It Ain't Ballet? SSW Shenanigans Pt 1

Since I last blogged about my It Ain't Ballet? Photographic comparison of Pro-Wrestling and Cabaret I have been welcomed into wonderful local promotion SSW or Scottish School of Wrestling. Based in Bathgate and running shows within the Bathgate Regal Theatre I have been working with SSW since October 2015

Cherryfox Fine Photography - Artist Statement & Current Projects

I am a multi-discipline artist, working in photography, performance and costumes/crafts. I've been a fully self-employed artist since 2009, a professional cabaret performer and costume maker for over ten years, and I also teach sewing.

It Ain't Ballet? Cabaret Capers in America! Pt 1

So in the second part of my Adventures in America towards my 'It Ain't Ballet? Photographic comparison of Pro-Wrestling and Cabaret' was obviously the Cabaret! I was invited to New York to visit Burlesque Goddess Legs Malone and Beautifully bonkers film maker/ Punk musician Lola Rocknrolla. I have to say I was in terribly good company!

It Ain't Ballet? Lucha Fun Times in America! Pt 1

Since I last blogged about my It Ain't Ballet? Photographic comparison of Pro-Wrestling and Cabaret I had the unbelievable opportunity to travel to America and photograph Chikara's 'King Of Trios' and also Excellence Pro Wrestling (more on that lovely lot in a later blog)!

It Ain't Ballet? Photographic comparison of Pro-Wrestling and Cabaret

Well then readers, my little artistic dream is apparently going to come true!

I thought I'd write a little blog for those of you who haven't heard me babble at great length about this project I've been nursing for years. BTW this is the very short version of events...

CHIKARA, Super Lucha Fun times

Yup no blogs in 3 years and now 2 in as many weeks, wonder how long I'll manage to keep this effort up!

This one requires a little back story. I LOVE pro-wrestling. If I could only watch one thing on television for the rest of forever I would choose wrestling. It's soap opera, with awesome costumes, hot guys and faux violence, what's not to love!

Now if I could only choose one wrestling company to watch for the rest of forever I would choose Chikara Pro. It's perhaps the daftest, most whimsical, glorious nonsense ever, there's time travel, super hero characters, monsters, jocks, band geeks, and everything in between! Most importantly these guys are some of the most talented in ring that you'll ever see.

Another blog about why I never blog...

Well jeez, stopped by here thinking 'I haven't blogged in a while', bit of an understatement, I haven't blogged in 3 years! Cripes!

A lot has happened since my last update, the most important aspect of which was moving house, twice, in fact we moved country! We moved to Edinburgh, Scotland in 2013, then moved through to Glasgow at the start of this year. Glasgow's nice, we have a balcony, it rains a lot though.

In August 2013 and August 2014 we ran our event Silhouette Burlesque at the Tron Kirk, Edinburgh Fringe. There's a ton of pics I don't have time to post here but I will at some point. It was a fantastic experience to run our show in such a huge venue. I was pleased that we got to run it 'punk' and instead of charging for tickets or entry, we took a bucket around the crowd at the end of the show for donations instead. Pay what you can afford, Cabaret for all! It was brilliant both years.

"I'm still alive! Honest!" A blog about why I forgot to blog!

So, a couple of days ago I received a very exciting email from a very exciting publication. Whilst explaining that I STILL hadn't got round to putting up a proper website despite owning Cherryfox.co.uk for some years, I directed said exciting publication here to see a sample of my work. After pressing SEND I realised in horror that I hadn't posted here since the end of last year! Alas blogging went the same way as housework, to the bottom of the to do list under all the stuff that pays the bills. So in case said exciting publication does come to look here I thought I'd post a little something about everything I've been doing that's been keeping me away from blogging. Well the interesting bits anyway, wont bore you with the 'stuff that pays the bills'.

January
So truth be told after the hectic end to last year, I didn't do much in january, we had a visit from a delightful little kitten who got shut out of his house, we called him Wally (like the Flash), he stayed overnight and then we found his mamma the next day.

Dr Sketchy's Birmingham - Paradise Island

Hello all

*grumble I just wrote this entire blog only for my darned computer to decide to restart itself and lose it all, lets try again!*

Already another Dr Sketchy's Birmingham has come around (I really don't know where this year is going), for those not familiar with the concept see my earlier blog here for more details. This months theme was Paradise Island.

