Choosing an Outfit
Once we’ve taken the short walk along my woodland path to the fairy studio, we have one very important job to do before anyone can get into full on fairy mode. That of course, is to take a little peek into my fairy wardrobe and select the perfect fairy dress. The range that I have of these depends on the season, with a special range coming out only at the Winter Wonderland Christmas event, but there’s always plenty of choice especially in shades of pink – that’s quite a popular colour as you can imagine. They’re all handmade by me and all different from each other to give the maximum amount of variety for my visiting fairy – I want my fairy photo shoot experience to be like nothing your little girl has done before and that starts with the dress. Once we have chosen the perfect dress and got your little fairy all dressed and fluffed, then they can choose to add flowers or butterflies for their hair or their dress or both – I’m not sure you can really over accessorise a fairy and I think putting together their perfect outfit is part of the fun.
Wings and Wands
The dress and flower accessories are only the first part of the outfit selection as a fairy won’t be able to fly without her wings or cast a spell without her wand. These we choose once we get into the Forest – again, I do like to have a range so your fairy can feel that the whole experience is being designed just for her. We take a few minutes to look at some of the fairy memorabilia that I’ve saved from the Forest’s creation (some things those careless fairies have left behind on their visits) and then it’s time to go into the Forest and choose our final fairy accessories.
Taking the Photographs
The Enchanted Forest is a lot more than a photo set with a backdrop and prop selection, it fills the entire room with grass underfoot, a giant wooden toadstool to rest upon and a pond to admire your own reflection in. It changes a little every time I build it but it’s always a calm quiet place created for fairies to really enjoy visiting. Some studios claim to let your children play in their setting for up to an hour but that would be an awfully long time for a little person to keep their focus on any one thing and they’d be quickly bored. So I limit the shooting time to twenty minutes to keep it really fresh, fun and interesting for your little one. I gently guide them around the posing spots in the Forest and along the way, we swap stories, speculate on what fairies might get up when we’re not looking, meet some of the Forest’s residents, spy out some hidden treasures and touch and handle some of the magical props that I have there. All the while, I’m taking pictures which is the point of the exercise for us adults, but for the kids I want it to be a secondary consideration to letting their imaginations run wild on the lives of fairy folk.
Leaving the Forest
Once we’re finished taking pictures, it’s time for your fairy to bid farewell to the fairies and get into her clothes ready to go home. We find a few hidden treasures in the Forest while we’re taking off her wings and then there’s a few little fairy items to look out for on the path back to the car. I take your images back to my editing suite and give them a little digital love and they’re ready for you to see within a week of your photo shoot. As soon as they are in your private online gallery, I send you your unique password which will take you straight to them – you don’t need to come back and visit me to view them and make your selections. You just let me know the print or digital image that you would like that was included in your session price and then order more if you’d like to directly from your gallery. It’s as simple as that!
