Whilst being entertained and dazzled at the Boutique Fashion show, I bumped into Betty Spoke again (I'd left an electrical widget in her studio at our recent shoot, so a handover had been arranged and it was easier than getting to the Brandenburg Gate). So we spoke and she invited me to shoot with her again on Saturday. With due care and consideration I rushed to get permission from my wife, who was also at the fashion show, and arrangements were made. I spent the morning meeting with a couple and going over the details of the wedding they'd booked in October. They were up from Wales for the weekend, and I'd only met the bride and her parents at our previous meeting. It's always good to meet both the bride and groom to be, before the wedding, where possible. Then it was a case of hopping trains from Greenock to Glasgow and then to the SECC before hopping across the river to meet with the rest of the shoot. I was smuggled into our makeup room and got to meet Rachel Gallagher, our makeup artist for the day and the mind behind the bride of Dracula at the recent Clydebank makeup show. I also met a new model, Eilidh Bell who was a day back from holiday and glowing with a natural tan. Also present of course were Betty herself and our other model, Hazel Martin, who had featured recently in my Warrior shoot. The weather was alternating between menacing clouds and dazzing sun with little patches of blue. The time locked in the bowels of the makeup room, with no windows, was somewhat fraught and we joked nervously about the recent extreme weather we'd been having. That is of course in between Betty and Hazel drooling over bicycles on their smartphones. The two dresses we were shooting had been featured in the Evening Times that day, so I did feel a little as if I was late to the ball. Once I saw the hair and makeup coming together and the two models were dressed my enthusiasm returned with a bang. The dresses are amazing constructions of fabric and design, inspired by the SECC and the Hydro. The shot below shows Eilidh getting her makeup touched up by Rachel and Hazel having her pleats fixed by Betty. We stepped out into the cool, breezy and, thankfully, dry day. We shot along the side of the Clyde, mostly towards the buildings that had inspired Betty in her creations. It was another relaxed shoot, and thankfully Betty had remembered blankets to keep the models warm in between shooting, along with the occasional waltz to provide exercise. We managed to squeeze in an hour and a half of shooting before our makeup room turned into a pumpkin and the rain started to spit a little. Our biggest enemy though was the wind, disturbing Hazel's pleats and giving some alarming lifts to her bustle. Here she's doing her Marilyn impression. It was great to shoot with Betty Spoke again and I'm hoping that she likes the pictures that come out at the end of the editing process. |









