Last year I took a series of images in the Autumn leaves that you can find on this link. At the time it was intended to be a single image, but as I looked around at all of the spring blossom I decided that maybe I should make it a series. So that is what is happening and I will schedule a shoot in each season.

I posted a facebook casting call and Emma agreed to take part and Anahera agreed to be the makeup artist (MUA). I firmly believe that in a collaborative shoot each person should be allowed to bring their own skills and contribute equally. For this reason I never tell the MUA’s exactly how I want the makeup done. Rather I tell them the overall concept and let them bring out their own creativity.

In the morning my daughter and I went round the neighbour and did some very selective pruning off the trees in blossom. Now I am no vandal so I ensure that I only removed small sections from branches that were in public areas, and also had grown to a point that the council would trim them anyway.

I had planned to use the bed of flowers that our camellia usually produces but in the week before the shoot it had produced very little so we had to go down the street and collect magnolia petals that had fallen from the trees.

As with the Autumn shoot the dress that Emma was wearing was largely constructed from lengths of material over a hooped petticoat. Lengths of the blossom were then placed over it.

Now planning an outdoor shoot is always frought with issues and this one was no different. The biggest factor is the weather, and being spring it could not make up its mind what it wanted to do. As the shoot time approached it kept alternating between light rain and sun. As Emma was coming from an hour away I had to make a call at 11:00am and decided to do it regardless. I decided to set up a set in my garage studio and if it rained use that one instead. That is indeed what happened.

We ended up shooting inside which has meant a little bit more work in post than perhaps I originally envisaged.