Ayla Rose art nude at the River Orwell
Back in the summer I organised a shoot with Ayla Rose on the banks of the River Orwell. I wanted to go to Nacton foreshore, a place I used to go to on the first moped I ever owned when I was a spotty and pimply youth. In those days I would make my way, slowly, from Felixstowe and head for a quiet spot away from the bustling and noisy docks in my home town to a point somewhere between them and the smaller and less busy port at Ipswich. The journey was never without incident, travelling as I was on my little under-powered sports moped, with huge articulated trucks bearing down on me on the A45.
Back then I found a little track that ran alongside the public school that faces out to the river. It was only a small footpath, just big enough in width to fit one bike and rider. I would go as far as I could and stop before I got wet to watch the small coasters head towards Ipswich, or out towards the North Sea in the other direction.
A while ago I went back to visit that spot again, only to find it had been developed with a proper road, car park and picnic area leading to the foreshore. My quiet little place had become very popular indeed, but I decided that I still wanted to shoot there. That’s where Ayla comes in. At this point you may wonder why I’ve rambled on with the history above. It does have a relevance and I’ll get to the point soon.
Both of us headed to the water’s edge with a view to shoot some portraits first before moving to art nude later. The portrait shoot has already been blogged and you can read that here if you wish. Having finished the portraits we decided to start on the art nude stuff and began to look for a good location. I had a place in mind and we started to do some test shots before we got down to the serious work. It was then the some alarm bells started to ring.
Whilst we were getting ready we had noticed a couple of people walking close to where we had been shooting the test shots, but they hadn’t reappeared where they should have done if they had kept to the path. We agreed to check them out as neither Ayla or I wanted any spectators whilst we were shooting. I headed off and found a place with a good field of view, but nobody was visible. I stayed there for a minute or so, and after staring at a large bush for a while a rather sheepish looking guy stood up, looked at me and started to head away. That was enough for me, even though he was leaving the other person was still not visible to we decided to head off to a different location on the other side of the river. Safety first!
After a short drive we crossed over the Orwell Bridge and found ourselves on the opposite bank of the river. I hadn’t thought to shoot there originally as there is very little vegetation, the bank of the river is very close to the main road and I didn’t think there was anything of interest to use in our shots. How wrong I was!
We shot around two wooden piles that had been driven into the river bed, possibly as part of an old jetty or breakwaters. No matter what they were they provided a focal point for us to shoot against in both directions as the backgrounds were completely different. In one direction there was a small marina, in the other there was the Orwell Bridge. This shot shows Ayla and one of the piles looking down towards the mouth of the river and the North Sea.
The second shot I’ve left in colour as it seems to fit better. I’ve reversed the direction for this shot so the Orwell Bridge is in the background with the port of Ipswich just a little further on.
There’s another nine shots in this set which you can see by clicking on the link at the top of this blog or using the link here.