Liberty Pink opened the show with a song I must admit, I am unfamiliar with, I did mean to ask her the title but I of course forgot in all the excitement. I'm not sure she'll thank me for saying this but I thought she looked like a punk Mermaid Barbie *giggles*

Dr Sketchy's Birmingham - Screen Sirens

Well hello peoples,

Yes yes I know, after promising regular blogs it's been FOREVER, sadly stupid paid work keeps taking priority. The curse of the self employed person, your customers now own your life, because someone else owns your house! So I'm now stupidly behind with my blogs and my personal editing, I have so many interesting things to show you and really not enough time to post it all up here, so I shall be trying to catch up, but you might have to make do with blogs about events that were months ago. Sorry!

'Voodoo Lady' Daiquiri Dusk

Evening All

Well, I finally seem to have a full set of working gear so I've managed to start catching up on my editing. These next few shoot blogs might be a little less detailed than usual as the shoots aren't as fresh in my head.

This week I have been mostly... 25th July Edition

Hello all,

Well a mixed bag of busyness this week, photo shoots, gigs and workshops. (Random fact I just learned whilst spell checking, a group of ferrets are called a busyness!)

This week I have been mostly... 11th July Edition

Afternoon all,

Well, this week was a delightful mix of fun times, photo shoots and technological 'issues'.

Wednesday saw a visit from the wonderful Tempest Devyne, who I am missing like crazy since she upped sticks and carted off across the Atlantic! Much as I miss her, America seems to be doing wonders for her, she seems happier than I have seen her in a long time, which warms my heart. We managed to fit in a shoot in her new 'Jessie the Cowgirl' Lady Ga Ga inspired costume, strange combination but oddly it did work! Why is there no sneak peak you ask... I'll get to that later.

This week I have been mostly... 4th July Edition

Hello all,

Well after a super busy few weeks things have finally quietened down to a pace I can (just about) keep up with.

Exciting highlights this week included a visit on Thursday from Daiquiri Dusk, I do so love when we find down time to just hang out as friends, as opposed to hanging out at gigs when we are in Burlesque character. We also found time to fit in a photo shoot so she could model her amazing new corset by Beautifully Boudoir. It's the most gorgeous piece of leopard print wonderfulness! So to embrace the inner animal we used a 'Voodoo Lady' theme. I'll post the full set of pics up when they are properly edited but I put a sneaky peak here.

This week I have been mostly... 13th June Edition

Hola,

This week I have been mostly chilling out! The biggest drawback to being self employed, the one you never think about before you try running your own business, is the lack of time off. Before you start you assume you'll be able to take time off whenever you need it, well you cant. You can take time off when you have earned the rent! Having met this criterion this month, I decided it was about time I took a little holiday, albeit one on a rather tight budget.

As luck would have it, The Evil Genius's momma has just moved to Wales and a rather nice, country side-y bit of wales at that, LlanFair. So with various relaxation aids packed including 1940's & 1950's fashion histories and a giant tapestry of a fairy I've been working on for about ten years, we embarked on the surprisingly short jaunt to wales, via a rather fine roadside greasy spoon for bacon butties (I believe I have mentioned before my penchant for a good greasy spoon!). Tuesday evening was spent mainly sat on the veranda enjoying the weather and peace, topped off with a little scenic walk to the local pub 'The Goat' and some real ale. Absolutely delightful!


Obligatory holiday snap of a boat, cause you have to, don't you!

Gayle, My Favourite Dutch Bitch

Hello Ladies and Gents

Well yesterday was a sad day, in addition it being my birthday and one that takes me to the bad end of twenty something, yesterday was the day one of my favourite friends, Gayle, moved back to Holland.

I met Gayle nearly four years ago, I was her freshers rep when she started uni. Now being an international fresher Gayle moved in a week before the UK freshers, and we had set up various special events to help settle them in. Over the course of these events me Gayle and I got to know each other, mainly through bitching sessions regarding other peoples fashion sense. My favourite exchange, and one that has become quite infamous in our circle, went something like this...

Gayle - (upon seeing a rather appallingly dressed fresher)
"Are there mirrors in the rooms in halls?"

