For someone who is known for their images of nudes I seem to own a lot of props. One that I take with me on most shoots, as it’s so incredibly versatile, is the parachute dress/skirt from the talented Alice Andrews Designs.
It started life as a parachute, and has a date of 1952 that can just be made out in a few lines of writing on it. Alice then works her magic, dyes them, and turns them into a skirt, and also makes a matching garment to turn it into a dress.
Often the model is quite small in the frame in the images I produce, so the dress makes the model stand out even more.
Here’s the lovely Lulu Lockhart in a grand location, on one of my annual shoots with my shooting buddy Dionne Jones.
We then did quite a number of shots in the equally grand outside of the house.
I have also started using a drone, and the dress works very well in these situations, again with the lovely Lulu.
This shot wouldn’t work without the dress as the model would be far too small.
The dress is really useful at grand outdoor locations which are popular with the public, and nudity wouldn’t be feasible, such as this one with Lulu at the old man of Storr on Skye.
The dress is really light, and so produces great shapes in the slightest breeze. When it’s really breezy it blows all over the place and you really have to shoot on drive and hope for the best! I love this next shot, but Lulu – who is under these somewhere – has pointed out that it doesn’t really show off her modelling skills :D
The skirt works very well against plain locations, such as here with Lulu in the canaries.
Lulu in Iceland, the dress mirrors the steam from the geothermal power station.
This is still my favourite image with the dress, and one of my favourite images ever. Taken at the Quiraing in Skye, it’s really an out-take as the dress was going everywhere and Lulu’s hair is all over her face, but it just works.
The skirt works well when the model is raised, such as when Lulu is up on the steps here at a private location I have use of.
And here’s a more recent shot with the super Muirina Fae on our recent trip to Ireland.
Many thanks to Alice, for producing these super garments, as well as to Lulu and Muirina for their modelling and dress control skills.
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