You can always paint the roses red.
As a "weird girl," I have always had a deep love for Alice in Wonderland and all things strange. When approaching this photoshoot, I wanted to make sure to make as many nods towards the original story as possible.
When deciding on the story to tell, the model and I came up with the idea that we were showing the Queen of Hearts when she was young and went through the looking glass into Wonderland, and what made her MAD.
For props, I brought a mirror, white and red roses, a pocket watch, a mismatched tea set, a paint brush and red paint, a harlequin-patterned blanket, a basket, lace, giant playing cards, and a book.
The model made her dress, bloomers, and crown!
I really took time and care to figure out how we would tell our story of Wonderland. I wanted to do as many practical effects as possible.
We planned an early shoot, but being in Arizona, the sun was bright and harsh incredibly fast! We started with the tea party portion of the shoot. I found different tea cups at a thrift store. The model made "tea" out of colored coconut water (she colored it with cocoa powder!). We planned to do this part first so the "tea" would not get hot. We originally planned to do more with the tea party, but the sun was so harsh! The amazing thing about the intensity of the sun was that it created this large shadow from her eyelashes!
I had this idea to take pictures through a keyhole, like the viewer was looking through a door into Wonderland. Unfortunately, I could not get the effect to work with my camera, but I showed my Fiancé how to do the effect on his phone. He was amazing enough to video multiple parts of the shoot. Check it out here!
To give the looking glass the portal feel, we poured water onto the mirror, and the model splashed the water to make the glass look like it was moving. It was definitely a challenge to get above the model without appearing in the reflection; luckily, she had an applebox in her car, so having an extra step made a huge difference! Definitely made the note to always have a step ladder with me for photoshoots.
The model turned changed the color of the gems on the crown by drawing on them with whiteboard markers. She wanted to get the right shade of red. (Little cosplay tip!)
I really wanted to capture her painting the roses red. We took all the photos in a rose garden, but I wanted to make sure we brought some roses to paint. I brought a bouquet of red and white roses. The model took real paint and slowly painted the roses red!
I also wanted to add an illustration from the original story, so I looked through the London Library scan archives to find an image of the Cheshire Cat. I hid him in one of the trees like he was spying on the Queen of Hearts
This photoshoot was so much fun! We definitely channeled our inner Wonderland.
Want to see the whole photoshoot? Check out the gallery!
The photos were taken at Mesa Community College's Rose Garden.
We are all mad here!
From the photoshoot while we were painting the roses red
