Trash The Dress - Well, sort of ...

'Trash the Dress' is the name given to a style of photo shoot where a woman will again get dressed into her Wedding Gown but instead of having 'Wedding' style photographs taken, the artistic approach is pushed that much further. Out in the US where this concept was born it's not unusual to see photographs of brides in caves, submerged and I've even seen shots where the dress is actually on fire whilst being worn. Here in the UK, Trash the Dress has started to filter in but from it another concept called 'Cherish the Dress' has appeared which is really more of a fashion style shoot and is guaranteed to leave the dress completely intact.

Some time ago I was contacted to see if I would photograph, and I quote, a 'Trash(ish) the Dress' shoot. Turned out what was being asked for was a sort of half way point between 'Trash' and 'Cherish' so after several get togethers with the clients, Michelle & Dave Caton-Richards, the date and location for the first shoot was set.


The first of the two shoots found us in a Garage/Workshop in Egham, Surrey where the owner kindly gave us permission to do whatever we liked once the last customer had gone. Michelle was very keen to recreate the tyre shot made famous by Herb Ritts and that I recreated a few months back (shown here with model Danny Bartlett).


... and here's Michelle


I remembered that when we first met I asked Michelle & Dave to bring along some pictures that they had seen in magazines that they really liked the look of, and one in particular was of a man & woman grasping onto each other in an archway. The picture oozed passion and it was this kind of a feel that both Michelle and Dave were keen to achieve.


This was in fact the last series of photographs we worked on as by this time both were very used to being photographed and feeling considerably more at ease, but then that's probably down to the wine that was on the set too.

My good friend and video Guru Vince was with me on the shoot; a big help with setting up and filming what went on. This footage I'll be editing over the next few days and will post here on the blog along with some of the editing that I've done on some of the photographs so you can see everything from set up to final images.


The second photo shoot with Michelle and Dave is planned for later this month where we'll be photographing in a Country Park, a derelict Abbey and temperature permitting...a Lake, so watch this space.

More later,
Enjoy