Cocoon #3: Throwback

Happy Monday everyone!

I hope you've all had a wonderful week and been enjoying the sunshine. I'm super excited to be getting out on location more with the warmer months approaching and I fully intend to make the most of it. This Monday, I am bringing you a blog of images that were shot on location and they're all cocoon images from my earlier days of modelling.

If you're new here, you might not have read the previous two posts yet: Cocoon and Cocoon #2.

It was fun digging through my hard drive to find all of these images, although there are loads that I seem to be missing, which is disappointing to say the least. I did manage to find enough to do this post though thankfully, because I really wanted to add the next instalment of the cocoon blogs.

In these images, the prop I'm using to get this effect is a slightly different material to the one used in the previous two posts. The first ‘big stretchy sock thing’ I had was actually acquired from Halfords of all places! It was a lot thicker, and much less stretchy. This means that the results are a little different to my more recent images shooting this concept. It lets less light through and the shapes you do in it can't be as big. Also it's a lot warmer in there than the one I use now which is either a good thing (if it's cold) or a bad thing (if it's already too hot).

I really hope you like these images considering it was a bit of a mission to find them!

October 2016: Mr Wilson

So to kick thins off, here are some images that I shot at Beech Caves back in 2016 with a photographer called Mr Wilson. This was a long time ago so I don't remember a whole lot about this shoot other than that we were lucky with the light and the weather for the time of year. I really love the shapes I made in these images, as well as the way the light fell into the caves. As this material is a lot thicker: the effect is very spooky and gives less detail to the model inside. This makes the focus more on the way the light hits it than how it travels through it:

I really like this last image where you can see more of the caves in shot too:

April 2017: Gary Mac

These next images were taken about six months later in April of 2017 on a day shoot at a supposedly haunted location. It was a really crazy day but so much fun. We shot loads of different sets in the time we had there in the various areas available to us, but these are the images we got from the set with the cocoon.

They were all taken in the same small room with some random medical equipment in. It was really spooky and there wasn't any light in there. We shot using an off-camera speed light outside of the room, directed through the window. It gave a really powerful effect, especially since we were going with a creepy vibe:

I remember it was quite difficult to shoot these due to the lack of light in there so there was a lot of guess work involved. These next two shots are my favourites:

July 2017: Stephen Tracey

In July 2017, I was back at Beech Caves with a different photographer, this time with a guy called Stephen Tracey, and we shot outside of the caves instead. I love these images taken in front of the caves rather than in them, as it features more of the surrounding woodland. It gives a completely different feel to the images, compared to the ones taken inside the cave. These images were edited by me:

July 2019: Dave Edkins

We are skipping forwards a couple of years here because even though I definitely remember shooting this a lot: I can't seem to find any other images of it in that time after trawling through my entire portfolio (there are some specific images that I remember and are definitely missing).

Luckily, me and Dave Edkins have shot this concept a fair few times. We tended to bring it out for a bit towards the end of a shoot so we have a few images with it in various locations and studios. You always get something slightly different depending on where you are and what the light is like.

These images were taken on a beautifully sunny day in direct sunlight (it was very sweaty in there) and we got some really stunning images:

This last shot was my favourite though. I quite like the effect of having it halfway up my body, and the way Dave edited this one is just incredible:

July 2020: Dave Edkins

When we started shooting again after the initial Covid lockdown, we went to Beech Caves and got these lovely soft images there with the big stretchy sock thing. Because it was so bright, we managed to get more of a sheer effect than usual with this thicker material:

And then we experimented a bit more with it as an outfit, rather than an abstract concept. I love how different the vibe of this next image taken inside the caves is, compared to the two above taken outside of them:

Me and Dave were at Beech Caves very recently to shoot some stuff for Nobody Apparel as the clothing fits in well with the graffiti all over the caves. It's a great location for a huge variety of styles of model photography, which is why I keep going back there (also don’t forget to use the code Misuzu25 for money off the Nobody store).

September 2021: Dave Edkins

Finally, here is one of my maternity shots taken at Hanchurch woods in September 2021 with the big stretchy sock thing. This was one of the tricks we used to make my bump look a lot bigger than it actually was at that point as I was only about 5 months pregnant here. It worked quite well:

Selfie

Here is a selfie from the last time I was at Beech Caves very recently with my tiny human! (Not shooting, just having a wander around)

That's all from me for today! I hope you have a wonderful week and I can't believe that It'll be May already when I post my next blog! :)

Misuzu x