Flo: It's been oh too long since Roz and I have been able to have longer than 12 hours together, so her trip up to visit me in Manchester was extra lovely. We started the evening off at the location we'd be shooting the next day - only for a scout out of course, the fact that the cocktails there are fantastic had absolutely nothing to do with it...
The feast you can see in the photograph below was made my lovely boyfriend, lots of good food, good wine and good conversation all evening... In fact possibly too much of all of them as getting up at 6.30am was a struggle!
The location we used is called Richmond Tea Rooms which is located on Richmond street in Central Manchester. It's absolutely lovely, a firm favourite of mine for afternoon tea, cakes (their chocolate fudge is INCREDIBLE) and the decor is very unique. Have a look at their website and I recommend you pay them a visit if you're ever in Manchester.
For once, bar one very unsuccessful time a few years ago, we were experimenting with using a flash. The tea rooms are quite dark and it was early in the morning so the natural light wasn't great and we don't use any professional lighting. For me, I definitely struggled with it! We didn't have a diffuser which made things trickier still but it was endlessly frustrating having the reposition it and point it at different angles. The result was interesting, as you'll see next blog post, but certainly different from our usual shoots!
Roz: I caught the train up to Manchester on the late afternoon of the saturday, relishing both the socialising and creative projects waiting at the other end of the track. I travelled with a large suitcase in tow; the contents composed of various housecoats, striped heels and tea-dresses selected for the purposes of our 'Alice in Wonderland meets Ladies Who Lunch' theme. Of course neat folding soon descended into messy chaos once Flo and I began working on our focus for the following morning. But before we could reach the photography there was a fair amount of wining, dining and intense talking to enjoy. There is nothing quite like the joy of food and friendship.
The next morning, as detailed above, we roused ourselves bright and early to head over to Richmond tea rooms. As our taxi slid through the grey, early morning streets we noticed a small crowd still partying outside one of the clubs. Our paltry four and half hours of sleep seemed to be plenty after seeing that. We waited outside this cafe-cum-cocktail bar in full finery with false eyelashes, bright lipstick and large bags of clothing in our hands. Once we were let in we whizzed through outfit changes and swore every now and then at the flash - aware that we had a limited amount of time to complete all that we had planned. However, despite lighting difficulties it was still a playful, varied and interesting two hours of work - and we can't wait to show you the results shortly.
