Photoshoot 2012 - AMC
AMC 2012
January to 2012
Friday 27th April 2012 Photo Shoot at AMC
I met Maria and Clare at my friend David’s Christmas party, I had met Maria at previous events, but did not know that she was married to a make up artist. David had used Clare for his make up on several occasions previously and told me how good she was, and after meeting at the Christmas party I kept in touch and arranged to visit her in April.
As usual I could not decide on how many and what outfits to take so booked the day off before the make over so that I could sort out my clothes., from about 20 possible outfits I eventually reduced it down to about 10, which I just about managed to stuff into one bag. At the beginning of the week the weather had been really good, but by Wednesday it was getting wet and miserable and by the time Friday arrived it was pretty grey and miserable. After struggling with carrying my bag to the car , I set off for Clare’s this entailed driving around the M25, which is a road I really hate. My car is beginning to get old (like me) and bits are beginning to stop working(again like me) one of the things that does not work is my drivers side window, so when I come to the Dartford Tunnel crossing I have to slow the car down to open the window and pass my money over.
Once through the tunnel it was pretty much plain sailing, but the weather was closing in and the further West I went the blacker it became until eventually the heavens opened and it hammered down with rain, my windscreen wipers were going as fast as possible, but were making no impression, this lasted about 15 minutes then it was back into the sunlight, before another shower of rain. Eventually I came to my turn off junction on the M25 and the stat nav did its job in guiding me directly to Clare’s house. I managed to park up directly outside her house and lugged my bag into the house.
After a quick cup of coffee and a shave, I had a tour of the house, they have a lovely house and it was right by the River Thames, it is usually slow flowing with ducks etc, but with all the rain that had fallen (and was still falling) the river was flowing really quickly and there was even a small waterfall at the bottom of their garden. The garden was also lovely it was in steps and there were loads of flowers in it, at one point in the afternoon when it stopped raining two parrots were eating nuts from one of the trees. Inside the house it was cat heaven with about 6 cats all sleeping in various places, there was even a cat that had just had kittens in the spare bathroom. I expected to be stepping on cats as I walked about, but they all seemed to realise there was a high heeled tranny in the house and kept out of my way.
The house had a lovely level on the stairs which had lots of natural light which was great for growing plants, and also was a big enough area for me to sit on, and even lay down for some of the pictures. We also took some of the pictures walking up and down the stairs.
Every make up artist you visit has a different approach to things, and it’s always interesting to see the different techniques used and to see if I can pick up any tips, which I can use in the future. Clare did ask if I wanted my eyebrows blocked out and false ones painted on I agreed to this as it’s not something I’ve had done before, whilst I agreed with her that it did open up my eyes. I think it did make me look too much like a Drag Queen. Clare did a great job on my hair, she used some heated curlers and although as usual they were painful going in and out the overall look at the finish was great.
Once the make up was complete it was time to decide on the various outfits to wear, as mentioned previously I had about 10 outfits with me, but Clare and I managed to reduce this down to 5 or 6, and hung them up on the wardrobe door ready to slip into each one. In also laid out my shoes, underwear and jewellery for each of the chosen outfits.
A Gallery showing all 5 outfits is at the bottom of this page
Outfit 1
The first outfit was a mauve/plumb coloured knee length and matching shoes, which I had purchased a year or so back on one of my shopping trips with Nas. I had got the dress and shoes from Phase Eight and it’s one of my most comfortable dresses.
In addition to the dress I had flesh coloured tights and silver jewellery. We started off the pictures on the aforementioned balcony area on the stairs, with some sitting and laying down shots. After which we did some close up shots followed by some walking up and down the stairs.
All the time I was keeping up my usual photographic shoot habit of not being able to smile. After finishing the shots on the stairs we moved to the living room where we took some standing up pictures, followed by some sitting down ones on a chair and some laying on the sofa.
When I saw the pictures the standing up ones, did not come out terribly well, as I looked even more miserable than usual.
Outfit 2
It was then time to change into the second outfit, we kept the hair the same, and touched up the make up before making a quite change into a short turquoise dress with silver shoes. The dress was thigh length and was a one shoulder number, I had gotten this from Warehouse a few years back, but it had only had one or two outings.
Due to an ever expanding waist line, I thought it would be a bit of a struggle to get into this dress, but I managed ok.
Again we started the pictures on the balcony on the stairs, but as the dress was so much shorter than the first one, I had to remember to keep my knees together, during the sitting on the balcony pictures. After the pictures on the balcony we went through the same process of the close ups, pictures on the stairs and then again down to the living room.
I think the standing up pictures were a bit better this time, but still think smiles were sparse.
Outfit 3
It was then time to slip into outfit 3, which was a black short sleeve blouse, with an orange pencil skirt and black suede shoes.
The skirt and blouse were both from Karen Millen, which I always like, but sometimes have problems with their sizes. The skirt had quite a few buttons in the front and we had a bit of discussion as to how much leg should actually be shown.
Initially we had only a few buttons undone, but when I tried to get up the stairs, I found the pencil skirt was restricting my movements, and so we decided to open a few more.
We again went through the same process with the pictures, but at one point I must have broken the camera, as all the shots just came out in a weird colour, Clare assured me it was a fault with the camera and not me.
After the upstairs pictures we then went downstairs, it was during these pictures that I saw the parrots fly into the garden.
Outfit 4
We had reached the raunchy pictures now, and the next outfit was a French maids uniform. It was one of those with an indecently short dress, with a petticoat that pushed the dress outwards and upwards. Any movement in the dress immediately meant that the tops of the seamed stockings were showing and if I bent down much more was visible.
Again we started with the pictures sitting on the balcony, before Clare managed to find a feather duster and took some pictures of me dusting on the balcony. The pictures walking up the stairs were very revealing as the dress was so short that my white frilly knickers were also on full view (not sure if these will make the site - message from Pete - how could I leave this out!)
After finishing the pictures on the stairs we then moved down stairs and I continued with the dusting, it took me a while to come to the conclusion that as I was dressed in a maids outfit Clare was just getting me to do her cleaning and taking the occasional picture. We decided not to do the laying down shots in the maid outfit, but did some sitting on the floor with the short dress spread out.
Outfit 5
The final outfit was the end of session, underwear shot. As my stomach has been expanding at a rapid rate, I wanted to try and the usual avoid bra and knickers pictures and instead went for a corset. It was an old fashion 50s style corset, which was very tight and restricting, it was pretty difficult to get into, but did not have hook and eyes or ties to do up.
The corset was mainly black with a couple of bright red parts and teamed this up with black knickers and stockings. We also added some diamante earrings, necklaces and bracelets to finish the look. We decided that we would do most of the pictures lying on the bed, which meant that we had to remove the sleeping cats. Most of them just jumped off, but one or two seemed to be reluctant to be disturbed.
Clare decide the best way to take the pictures was her standing on the bed looking down at me, she was quite successful at this but, every so often would lose her balance and almost come crashing off the bed. We finally managed to get all of the pictures done without any injuries sustained.
After the final pictures were taken, I had a quick drink before removing the make up, changing and then getting back into my car and heading back round the M25. The journey home was much easier as it had stopped raining, once again I had to lift my heavy bag upstairs where it sat for the next few days.
