A Little Bit of Background

This post deserves a significant preamble. To understand the personal significance of this project, I need to go back to my semester in London in the Fall of 2014. That year I said goodbye to my family and moved across the Atlantic for four months. I lived in a lovely apartment in Notting Hill with three other girls from the US, and took classes like “Art & Society” & “Photographing the City: London” at The University of Westminster.

During my first night in London a group of girls decided to go out and experience the night life in this foreign city. In the group were a few of my roommates and I, the girls in the flat downstairs, and Rose, who was living in the apartment across the street from mine. Rose and I became fast friends once we realized that we had similar aesthetic sensibilities, a love for the arts, and for discovering new coffee shops across the city.

Together with Alyssa, another friend I met through Westminster, I staged a mini shoot in Rose’s apartment. We went to the flower shop around the corner and handpicked some of our favorite flowers. Rose found a beautiful cream gown in the vintage section of the Oxford St Topshop, and we collected all the glass bottles, scarves and lace we could find to create our set. Below is my favorite image from that shoot in London.

Some images from this shoot were also published on The Style Line.

Shooting this series of photos had whet our appetites, and Rose and I agreed that we would do a collaborative shoot with Mullica Hill Floral Co., the studio her mom owns and where she works as a designer when we were back stateside.

At the start of the summer, after we had already been home for a few months, Rose and I met in Dumbo to brainstorm, with sketches of dresses and notes scrawled in our respective journals. We created a plan for our collaborative stylized bridal shoot, to capture natural beauty and femininity, with flowers and girls in vintage white dresses at golden hour. We imagined scenes, discussed props and models, and set a date for our shoot.

The Day Of The Shoot

On Saturday morning, I packed my trunk full of camera gear and props, and with two of my models (Bella and Emily), we made our way down to Mullica Hill, NJ.

As soon as we got to the studio, the models went inside to put on makeup and prepare, and I shot this beautifully arranged table set out by the red barn behind the studio.

Rose’s aunt baked this cake for the shoot!

Just as I finished with the table setup the first four models were ready, and we shot this series of photos by the barn.

Here’s a peek at the inside of the studio during the day of the shoot.

We shot a couple more photos behind the studio by the barn before we got in our cars and headed over to Wella Crest Farm, the owners of which generously lent us the use of their property for a few hours.

We drove onto the property of the dairy farm with Golden Hour in full swing, and made the most of the gorgeous property and the golden light.

Below are a few behind-the-scenes Iphone snaps that I managed to make it into.

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For those of you that made it through the entire blog post, thank you so much for reading! This was such a joy to plan and shoot from beginning to end, and it is definitely not the last time you’ll see Rose and I collaborate.

Special thanks go out to:

Kelli & Hilde from Mullica Hill Floral Co. for everything from the gowns to the flowers

Kara from Canteen for the insanely delicious and much appreciate mid-shoot snacks

Wella Crest for lending us use of their farm!

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