Photoshoot with Sophie Condliffe

Here is a shoot that I Art Directed, styled and photographed for my personal work with the help from Sophie Condliffe. I gathered clothing from Emiko Studios and Never Make Waste. John from Never Make Waste set me up with some beautiful pieces, one of my favourites being a Stitch Massey top which went so perfectly with the Emiko Studios trousers.

I also brought along clothing I owned including a Remain Birger Christensen top that I recently bought from Copenhagen when I went to shoot their Fashion Week last year. I also had some vintage shoes from local treasure trove Pear Mill and some boots that my mum wore for her wedding.

The pieces went so beautifully with everything at Miru Mills. I used the natural light of the space and also at times, two flash lights and one constant. I have many more images from this shoot but I wanted to show my versatilely and capacity to create a range of images in one singular shoot. I would like to shoot more editorials and I hope this sends me in that direction.

I’d also like to say a massive thanks to Joe Hartley for the loan of his medium format, this gave me so many more textures to work with. I also shot on 35mm and digital.

One Of Us Runs….

Are you always looking for inspiration and why is it important?

I just took a run around Burnage in Manchester. It’s a grey day, it looks like it will rain. I’ll be honest, I’m not finding much inspiration at the moment with the state of the world but I still look for it. I find it in my son, he doesn’t realise what is happening. I’ve also found it in nature, most recently repetitive trips to the ancient woodland I grew up next to but more of that later. It’s school holidays, my son is singing at me as I try to concentrate writing on this. We’re going to do something together after.

Recently we did a quick bit of creating. I’d borrowed a medium format camera from creative legend Joe Hartley for a shoot and also just to test it out. It’s been a long time since I used a medium format and I’m so pleased with the results. The quality is incredible and it gives that texture that you just can’t create on the computer. I will need to save for a medium format camera, we don’t have spare money right now. Does anyone have spare money?

So our exercise was to find 5 things around the house, arrange them and we would take a photo with the medium format. We go around the house, one of us runs. I gather 5 things and may son gathers 7. I have to stop myself saying that I’d asked for 5. I started to mention about how he could arrange his items and where he could put them. I stopped myself again.

My choice of objects, April 2024

My Son’s objects, April 2024

I really enjoyed his freedom and I checked my wanting to control the outcome. There’s an interest in both but it’s something I will try to take with me in the future. In trying new things, in not having to totally follow parameters, something new and interesting can come. Try it. I’d love to see how you think around the idea. We’re all different and that’s the beauty. Also inspiration often comes not just in the final outcome but in the acts surrounding it and often when we least expect it.

In my run I found I was drawn to a derelict building that used to be so beautiful. Over time it’s had rocks thrown at it, windows have broken and doors have been opened as people have a look inside to see if there’s anything in it. Even though it’s sad to see, it’s life I guess, a reflection of the times. There’s something to be learnt from it all. Time goes on, like the ancient woodland.

More soon.

Keep Going ~

January Pilgrimage to the Whythenshaw Cactus House

I realise I’ve been doing this for a few years now as we break into the New Year and I start to feel there’s a few more months of cold to go and I wished we lived somewhere warm. What can you do in a situation like this? Go on holiday? If it’s not possible for you either, I recommend trying the cactus house.

Blindboy was telling me to try and be more present, something I find difficult with my fast mind. I’ve not been looking at my social media so much and I like it. I feel more space in my thoughts. I look at the trees and I don’t look away. I stare at the leaves, I look hopefully at the bulbs shooting up out of the ground, they feel far too early and I’m hoping the frost doesn’t get them. There are even fallen flowers. Looking at the natural world around makes me not want to rush so much to find the answers. These plants sit in patience and grow.

I walk around this cactus house with my son. We’re making a visual cartoon. I’ve seen this place in so many states and have always loved it deeply for all it’s given me in the cold times. All the way back to Cowboy Dave and when the banana palms were so large that they broke out of the top of the greenhouses. All of the plants were so vast that they would get lost, they would become overgrown and unloved. Right now in the cactus house there’s been an upsurge of activity. Blossom’s has taken over. It’s a charity based on getting people to flourish through growing and community and the space is flourishing and I’m so thankful because this place is free, it’s for everyone and it’s beautiful.

I look at all of the plants growing and I always think of the time it’s taken to get there and it’s journey and all it must have seen in that time. People passing by with their own stories, unaware they’re being watched, the plants are taking them in, to tell no one, to keep it all to themselves, to hold it for us.

The thoughts I’m having right now are in the midst of a break I’ve put onto myself. I work in the creative industry and it’s been a busy past year. I’d like to develop more this year and for that to happen sometimes you need to allow yourself some time to recharge and then get back to it refreshed.

What I do when I’m trying to creatively recharge and this is personal to me and it’s when I find some rare time to sit - I like to read magazines from Rare Mags. Recently I was kindly gifted Cercle - Conversations and Images by Gareth and also the latest Apartamento. Start with some deep thoughts about mythology and civilisation and then move onto inspiring people from nowadays with some sweet interior styles thrown in.

This brings me to my style. What is it? I’m a country girl at heart, living in the suburbs of the city of Manchester, we’ve found our work home in Stockport. I grew up with eccentric individual creatives around me, dinner talk was always on searching, discussions on thoughts and I was a bystander watching it all, taking it all in, trying to figure out who everyone was and what we were all doing here and what my part in it all was. To this day I find it difficult to be able to truly say what I think because I’m empathic and I get what you’re saying too. I like sculpture, form, light and shape and I love seeing how someone puts an outfit together. This goes back to being a kid and taking in people’s shoes which felt closer to what I could see than someone’s head. It was a way of trying to see what someone’s personality was like, how they expressed themselves. I like natural tones mixed with contradictions.

I like watching how you use your hands when you talk. I find when I look at myself I express myself through movements. I like to use my body. I like to see how light falls and my god, at this time of the year, when the sun comes out and I feel it on my face, I could cry.

What am I saying here? I’m not sure. I’m thinking about creativity and who I am and I’m wandering how you find it in yourself? Do you need it like I need it?

For some reason I have no choice but to continuously strive for a creative life and sometimes I know these ideas can get lost or at least covered up and forgotten about like the cactus’ in years gone by. It’s somehow tending to the idea of being creative, to having that in your life, tidy up those pathways, trim the plants to allow for new growth, give yourself sometime and somehow the answers will come.