We could probably call this the shoot that almost didn’t happen. The odds were stacked against us, but I’m glad it did happen.

Tyler and Angel are brother and sister. I’m a little hazy on the order of things now, but I think I’d asked Tyler about modelling first, and he’d agreed, but then it fell through at the last minute. Then Angel was interested in doing a shoot, but very nervous about it, and probably quite cautious – a teenager meeting up with a middle-aged man for a ‘photoshoot’ does sound a bit dodgy, I’m well aware of that. She only wanted to do it if Tyler could come along too, which was good with me – after all, I’d wanted to do a shoot with him already, now I got a 2-for-1 bargain.

Ollie was their friend, and wasn’t there to be photographed, but was happy enough to join in for some shots. They seemed a little surprised when I said I’d actually been thinking of asking them about modelling too – Ollie has a great expressive face.

The weather forecast didn’t look great on the day, so I was half expecting a cancellation, and half tempted to cancel myself. And it just got worse. By time we met up at the park, it was drizzling, and slowly getting worse. But they were all fine with getting wet, so we got stuck in.

I don’t think Tyler has done modelling before, but he was a real natural at it – if he doesn’t have modelling experience, it’s probably because he’s quite heavily into cosplay, which has elements of acting and modelling in it. In any case, he was immediately great, and we got some really good shots.

Angel’s only problem was being nervous, which is quite understandable on a first shoot. And her confidence soon started to build between Tyler’s help and seeing some of the shots we were getting on the back of the camera.

We finished up with a wall and some railings – the brick had gone a lovely deep red from the rain, which made a nice backdrop.