Hat in the cat!

For months I have been travelling to and from Perth, stuck at the same set of traffic lights and my eyes always wondered upon the same shop. The window displays changed often and it was always a fresh delight to my eyes.  Unique beautiful hand crafted hats and headpieces galore, recently I plucked up the courage to contact the owners - its not something I do very often, message people and say "I love your hats can I borrow them". I fear rejection and not being "good enough" and when I work with Rory its never serious, just fun which passes the time. Sometimes we shoot and it goes horribly wrong and nothing is salvaged from our mess around.

Anyway I had a meeting with the designer and she had a look at Rory and I's portfolio - we had never actually printed out our work before then - apart from a massive print of one of our favourite shots which is waiting to go on the wall. We had never needed to print out work, a large majority of it sits on a hard-drive waiting to be edited then by the time we decide to edit it its a year out of date.

I was actually nervous, not sure what of. I guess we all get nervous when its to do with something we really want. Thankfully nerves where not needed and the designer liked our work. We were sent off with 3 hats and pretty much told we could do as we please.

We shoot for ourselves usually, if we are not in the mood there is no panic to take pictures we just don't do anything but the longer you don't do anything the less likely you are to suddenly decide to shoot something. I was putting on weight for awhile, well I say putting it on I didn't realise until Rory showed me a few pictures on the back of the camera that I had put on weight. I have been working out and stretching daily again and cut out all junk foods and its going away almost as quickly as it appeared to go on.

Rory always tells me I'm beautiful, he would never say "I think you are putting on a bit of weight" but I would prefer to be told.. Just incase I don't notice, I only notice these changes in images - Poor Rory ended up having me crying and moping about for 3 days going on about how I was falling apart/how I was crap.. I know if it was somebody else I would never have stopped the shoot and started crying.. Working with a partner isn't easy - I admit with Rory I seem to act like a different model, a DIVA! maybe its because when things aren't going as well as they could I expect us both to be able to do whatever it is better. Maybe I push too hard, it might be a good thing.. might be a bad thing..

Anyway here are some hat shots, the first one was shot against our kitchen wall.. I love the colour of it, its the colour it was when we moved here but the amount of random crap junked all over the wall really shows up in photographs so when we move onto seriously decorating the kitchen the first port of call is re-painting the red. It will take less time actually painting it now than it will to remove all the junk in photoshop but Granddad says - ONE ROOM AT A TIME!

first one edited by me ahoy!!

This second shot was on a Sunday evening in a local nature reserve type place, the light wasn't doing much and ordinarily we would have just called it a day and went home without taking pictures but we wanted to get some variety for the Hat in the cat so we shot anyway and there was actually some pretty nice shots from our little outdoor shoot so we have learned "it might look like less than ideal shooting circumstances but its worth a try anyway"

I will be using this dress again though, you can't see it overly well in these pictures but the bottom half of it is netted and I imagine a shot with the sun streaming through it or creating a shadow on the ground would look awesome.

the one below was edited by me..

This is just from a little shoot in the evening, we actually found this piece difficult to shoot with because I had nothing to match the pale pink and lime green colours. We weren't totally sure what outside location would work with it or clothing so we had to settle for the hallway. This was the day after we got the hats so we didn't feel too much pressure to do something immediately.. Although as the week wore on we still weren't sure. Now looking back I have ideas, I just wish I had them when I had the hat in my possession. 

Next up was one of my edits, which I'm real proud of. 

I also picked this hat because I thought it was pretty interesting being like a bonnet. I loved the colour of the feathers too :D Was shot using the softbox as a backdrop - in the kitchen

 This was a bit of an experiment, I quite like it but not sure if Rory does. We used some very light red fabric and shot through it. Its something we might try more of in the future because it does create a pretty cool effect - one which might be easier achieved in photoshop and not all that desirable for some but I liked it.

So we handed the 3 hats back a week after we got them along with a media stick with a few pictures of each piece. I recently got a beautiful silk gold outfit - its amazing and I can't wait to shoot in it but I'm waiting for the right location and making sure we don't shoot it until the conditions are right. We did go out on Sunday morning trying to find a sunrise and location (and failed). So on Sunday evening we went out hoping for a sunset, the outfit as well as some others where in the car and I done my hair in an interesting way..

Well there was no sunrise and none of the locations were quite perfect so we held back with the awesome outfit and made use of the locations we did find and the outfits I did have. These hats will be shot again though. I feel we can do a better job of showing their beauty than we have done.

This was shot in a little bird watching hut, I loved it in colour but the light was reflecting so strongly off the grass that the feather - which is white ended up looking green as did some other parts of the hat so its been black and whited which is a shame.

 Here is one I edited, although I'm not sure there is as much light in my eyes as I would have liked. I loved this hat. There is a shot I loved from this set too where the wind picked it up but I'm waiting on Rory to edit it properly.

And the last one we shot - against my half painted - or one coat painted doorway. The veil on this hat is amazing, it almost reaches the ground and the beautiful pin which holds it in place means I can move it around or just take the veil off. Last week I was too scared to even touch the hats incase I done something to them so they are more sturdy than I originally thought.

Its actually helping me and Rory having things to shoot, although there is never a brief or any specific plans for any of the hats it makes us think more about what we are doing.. Or makes us put a bit more effort in because we want the designer to be happy with the pictures we are creating so its not just about pleasing ourselves anymore. So its Thursday, we have 2 more hats to shoot this week and possible re-shoots of the ones we have shot... not sure how thats possible given we meet on a Saturday with the designer, maybe we can get a bit of an extension.

I'm being brave next week and getting an MUA involved, I really want this "gold" outfit to be special and for that we might need some extra pairs of hands.

Anyway that is all xxx

please visit www.hatinthecat.co.uk to find out more about their workshops or head pieces!