A couple of days ago the lovely and fun Marilyn D turned up for our second shoot together. Marilyn is one of those models (and I’ve only worked with a few like this) that really trusts what I am trying to do, no matter how crazy it sounds. Many times I am trying to explain the idea in my head and sometimes the idea is hard to verbalise. It’s not that I am not very good at speaking – hell, I was an actor for 16 years and did much Shakespeare, even understanding most of it! But when you try to verbalise the image I have in my head it can sometimes sound a bit odd.

But to Marilyn, she just goes with the flow. And that’s great, because then I can just get on with the shot and hope that I at least did my mind justice in the execution!

The idea in question came into my mind the night before as I was just wasting time doing nothing. It involved bandages. Now it’s not the first time I’ve used them. I’ve even got a little stash of rolled up bandages ready for shoots that require it, but I just wanted to try a look that was more about bondage than bandages, and making it look more like a mild torture scene or something along those lines.

Can you see how my thought processes work now? Yes, hindsight tells me I could just draw the idea, but I never think of that at the time!

Before that thought we did do a little more straightforward studio work. I wanted to expand more on some of her glamour and lingerie portfolio images and she wanted to do a great little idea involving denim. But when she arrived she had to admit that although she had the jeans she wanted, the jacket she didn’t have. We had loads of time and since I live and shoot in a flat that is located right in the centre of town (literally, there’s a nightclub just 30 metres away from me), we went into town to do a little shopping.

I always thought denim was cool, and never went out of style. But bugger me, so many womens clothes shops do not have denim jackets! Finally there was one shop that did a standard no frills denim jacket with nothing on it to make it more ‘stylish’ (in other words, ruining it). Primark.

I tell you, that shop should concentrate on supplying clothes for models all the time! Whenever I need something specific for a shoot, more often than not you can rely on Primark to help you out – at a reasonable cost!

So that’s about it! We did the shoot, I did my idea. How did it come out? See below!