The Nasturtium Fairy photoshoot came about before the actual idea for the story that is now published in the 2024 Spring Botanical Anthology Magazine. Botanical Anthology is a seasonal, plant centered digital + print magazine with over 40 articles to bring herbs to your apothecary, kitchen, crafts, harvests and spring celebrations. Originally, my model Corina Brown of Wild and Free Jewelry and I had an idea for FernGully esque shoot out in this beautiful nature space in Santa Barbara, Ca. We were planning on using the whimsical blue wings seen here and a red short pixie like dress but the dress did not arrive on time. Among Corina's myriad creative talents, her styling is top notch and she put together this fairytale look with a hand dyed corset and matching fabric and scarf she draped under to be the skirt. The fabric had such a delicate, airy quality we had fun exploring with it's fluid movement throughout the shoot. To go with the FernGully theme I wanted to make a large glowing seed to do this, I used a loquat seed- a fruit that I love foraging in Santa Barbara area during late spring. It has rather large seeds inside the fruit which I thought would be the perfect size and shape for this idea. I let the seed dry overnight and then painted it with acrylic neon green and neon yellow paint. In post production I added a bit of glow as well. Once the images were complete the story came to go with them. I have been working on fairy stories the last year or so and felt called to write a nasturtium flower fairy vignette. The Nasturtium Fairy is a short little tale chronicling a day in the life of a fairy whose purpose it is to tend to all the Nasturtiums in the world and the magical seed she discovers amongst her flowers.
The day of the shoot my partner and myself met up with Corina in Santa Barbara, CA at the most stunning nasturtium patch nestled in a majestic oak grove. We made our way through the non native invasive but edible flowers and set up a magical mirror spot and began shooting. As the sun got lower in the sky we moved around the area and found different rocks and stumps for Corina to perch on. We wanted the posing to be dreamy and ethereal while also having fun incorporating our props like the mirror and glowing seed. For a later shot we wanted the seed to float above Corina's hands. In order to achieve this I tied clear fishing line around the seed and had my partner suspend it mid air for her to interact with. I later edited out the string and added a yellowish orange glowing effect around the seed. Most of our time shooting Corina had on boots to protect her from the poison oak that was quite abundant however there were a few moments we wanted her on the rocks with no shoes and she made the ultimate sacrifice and ended up getting exposed to some! Otherwise it was such a lovely day spent in the flowers being creative and listening to the sounds of nature as we played.
It really is such a joy working on these types of storytelling projects. Over to the left you can read the opening to The Nasturtium Fairy and down below find a link to Corina's amazing headpieces, jackets and online tutorials as well as a link to Botanical Anthology where you can buy the magazine that has so many amazing crafts and recipes as well as my exclusive Nasturtium Fairy images and vignette.
