m not a feminist and I’ve never (deliberately) burnt my bra, but as an independent business woman who was raised mainly by her single parent mother, I’ve come to feel a great sense of pride in the strength and power of the modern female. Throughout history there have always been powerful and influential women, and in 2015 there has never been more opportunity to stand up and show the world what you’re made of.

I was thrilled to work with Monika again as we’re both massive believers in showing what strong, independent business women can achieve when working together so I knew we were in for a super creative & demanding shoot!

We got together with mood boards and styling ideas and decided to go with a few looks to try out how well our model Gaia could convey the various attitudes we wanted to explore within the same location.

I found the antlers at an amazing local vintage shop called Hill & Home in Cheltenham and was assured that they had been humanely sourced. So, once in hand, the first challenge was finding a way of securing the antlers to our model’s head. Not as easy as it sounds – They’re really quite heavy and ideas of using headbands and corby grips quickly went out the window! So, I enlisted the help of local merchant yard Bence and one of their extremely kind staff (quite bemused by my request) helped me to fashion a metal headband that the antlers could be secured to.

As soon as I laid eyes on these humanely sourced antlers, I knew I had to use them!

Monika got to work on creating a dramatic yet refined look for Gaia that would help her to emulate all the sentiment we wanted to convey.

We headed up to shoot on the side of Cleeve Hill (while model Gaia patiently knelt down in the car in order to fit herself & the headpiece inside!) to a little spot rarely used where there’s a mix of stunning open scenery over Cheltenham and a perfectly erie copse of tall trees to muck about in.