With the beautiful English summertime teasing us with sunshine and showers, the team and I took to the shelter of Photography Studio 52 with the use of its stunning grounds and waterside views for a summer inspired photoshoot using wildflower florals, pinks and purples.
The incredible makeup artist, stylist and photoshoot planner Jana Jurakova and talented photographer Jonathan Tennant captured such dreamy, romantic and quintessentially natural shots that I am so excited to share with you all.
With bluebells, lavender and poppies putting on a beautiful show these past few months, we decided to err on the side of caution and take what would have been a wildflower meadow or flower field photoshoot indoors to Jonathan’s photography studio due to the unpredictable weather and mighty downpour on the morning of our shoot.
Fortunately the weather gave us bursts of sunshine between the on-off drizzle all day and we were able to make use of both the fully equipped photography studio and beautiful gardens and waterside deck upon the grounds. I love that the studio is situated in such a stunning location, with wooden sheds and summer houses, benches, rockeries, shrubs and trees scattered throughout to provide a dreamy backdrop for my neutral attire.
Discussing the theme for this shoot, as a team we really wanted the makeup to speak for itself with shades of soft pinks and purples, a wetlook eyeshadow, dewy skin and slicked back hair so that real flowers could be added to my face and hair to complement the natural makeup.
The wardrobe was therefore kept to white lace, natural tones, tulle, minimal accessories and clear heels and I left my summer skin untouched, without fake tan. I love the addition of freshly cut purple flowers to hold as a bouquet and the use of the indoor exposed brick wall and wooden ladder for texture, tone and variation which also added height and depth to the set.
Jana never fails to amaze me with her vision and creativity, and despite me now being nine months into my eighteen month hair transplant recovery, she managed to seamlessly and effortlessly style my hair so naturally that you would never know it’s super short ontop.
Having a slicked back hair-down style added to the romanticism of this shoot. As my hair blew softly in the wind along with swaying trees and weeping flowers, Jonathan made use of perspective with grass and florals in the foreground to blur the background which created such an elegant and timeless atmosphere.
Building upon the makeup in stages allowed for this natural look to conclude with a beautifully bold deep pink blusher and yellow highlight around the cheekbones and eye sockets and I loved seeing every part of this transition come together.
This is the first time that I’ve had flowers put onto my skin and hair for a photoshoot, but when I was shown the mood board and inspiration behind this it was love at first sight! Combining nature and beauty is so uplifting, heartfelt and inspiring to me and brings such an earthly, humble and grounding dynamic to photography that I would love to continue to explore in more depth.
I’m so pleased with how the shots have turned out and can’t wait to share them with you all over the coming weeks across my social media – remember to keep a close eye! For now I hope that you have enjoyed this little sneak peek behind the scenes of this shoot with a handful of my favourite shots.
Photographer Jonathan says: “Because the weather has been so hit and miss it was decided to do the shoot at Studio 52 which offered location and studio. The purple themed makeup complimented the purples of the flowers, picked Geranium and Buddleia. The shoot was a mixture of location in the garden and studio. The garden offered a range of different backgrounds and also foregrounds and there’s so many different places to shoot, from the bridges to the outbuildings and river views.”
Jonathan continues: “Equipment wise, a Canon rp was used with a 85mm lens shot wide open at f1.8 to blur the background and foreground. Inside the studio an aperture of f8 was used as the backdrops didn’t need to be blurred. Post production was done through lightroom and the only editing by me was cropping.”
I would love to hear your thoughts on the looks that we created here as well as any ideas for future photoshoots or styles to recreate. Life is so beautiful when you embrace nature and feel inspired to try new things. Where will your inspiration take you?
Feel free to visit photographer Jonathan Tennant and makeup artist Jana Jurakova to see more of of their wonderful work.
