Beyond the Lens - Fun with Alice

Written by Tamara Kwan of TammyLynn Photography

Featured on I am Gloucestershire 365's website under FYI Daily Blog on Friday, 14 January 2011

Curious Dream

A couple of years ago I mentioned to my daughter that I’d like to do a fantasy photo shoot with the Alice in Wonderland theme. Next think I know she’s telling me “OK Mom, we have our costumes ready, when’s the shoot?” Her and her friends had got together, decided who was going to be who and made their own costumes! How could I refuse?! Also I couldn’t keep this all to myself so I organized a photographer’s meet and invited a few fellow photographers to join me. We had great fun shooting this crew, they were wonderful!

I hired Rodborough Hall and we started the shoot in there, with studio lighting and backgrounds. Then we moved up onto Rodborough Common with a few props.  This was back in September of 2009. In the photo above my daughter Alyssa is playing Alice. From left to right is Gemma as the Dormouse, Rosie as the Queen of Hearts, Steph as the March Hare, Noah as the Mad Hatter, Merry as the Cheshire Cat and Will as the White Rabbit.

 You're Late!

The photos above and below were taken at the hall with a green background that I’d brought along. We also had a white background set up but I preferred the green for some reason. Aren’t their costumes fantastic?! 

Back in the Teapot!

Check out the Mad Hatter’s Hat. He made that all himself from scratch. I wonder who’s missing two decks of cards now?

Very Tall Alice

This next image, Very Tall Alice, was taken with my Canon 30D and Sigma 10-20 lens at 10mm. There were a number of camera flash guns set up around the tree; the key light here is a flash with soft box on camera left. I got down low for the shot and the distortion from the 10mm lens made her look tall. The tree helps with this perspective as well. The tiny cows in the background probably don’t hurt either. I entered this image in a Photo Competition: Tall on The Telegraph’s website judged and ran by Kate Day. It was one of the winners. 

Wonderland

This last image was also taken on the green background with studio lights. It was the right shade of green to work like a green screen and I easily cut the gang out and added them to this card from an old deck of cards I had. Well I didn’t actually add them to the card but to a digital scan of the card.  

These kids are awesome and it was a pleasure to get to work with them on this and a few other occasions. I’m truly blessed to know them....and be the Mother of one of them.