Rectory Woods shoot

Today I'm doing something a little bit different.

My friend Charlotte wanted to do a shoot so that she'd have pictures for her social media and maybe start a portfolio, and instead of finding a real photographer she ended up stuck with me. Whoops.

So in the past when it comes to photographing human subjects I've always tried to combine it with urbex and rooftopping, but admittedly we wore that theme down to as technically-it-counts as possible with this location, a small ruin in Rectory Woods in Church Stretton. It's hardly a secret spot. We met a billion dog walkers. But Church Stretton is just a lovely place in general, and I just love ruins in woodland.

As for Charlotte, I've known for just over a decade, and it's bloody awesome to see her evolve from a shy teenager to a confident woman. And unlike many humans, Charlottes brain actually works. As someone often starved of decent conversation, hanging out with her was refreshing. Her Instagram can be found here. 

I don't know anything about real photography, and Charlotte had never modeled before. But the results weren't terrible.

 

These are my favourites from the shoot.

 

 

Prop-related shot. We decided to make some shots that looks natural and unposed, and also take advantage of these super awesome trees.

 

 

Also we went for the same sort of thing, but with a body of water too. 

 

 

And it was a hot day so the shoot made a great excuse for me to actually go into the water. The focus is a bit off. If you read my other blog, you'll know that the autofocus feature on my camera was broken when I fell in an abandoned slate mine. I also have dyspraxia so I'll never be able to hold a camera steady under normal circumstances, but doing it while standing bare foot on underwater tree roots that I couldn't even see made it particularly fun.

 

 

Charlotte actually was talking during this one, and I was just snapping away, so it is unposed.

 

I'm not sure how I feel about this one because the camera didn't really focus. But it is what it is. 

 

And here's one last shot on the steps before we called it a day.

 

For the sake of nostalgia, I'll throw in this shot of Charlotte that I took when we explored Vanity House together in 2015.

 

What a day that was. What a brilliant fucking house that was. It's been looted to shit now and completely trashed. I think that's why urbex is so important, if it's done correctly with the aim to document rather than destroy. Retro shots of Vanity House, or any abandoned place for that matter, capture it before the herd ruins it. It's possible to look at it when it was mostly untouched and imagine how it was when it was lived in.

That's all I got. My next blogs will be a few of Shropshires military ruins, and then a few of Shrewsburys tunnels. I'm looking forward to that one in particular.

In the meantime, follow me on Instagram, Vero, Reddit, and the shittier social media platforms, Twitter and Facebook.

Thanks for reading!