Me - (being a freshers rep)
"Yeah, course they have love, is there not one in your room?"

Gayle - (smirking and pointing)
"Well yes, I have a mirror, but SHE obviously doesn't!"

Me - (rather impressed and peeing my pants laughing)
"I like you, you can be my friend"

and we've been friends ever since. I've taken a few sets of pictures of Gayle over the years so in honour of her leaving I thought I'd post some up here for you lovely people.

The first time we worked together was part of my 'Make my picture' project in 2007. I made collaborative portraits with a wide range of people, examining the difference between people's ideas of themselves and their ideas of how they wanted to present themselves to the world in portraits, for a variety of different uses and in a variety of different styles. It possibly warrants a blog of it's own sometime, as I'm still very proud of it as a piece. For her shoot, Gayle wanted a portrait that would be printed on a large canvas and displayed in her parents home in Holland. She wanted something simple with lots of light and shade. During this shoot I experimented with negative space, knowing that huge canvas that was just a close cropped face would be rather oppressive hung in a living room! The two shots below are the ones she chose, the landscape image for the large canvas and the portrait image printed for a table top frame.






The next set of images were again made to be displayed in her parents home, a gift for her mum's birthday. Gayle had already bought a lovely brushed silver frame, so we made bright high key happy portraits to fit with the style of the frame and the feel of the gift. I love this image, I think it looks like a 'Covergirl' makeup advert!




Last but not least, the final shoot we did together in the UK just last week. A couple of years ago I made Gayle a dress, fascinator and shoes for her birthday party. I realised I didn't have any pics of the outfit so we arranged to photograph it before she left. Sadly I couldn't photograph the dress full length as Gayle is far too tall and my home studio is far too small, but I think you get the idea. Although looking at it now I am shocked at how much my dressmaking skills have improved. For the record, the back of the dress does match up but we must have forgotten to close the hook when we made these pics! I've also included a pic of the customised shoes I made her, not strictly a picture of Gayle but they are beautiful beautiful things that the world must see!









So there you go, a retrospective of Gayle, my favourite Dutch Bitch. I'm gonna miss her so much, but Holland isn't so far away and she gave me a Dutch phrase book and guide to Amsterdam for my birthday, so I guess that means she wants me to visit. And then I'll have something else exciting to tell you guys about!
TTFN
CF
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All Images are (c) Cherryfox® Fine Photography and must not be published or reproduced in any medium without prior written permission from the photographer

Elven Princess, Emerald of The Ace

Morning All,

Well after an epic amount of editing this weekend, I am now ready to reveal the second set of pics I made with Emerald Ace last week. After our improv shoot in the church yard we toddled back to chez Fox for some lunch and for the studio shoot that was actually the reason for our weekend of fun!

I recently acquired a huge pile of celtic/gothic/belly dance jewellery. My first thought when looking at the elaborate dangly necklaces was of Bollywood stars and then of the princesses in 80's fantasy films I grew up watching. So my instant exclamation upon receiving said box of sparklys was "I'm gonna put ALL this on Emerald's head!" Got to love Emerald for her ever willing attitude to have random things piled on her head, last time it was tiny glittering birds and butterflies!

As per usual, the initial ideas we had for the styling of this shoot evolved as we began getting ready. I had in mind a Bollywood feel for the images, using patterned colourful sari fabric as a backdrop, but the minute Emerald got dressed I saw that she was far more 'Gypsy matriarch' than 'Bollywood star'. So first U turn there...

Second U turn, wig, we had planned to use Emerald's long green wavy wig that she wears in her octopus act, but stage wigs receive extra wear and tear from being transported and become bitty rather quickly. Unnoticeable on stage but the little frizzy aura that surrounds a well worn wig is an absolute nightmare to tidy up in photoshop, mainly because it's very time consuming. It's not technically difficult on a plain background but an absolute pain on a patterned one. So... rethink, I have a very similar style wig in red, that I wear when I am 'Boobie Soho' my sing and fling character, so we decided to use this one instead. Turns out Emerald looks AMAZING with bright red hair!

With the makeup styling we wanted to go for an Egyptian/Indian inspired heavy Kohl line look, but with much more colour and as always, added sparkle. Then we piled on the jewellery, a necklace and anklet on her forehead, and a necklace and bracelet where intended. All with green stones to tie into the green makeup.

