Girl With The Red Hair

I love the work of the pre-Raphaelite painters such as Gabriel Rossetti.I wanted to try and create a photographic portrait for my portfolio that had that painterly quality.I had done a more traditional portrait of this girl and she kind of inspired the idea for the shoot. I recced this location in the summer and found this tree that had creepers growing up around it which I thought added to the mysteries feel of the woodland. I decided to wait until early springtime as I wanted to see bluebells around her feet and the trees didn't have too many leaves so that light would penetrate the area I had chosen to shoot. I knew I needed the focus of the image to be on the girls face and body so I decided to use a very diffuse flash light that had the feel of some light permeating through the trees. I also chose a dress that would have a big contrast to the surroundings. Her red hair also contrasts with the green in the woodland.I felt that the image would benefit from a very misty background so I used smoke pellets and got my assitant to run around spreading the smoke around the background area. While we were shooting three horses came through almost checking out what we were doing. I felt I needed to get a horse in the picture as it felt right. Maybe the girl rode in on a horse . I photographed the horses separately and put one of them in on the computer after the shoot.