A day in the life of a photographer | model - Lieke Anna

A day in the life of a photographer | model

20/7/2016

Scroll down for the behind the scenes video!!

Photography: Rob Woodcox
Model: Lieke Anna
Dress: Bruidshuis Ellen
Furn-foraging & pinning: Robin Stremlow

June 24th

It's 9.30 AM and I've packed up my styff again. About an hour and a half ago I said goodbye to Bonnie, after spending 4 evenings with her in Portland, Oregon. She is such a sweet person and I am so glad that I got to know her better this time!
Now it's time to leave her house and move on to my next adventure. I set my GPS, in my KIA Sportage, to a tea place downtown where I'm meeting someone I've never met before, but have been in contact with for a couple of months now.
After ordering my organic, coconut oolong tea and writing in my book for a little while I hear someone getting closer and carefully pronouncing my name and there he was, mister Rob Woodcox. The next person who I'm going on adventures with!
We started talking and hitted off immediately. Which is awesome considering that I fact that I was going to spent a few days with him, haha.
After a few hours of talking we went to this pretty taxidermy shop and it's too bad my bank account has no endless amount of money on it and I did not bring an extra suitcase, or I would've bought the whole store. We then headed to Rob's home where we had an amazing dinner.
Turns out he lives by a forest and we had discussed a few ideas earlier that day and thought of a nature concept (furns growing out of a dress and a furn crown) so the backyard forest came in super handy! So after dinner we headed into his backyard to forage stuff for our shoot the next day.
As we walked through the forest we gathered sticks, leafs and flowers to build the crown at home. During the walk, Rob was playing LOTR and Narnia music, which made it all the more enchanting.

June 25th

The morning we took to gather everything we needed (or thought we needed). From dresses to camera equipment, yarn, smokebombs, lunchpackages and what more.
Rob texted one of his friends if she wanted to come along on a creative adventure and she did! Robin and her golden retriever Jax came to get us a little later. We packed up the car and drove to the other side of the Columbia river, in Washington State. The way there was filled with breathtaking nature, more than enough inspiration to get the creative juices flowing!
To get to the other side of the river we took a bridge called "The Bridge of the Gods", which is a very cute bridge with an awesome view!
After crossing the river we drove through a small town with a cool antique shop. Filled with loads of overpriced crap, but also a few nice looking things. My eye caught a stack of prints and I was kind of determined to find one I'd liked there. And so I continued searching for a while until I saw the classic "American Gothic" and when it turned out that it was only a dollar, I just had to own it.
When we left the antique shop, we crossed the street to have a look at a flower and gardenshop, when we saw five kids by the side of the road selling lemonade. Really like you would see in the movies. Of course we had to get ourselves some lemonade from these cute kids, before heading to our location.
We parked our car, went to nature's bathroom and started our small hike. Going down to the look out spot over Panther Creek falls was easy peasy. The hard pard was yet to start. Because of course we weren't going to photograph from the touristy spot, overlooking the fall. We wanted to climb down to get up close and personal. To us humans it was hard, but do-able, but we also brought sweet Jax with us, the golden retriever. So Rob & Robin looked for an easier way down, where we had our prepacked lunch, my very first Peanutbutter&Jelly sandwiches. Very American.
After finishing our lunch I put on my weddingdress and Robin was on foraging duty for the furns that Rob would pin on the dress. We sat there for quite some time until the pattern was complete.

Image by Robin Stremlow

Image by Rob Woodcox

It was a pretty Sunny day, but the temperature down by the waterfall was way lower and with the constant damp of cold water, it was pretty chilly to say the least. And of course the shoot where I modeled for was right by the fall, so I was freezing my butt of and was shivering after a while. I knew I really wanted to also do a selfportrait down there, but I just had to warm up first.
When I could feel my feet again and the shivering stopped, I picked out a big fallen log for my shoot, overlooking the fall, a really cool spot. As I was photographing I saw another log that caught my eye that just screamed 'naked selfportrait'. And as I didnt't want to regret not doing it, I decided to just go for it.
After my shoot, Rob was thinking about going naked as well and so I decided to do a nude shoot with him, laying by the waterfall.
Vulnerable to all nature's violence surrounding him.
Time had gone by so fast, that we decided to pack up and head back to the car. It was a slippery hike back up and clumsy me of course slid down at one point, scattering my whole left leg in scratches and bruises.
I couldn't really see how bad it was, because I was covered in mud, but it was pretty bad. "Oh the things we do for art" right!