Hello Flowers photoshoot

I've been taking so many photos lately that I'm hard-pressed to find time to edit them all.  Last Thursday, Rebecca and I went to the Hort Park to practise taking photos.  Rebecca's friend, Annie, from local company Hello Flowers provided us with four gorgeous bouquets and we had a blast shooting them!

Because it was our first ever proper shoot and we wanted to take advantage of the wonderful morning light, we made plans to meet at six in the morning.  On a work day.  

I awoke to the sound of a massive monsoon storm at 3am and a frenzied text from Rebecca saying that it was pouring.

Eventually, I dragged myself out of bed at five, forgetting to put on work shoes in the process and only realising that I was still in house-slippers when I was speeding down the ECP with the sun rising in my rearview mirror.  At Telok Blangah, Rebecca, blearily holding the box of flowers, greeted me.

Once we got over the lack of coffee in our systems, we made it to the Hort Park and started setting up.  

We decided to keep it simple with desserts and patterned bolts of cloth and let the flowers speak for themselves.

Rebecca spent the previous night wrapping random things for presents and to my great amusement, I peeled back layers of coloured paper to reveal decks of cards and boxes of tea.

These roses were so lovely they needed very little dressing up.

Pretty as the set up looks, the reality of the shoot wasn't so glamorous.  We were inundated with bugs and when we realised that the teacup would be empty, I suggested unwrapping the tea bag "present" and making a cup.  When we figured out that the tannin wasn't going to infuse into our cool water, I got down on my haunches and basically squeezed it out of the tea bag.  Classy.

By the end of the shoot, I was covered in soggy mud from where I had lain down to take shots at eye level and our legs were stinging with grass itch and mosquito bites.  But we were pretty happy with the product!

While my partner-in-crime packed up, I messed around a little with the macro extensions that my brother had lent me.

This big ant with only four legs was fighting the little ants for the iced gem.  I love how clearly everything shows up, right down to the tiny bristles on its abdomen.  This is hard-hitting National Geographic style wildlife photography, yo.

And just to show that dreamy, tranquil shoots are anything but:

But I think the thing Rebecca was most amused by was me turning at her doorstep in my house-slippers at the break of dawn and saying, "What's your shoe size?"

Because when a friend with slightly bigger feets lends you leather sneakers and nerdy white socks on the day that you planned to wear a dress, the result is this.