Pride and Prejudice and those fussy little faces.

I’m a photographer that loves to get a good brief from a client before I shoot an image. It can be vague and mostly vibes, but I love to have some something to dig into, a starting point, a goal, even a single word that will help me hone into what will work and what won’t for this particular project. Because that’s what unlocks something new for me. This is why I love to collaborate with other creatives - in receiving a brief from someone else it’s like receiving a mysterious key to a door inside your own mind - an opportunity to discover influences and ideas that you never even knew you had.

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to collaborate with the folks at Gateway theatre on a few images for their production of Pride and Prejudice. They wanted something that nodded to the historical setting but that felt non-traditional in some way. Otherwise, they were open to ideas. We ended up with a list of 5 concepts but the one below is probably my favourite.

I’ve always loved cameos and their fussily romantic little faces. The carefully carved tendrils of hair caught in some borderline liquid breeze, locked in time like a mosquito trapped in amber. But I grew up with the 90s riff on them, glued onto cheap chokers and pinned to black velvet dresses worn to birthday parties at Chuck E Cheese. For me, they’re such a beautiful mix of Victorian frippery, and child-ish chaos. So when thinking about what to do that could sit comfortably between “historical” and “non-traditional”, there was nothing better than a cameo.

I considered building a picture frame from wood and modeling clay but it felt too literal. I wanted something looser and more free-form. I knew the actors would be dressed in period clothing and wanted to play against that rigidity somehow. At a loss, I decided to go for a walk around the block. And that’s when I saw it. A giant worm mural scrawled across the pavement in neon orange drawn by a six year old girl. It was perfect. One quick trip to Michaels later and we were ready.

On the day we shot this we brought in the paper and unrolled it across the very stage that the show would be happening on. The production team gathered round as I handed out the chalk. Chunky blocks of it were gripped in not quite child-sized fists as we spread the roll of backdrop paper on the stage and squatted around it like a pre-K art project. How do you mix historic and non-traditional? You keep it loose, imperfect, and let your inner child play. I’m delighted by the result.