The Green Woman

My parents take a lot of pictures of me for my blog, so I thought it was time to turn the tables!

This is a little mini-shoot I did with my mum just before half term. The light was beautifully golden and the bluebell wood seemed positively luminescent!

Now it may be obvious that there was rather a strong Tim Walker influence in the way I wanted these images to look, as I had been poring over the amazing book I was given for my birthday, not half an hour before heading up to the woods! That's what Tim Walker's images do to me: I always feel so inspired and ready to pick up the camera after flicking through just a few pages of his work.

I was also very influenced here by old folk-lore and fairy tales. In particular, the Green man (or woman in this case!) A mysterious individual who is part of nature, often depicted with a face of leaves. I always find myths fairy tales a very useful source of inspiration. I love the almost paper-cut-out 'baddies' and 'goodies.' The stories of princesses sleeping for a hundred years, vivid descriptions of gnarled forests and a world which gave stepmothers a bad name... I have a lot to thank the Brothers Grimm for!

I grew up with all those stories and more, so I suppose these images also link in with the idea of nostalgia. Fairytales are a remnant from our childhoods, a state of unbounded imagination and the belief that if we looked in the right tree we might just find fairies!

So full of ideas I dressed my mum in a silk monsoon dress from a charity shop and jewellery from various family members. (The bracelets are just necklaces wound around her wrist.) The mirror usually sits on my windowsill. I used that one as I liked the way the shape almost evoked a spear - one part green woman, one part woodland warrior.

I really enjoyed taking photos of her, even if she wasn't always the most willing model! ("Don't come too close, my wrinkles will show!") If you look carefully, in the third photo it kind of looks like she is growing out of the ground, as her feet are submerged in the grass.

Often for my photography shoots now, I make a moodboard to give a sense of the idea in my head. Here is the one I made for this project-

 

As you can see, lots of green tones mixed with a slightly ethereal feel and childhood nostalgia,with a hint of Ophelia in there! Oooh, that sounds a bit like a recipe..

I made a lot of these moodboards over half term, so I thought I'd share two others with you-

 

This one was inspired by 'Old school' hollywood glamour, of film reels, black and white and classic dressing. Again, a link with the idea of nostalgia and inspired directly by my 'M.G.M starlets brunch.'

 

Ever since seeing 'Where the Wild things are' I have wanted to stage a photo project of the same name, full of tree climbing and running around in the sun! This is a small representation of some of the ideas I had linked to the film title, full of colour and surreal images. Just need to assemble a motley collection of costumes now.

All images in the mood boards have been taken from magazines or leaflets (I keep massive boxes of clippings, postcards and pages I have torn out to riffle through!)

The Green Woman 2010-06-07T10:37:00-07:00 Rating: 4.5 Diposkan Oleh: Unknown