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Caithness Class - part 1 of 1 2

by John Baikie Published 01/02/2008

John Baikie shoots six brides in Glasgow then escapes to Malta!

Spending your birthday in the company of seven models may seem like a great assignment to most, but it was a tough job. Two Glasgow city-centre venues were booked for the shoot, which was for a local bridal designer. Elske Bridal wanted some new dramatic images to promote their four new designers, and since I was going to Glasgow to fly to the SWPP/BPPA Malta get-together on the 1 November, Hallowe'en, seemed like the best time to pull everything together.

For previous shoots we had used model agencies, but this time I used one of the online model sites, mainly so we could pick and choose the right girls and get a good variety of looks and styles, rather than taking what the agency gave us. The response was great and in the end I was struggling to select the four we needed and decided just to choose seven! I am very poor at saying no to beautiful women, often to my detriment.

So, we ended up with seven models, two make-up artists and one photographer, along with four dress designers. A lot of planning was required to make this work. I had to plan the timings for the models, with the make-up artists, and with me so everyone got what they wanted from the day. Detailed lists were drawn up showing all the timings and these were sent out to all the girls, who were very excited about the whole thing. I had set it up in such a way that I had two girls with me at each stage, while the two makeup artists prepared the next two. It was only at this stage that I realised what a task I had set myself.

The day before I was getting stressed as I realised how busy I was going to be, and also had Malta to think about, so I had a lot on my mind. Panic was setting in, because I knew it wouldn't take much to go wrong for it all to go pear-shaped. I travelled the 300 miles from Caithness to Edinburgh on the Tuesday night and got about three hours, sleep on my sister's sofa. Then it was a case of picking up the first model, Angie in Edinburgh, then driving up to Stirling to collect Billie. Then the first problem - bad traffic accident near Edinburgh, big tailbacks and a call from a make-up artist who was stuck in it. We managed to miss the worst of the problems but did take over half an hour to get out of Edinburgh. So much for being there an hour early to check out the venues!

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1st Published 01/02/2008
last update 09/12/2022 14:52:04

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