As the styling came together it became apparent that she had now gone through 'Bollywood star' and 'Gypsy matriarch' and come out the other side as 'Elven Princess, Emerald of The Ace'. I set about a complete re-think of the lighting and backdrop. I selected a length of dark green/black two tone taffetta embroidered with gold and green leaves to use as a backdrop, to give the images a forest-y fantasy theme (although it then took me nearly an hour to iron all the folds out of it, where it had been crammed in my rather overfull bag of backdrops).

In a previous shoot, (see 'The Orinoco Bitch' blog) I had wanted to recreate moonlight but it wound up being inappropriate for that shoot, but now we were in a forest with a elven princess it seemed the perfect opportunity to resurrect this idea. I used one single Lastolite head with a snoot and wide honeycomb to the left, up high centered on Emerald's face. I pushed the lighting about half a stop over exposed to give high contrast and shining perfect pale skin. The light was angled so it just caught the gold embroidery on the backdrop, making the fabric almost invisible and turning the leaves into golden vines hanging in mid air. I would have liked to lift the light up slightly higher to widen the spot and catch the backdrop to the edges but in my small home studio this was impossible.

Soundtrack to this shoot was Laura Marling and Suzanne Vega, nothing like a bit of modern folk music to bring out your inner gypsy/elf queen, although I have discovered it makes you very uncool to admit you like folk music at all, modern or otherwise. Me, I'm a sucker for a fiddle and a bodhran.

Again this was a very swift shoot once we had done with the styling, which we always take our time over as we enjoy the process. First shot to last Emerald was in front of the camera just 23 minutes and every single shot we took was usable. As myself and Emerald have now done 5 shoots together I think we understand each other. I know her face and how it works with the light and she understands (or humours) my sometimes very odd direction, "stare at the moon like it's falling from the sky", "now look at it like it's asked you to do complicated sums in your head!".

Someone has already asked me if these images were actually lit this way or if they were photoshopped. All I did in editing was a little bit of airbrushing on the skin to even out the tone (harsh directional lighting will always accentuate any red tones or blemishes in the skin). I burnt into the makeup a touch to make it darker and more striking, something I always do, black never comes out truly black in pictures. In the previous shoot (see 'Mina' blog) I had lightened the center of Emerald's eyes a little, but I didn't do anything to them in this one, this is how they actually look when given allot of light.

I am so pleased with these images, she is totally how 'Titania' looked in my head when reading 'A midsummer nights dream' when I was little. There's a touch of the young Liz Taylor circa 'Cleopatra' as well I think, it's that beautiful strong jaw line. All the elements really came together to make this, Emerald's great face, the backdrop, the styling, the lighting. Sometimes things just go well, without the struggle, sadly never when you're on the clock though!

So here they are, let me know what you think

CF
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All Images are (c) Cherryfox® Fine Photography and must not be published or reproduced in any medium without prior written permission from the photographer

Impromptu fun in the Church yard with Emerald Ace

Hi hi,

Well I'm so rock and roll that I spent all of my Bank Holiday weekend editing my shots of Emerald Ace from last weekend. Emerald is my current Muse and will aways hold a special place in my heart as the first Burlesquer I photographed for my 'Strange & Beautiful' UK Burlesque books, published last year. We have great fun working together, she's always open to taking on a bonkers character or piling on the drag queen make up, best of all she's not afraid of a bit of ugly beautiful.

After a delightful night of putting the world to rights with crisps, dip and wine, myself and Emerald awoke to fantastic weather, we had planned to do a studio shoot that day but with the combination of the sun and us both managing to get up rather earlier than expected we decided to do an impromptu outdoor shoot first while the light was with us.

With a bit of combined styling, Emeralds dress, my wig and accessories, we came up with a 1920's femme fatale theme. Trainers and sunglasses were donned and with the Evil Genius (also known as my boyfriend Rew) as back up, we toddled down the grotty backstreets of Stoke to the beautiful church yard at Stoke Minster. We must have looked like a ridiculous bunch!

Usually I plan most details of a shoot before hand and more often than not have an idea in my head of the kind of finished image I'm looking to create. I also don't really do outdoor shoots, I'm a bit of a control freak and to be honest natural light scares me, there's just so much to go wrong! But as this shoot was completely unplanned and had no pressures associated with it, we had far more freedom to play around.

