Kayleigh-Jade in Honiton

I was glad to be doing another shoot with Kayleigh-Jade – our last shoot at Wildwood Escot had been really fun, and she’s very creative. She knows her stuff behind the camera as well as in front, and does some acting, which is a great combination for modelling.

This time, we went a bit simpler, with just a wander around Honiton – a nice little town which was easy for us both to get to. It’s full of antique shops, interesting little alleys, and you can be out of the town centre in a minute or so walk, so there’s plenty of variety for backgrounds.

To get started, we found a nice metal door.

I’m not sure if the Minion cosplay was intentional or not – Kayleigh-Jade wouldn’t specify. She was very happy to find a big bin labelled ‘General Waste’, deciding it was her new military designation.

The square we were in at this point included the side of a supermarket, and had a place for shopping trolleys, with one sitting there. I can’t remember whose idea it was for Kayleigh-Jade to get in the trolley, but it might have been me. For some reason, she always inspires me to find really ridiculous things to try to get her to do, and so far she’s always been up for giving it a go.

Some models really hate it if they thing you’re making them look silly, which is a bit tricky for me – I like silly. Kayleigh-Jade is not one of these models.

A couple of lads ran by at this point, and shouted and waved as they saw us, so I grabbed a couple of photos as they disappeared past the wall.

They came back and joined in for a shot.

A short way down the main road, we happened on a church that faced out onto the main shopping street in Honiton, and Kayleigh-Jade decided it was time for an outfit change. Most models will go and find a toilet to change in, or at least some corner to get out of sight. Kayleigh-Jade has an amazing ability to change outfits anywhere. Things go over, things come out from under, nobody is flashed (well, I don’t think, anyway, I was looking the other way just in case) and the outfit is changed.

We did a few quick portraits in the church grounds, ending with Kayleigh-Jade leaning back on a little wall while I shot from behind.

Wandering into the narrow alleys behind the church, we found a wooden wall. Oh, and another outfit change.

Continuing the theme of Bad Ideas, the alley had a ‘SLOW’ road marking, which seemed like a good idea to get Kayleigh-Jade to lie down behind. It was a one-way ‘road’, and any traffic would have had to get through me first, which would slow them down so she’d have had time to get away – I don’t think we actually saw a car while we were there, it’s probably just access to a few houses and the church.

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Going for a bit of colour-matching, a yellow wall worked nicely with the gold pattern on this dress.

Things got silly again after that. There was a bike rack. I made a very silly suggestion. Always up for a challenge, Kayleigh-Jade pulled it off perfectly, making it look like this was a perfectly normal thing to do, and quite comfortable.

It’s her perfectly serious expression that makes this work so well for me – “I always relax like this, why how do you get comfortable?”

Next came the modelling classic ‘pretending to be fascinated by a plant’. I played the same game, though, and mostly focussed on the plant, leaving Kayleigh-Jade to be a blurry shape in the background. Kayleigh-Jade-shaped bokeh.

A Beanie Baby wanted to get in on the shoot too.

Another photoshoot classic – ‘stick your had against a wall’ – with a twist of lining up the paint line to the eyeline.

And if there’s a narrow alley, always get the model to try to touch both walls. Not much of a challenge in Honiton, tbh.

And the window reflection trick I learned from Alex Kelsey.

Now there was another outfit change, going all urban. An old slightly crumbly wall made a good backdrop, with some flowers and some weeds.

The rest of the shoot was all in the little garden at the Thelma Hulbert Gallery, a nice little art gallery near the town centre.

Oh, and the outfit has changed again. She’s in yet another dress. I think this is just a ‘modelling shoot’ thing, but I kind of like the idea that Kayleigh-Jade just does this normally too. Out with friends, and each time they look she’s wearing something completely different. But this was a dress for twirling.

It was also a dress for jumping.

Or maybe for having a nice lie down for a while.

Maybe even a dress for hiding.

Not hiding well enough, though, I found Kayleigh-Jade again, and we did a few portraits beside a really nice tree.

Then we went a bit silly again. It was July, and the nice tree had made lots of autumnal leaves for us. It’s not often you can do an autumn shoot in July.