This high fashion style photo shoot took one extremely late night online conversation and 2 months (okay, maybe 3 months) of heel dragging to arrange – but boy, was it worth the wait.
The thought process for this shoot actually goes way back into the late summer of last year when I spotted Thamie at a fresher’s event where we were promoting the Home of Henna. Her statuesque poise and ‘fierceness’ made an instant impact and her entire natural ‘look’ is thought provoking and challenging. With very little hesitation, I approached her about working on a potential future photo shoot one day – if she would be interested. She said ‘yes’ immediately and pinged me an email. Considering this has been the first and only time I have approached a stranger for a photo shoot, it was a great success.
Fast forwards another month and a half, and on one very, very late night I spot one of my fellow social entrepreneur photographer friends speculatively make a request for anyone interested in a high fashion style photo shoot. Given that we seemed to be the only two people still awake and sparking creative plans at that hour, we continued on to a long conversation contemplating concepts for a collaborative photo shoot… and then I remembered Thamie. Knowing she would be PERFECT and knowing that Jax would LOVE her, it was then down to me to make contact and begin the planning process of synchronising us all into the same space at the same time.
Fast forward ANOTHER two months (or thereabouts) and finally we were all meeting. Representing Bradford and the inspiring creative spaces we have, we carried out this shoot in the Delius Art Centre (former German Church) on Great Horton Road where Jax runs her Curiouser and Curiouser Media Services // Drunken Film Fest businesses. Being Thamie’s first ever experiencing in front of a professional photographer, at the hands of a slightly radical henna artist (!) and with a makeup artist thrown in too, she was appropriately self-conscious and nervous. Once we found a middle ground to tackle that, plus with Jax’s skill, the shoot ended happily and the gallery of resulting images are featured below!
Thamie’s features are so striking and compelling, beautiful with a balanced dose of androgyny plus ‘Grace Jones’-esque charisma that she has had a muse-like influence on my ideas – so I have more concepts that I am extremely keen to see to fruition, hence I am making a public request…
CALL OUT
FOR COLLABORATIVE ARTISTS:
If you are a makeup artist (or photographer, or stylist) with a great sense of daring adventure, interested in pushing your skill set, challenging yourself and would like to work together on future photo shoots, then please CONTACT ME to discuss further.
…Let’s create something EPIC together!
Model: Thamie
Henna: Connie Tu (Created By Connie)
Photography: Jax Griffin (Curiouser & Curiouser Media Services)
Make-Up: Sheeba Khan (A Touch of Glam)