We essentially just danced around the church yard, experimenting with the natural light and working with the location props (avoiding any cliched gravestone related shots). Some of the shots taken in direct sunlight came out far too high contrast but the images taken partly in the shade have a gorgeous diffused silent movie quality. When we started working with the mosaic bench, the dress draped so beautifully over the edge that it reminded me of pre-Raphaelite paintings, so we tried to contrast the 20's vamp look with pre-Raphaelite poses and soft facial expressions.

All in all the shoot took about an hour and a half styling to wrap. Really rather liberating and the shots are pretty darned good!

When reviewing the images before editing, I was reminded of old black and white vampire films, Mina in love with Dracula but not yet turned, and inspired by this I paled out Emeralds skin slightly, and dodged the colour of her eyes slightly to intensify the animal gaze. I actually didn't have to do much, Emerald has the most amazing dark green rings around her pale blue green eyes.

So here are the results, do let me know what you think... And tomorrow I shall hopefully upload another blog of the studio shoot we did after this one.

CF
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All Images are (c) Cherryfox® Fine Photography and must not be published or reproduced in any medium without prior written permission from the photographer

'The Orinoco Bitch'

APOLOGIES - I have been asked to edit this post to remove any mention of the models name, she's having problems at her day job and has asked her name be removed. However I decided to leave the technical content and images within this blog so you guys can all still see my process.

The Model wanted to combine her 'Orinoco Bitch' Burlesque character (a baroque pirate queen) with the simply exquisite Victorian mourning gown she had made for her by Lestat Couture (the workmanship in which had the dressmaker part of me tipping her hat!) Now this was great idea but had it's own logistical problems. I had in mind our pirate queen, stood in the moonlight, on the bow of her flagship, after a productive days pillaging, lady of all she surveyed. Soundtrack to this shoot was Kate Bush and All About Eve.

First issue, backdrop, the studio has a wide range of full length coloramas, but not a midnight blue one. I didn't want to use a pale blue as I wanted the images mean and moody, not something pale blue really says to me. I also wanted the images to have a night time feel, black was out of the question because of the black dress (black dress on black backdrop generally equals floating head, no matter how perfectly exposed the dress is, because your eyes will always travel to the face instantly). We opted in the end for a purple backdrop, which was actually a colour I'd never worked with before. Working with a large colorama did however, remind me why I use fabric backdrops in my own (much smaller) studio, the frustration found in unexplained creases in paper drops is unbelievable for a perfectionist like me! ('I'll photoshop it out after' is something you'll never hear from me)

Second issue, lighting, I originally had in mind something very directional but diffused (to mimic moonlight) however again this would have proved a problem with the dress. I couldn't possibly ignore the stunning detailing on the dress, however black silk taffeta requires allot of light to expose correctly, so I had to rethink my lighting. I opted for two large front soft boxes, the one to the right placed low for the dress and the one to the left high for the face. To replace my moonlight I put a spot high and close on the (other wise unlit) backdrop to represent the moon. Pretty darned pleased with it I was too!

Final issue, poses. Now I'm pretty sure queen Victoria never enquired 'does ones bottom look large in this' however this is a pressing issue for saucy pirate queens. The bulk of the gown in the back and chest didn't suit 'standard' poses but really lent itself to some 'high fashion' contortion. High fashion editorial often uses asymmetric poses, hunched shoulders, positions that give the body an odd broken quality and distort the usual silhouette of the body. I was also keen to juxtapose the 'old fashion' of the gown and styling with a modern 'high fashion' couture feel. Think, Westwood or Galliano, although had I actually been working for either of those people we'd have had a real pirate ship and a real moon! One day... one day...

So all in all I was pretty darned pleased with how the images came out, although they weren't exactly what I had in my head when I started. I think a key thing to being a good photographer, or creative in general, is learning to roll with the punches and giving yourself the freedom to change your mind about the direction you want to take a project. Still, a real pirate ship next time I think!

So here are my images of 'The Orinoco Bitch', do let me know what you think of them, and what you think of my first proper blog EVER!

bye

CF
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All Images are (c) Cherryfox® Fine Photography and must not be published or reproduced in any medium without prior written permission from the photographer