Not having done a shoot in a while I contacted Ness Gracious. I had previously worked with Ness nearly a year ago walking around her local area. This time I wanted to do a set of photos that would tell a story. After confirmation from Ness that she had a selection of summer dresses I thought of trying a 'Alice in Wonderland' style shoot.

We headed towards Stave Hill Ecological Park in Rotherhithe. My backpack was straining as it was carrying the Sigma 70-200mm f2.8. I hadn't used the lens in a while and forgot two things about it. One, the focus speed is sooo fast and Two, it is sooo heavy!

However it did help with compressing the background in the long shot of Ness in the first photo. This was near the base Boot Camp hill a few yards from the Ecological Park. The top of the hill show a fantastic panoramic view. I will be going back to take shots of that view another time.

We moved on, into the Ecological Park and started taking shots of Ness walking around the park. I had ideas of before the shoot of having Ness holding branches back and looking at flowers which worked out well and I was thinking ahead with regards to effects and techniques I could use is post production.

We stopped at a bench next to a pond where Ness took out a book as a prop. From behind us we heared noises that sounded very suspicious. Making a comparativly suspicious comment about the noises made Ness laugh out loud so I quickly snapped off a shot as a memory of the moment. Seconds later a small dog burst from the bushes, he had been playing in a nearby pond. I was still suspicious.

Finally we found a clearing with a large number of purple flowers. While Ness sat down in the grass I moved around finding shots, some directly in front and some with the grass in front to create depth.

Back home and with all the shots in Lightroom I started the culling process. For each 'scene' I had taken a number of shots so I had Lightroom show the group of photos and then remove one at a time until I had the best one left.

The best were moved to a pick folder for further editing.

I enjoyed this shoot, Ness is fun to work with and with a theme to work to meant that I had to think quickly to visualize shots to match the theme. (OK Ness helped with a few).

 Thanks to Ness for being available that day!

Full Gallery - Click or tap to enlarge