Behind the Scenes with the Queen
THE BUTTER DISH
This portrait is of my dear friend Vicki. After many brainstorming discussions on how to best visually represent Vicki's personality, we both unanimously agreed that the Queen of hearts from the Alice in Wonderland story was a perfect fit. Vicki definitely has an extremely outgoing, flirtatious and zany personality, with a wicked sense of humor and a larger than life energy that fills any space she enters. Vicki has a contagious laugh, a keen sense of adventure, and lust for life that most people can only envy. On the other hand, she can also enjoy taking control of any situation, and will have no trouble speaking her mind at any given moment. Enter stage left, the Queen of Hearts.Vicki had also told me a story about a butter dish from a past relationship that I wanted to use to connect the Queen of Hearts narrative to. The full story of that will be revealed later - shhhh!
Below is a series of behind-the-scenes photos and captions for the Queen of Hearts photoshoot and the steps of the process that culminated in the final portrait as shown below:
Off with her head!
The first chair was my original photo from the Antique store, and above is the transformed queen's throne!
I extended the back in Photoshop, and modified the perspective a little.
This is one of the original photos from Hunter Valley gardens that was used as part of the background.
Love the topiary! It's so Queen of hearts!
Showing part of the background creation and transformation of images.
The heart bushes were removed from the final image as I wanted to keep it simple.
Vicki, initially trying the costume on at The Wardrobe.
She stepped right into character, immediately :-).
Before.... and after, with the help of Kirra the makeup artist wizard!
Kirra applying those crazy heart lips to my queen.
Nothing like lots of white makeup to cover up those flaws.... :-)
Face done, onto the hair....
The very flattering look of the bald cap. Nothing like drinking your coffee with a crazy straw!
One of the drawbacks of white make up and red lips..
The queen on the scene at Jane Earle's photostudio...
Practicing a few dance moves for some test shots...
Showing some leg.
Another brilliant idea from the queen...
And maybe a not so brilliant one?
Kirra helps to remove Vicki's make up when we are done.
Before Photoshopping the face, and after on the right.
After and Before (whoops!) - the image on the right is the original photo, and on the left is the end result.