Susan Taylor - Poet
Having first ‘met’ Susan online, I got to meet her in person when I was asked to take some photographs of the work of a group of students from Plymouth College of Art , who had planned on meeting up at Combestone Tor, not far from where Susan and her husband live on Dartmoor.
As my photoshoot wasn’t until early evening, I took the chance to meet up in Susan’s beautiful back garden (as covid was still being a bugbear at the time).
We discussed many things, I met her cats and her lovely husband Simon, and I (obviously) took the time to grab a few images of Susan.
Susan Taylor - Poet
Fast forward to the beginning of this year and Susan was expecting the imminent publication of her latest collection of poems, so we conspired to get some interesting photographs in time for the book release.
As a quick aside - here’s a photograph I took for the Art College students … I should add it was a “Witcher” styled photoshoot!
Costume Design : Harry Emmett Wadham
Model : Maya Lenton
Makeup : Aleksej Kai Arlett
Back to my trip to Bench Tor, close to Venford Reservoir.
I generally start a portrait shoot with a chat and sneak in a few shots before my subject knows what I’m up to 🥰 As a performer, Susan I think was straight onto my ploy!
Luckily, performers are the easiest characters to capture - even if they don’t always think so themselves 💚
Susan had brought along her costume for when she performs her “La Loba Speaks for Wolf” reading.
As I had once lived fairly close to where we met, I knew the lay of the land pretty well.
I’d also made an effort to arrive early (I admit, partly to capture the sunrise if possible, but also partly to check out which vistas would work well with both our portrait shoot, and the video footage I was hoping to take).
It meant that I knew that using my old Helios 44-2 58mm Soviet Lens would give me some amazing ‘swirly bokeh’ 😍
These old lenses are fantastically sharp considering they were a budget construction.
A great many people dislike them, a similar number (I’m amongst them) love their rendering.
Sometimes, rather than try and give direction, it’s best to let an artist do what they do best, and just snap away!
I love this sequence of images as Susan gets into character 💚
When I started in portrait photography I would feel somewhat conscious of how weird myself and my model might appear, oddly though (considering I’m not a very flamboyant or extraverted person) it wasn’t too long before I realised that most people are more than interested in what you are doing and in fact will go out of their way to accommodate the strange people they come across in unusual parts of the moor 🤣
Cheeky smiles all around
Whilst we were shooting on the moor, I had devised a plan to get Susan to be a guinea pig in my experiments in videography by performing one of her poems for me.
Being the true professional, she was happy to don my costume made of sackcloth and leaf through my prop book 😍
Luckily, the bad sewing and haphazard construction methods are easily hidden whilst editing 😂
Although I’m very much still in the learning stage when it comes to moving pictures, I was quite pleased that I managed to juggle both aspects of camera work (not fantastically I hasten to add) however, I was more than happy with the results 💚
Much more importantly Susan and those who enjoy her poetry were also very vocal in their appreciation of the images, and the video.
Susan Taylor performing “Wolven” on the edge of Bench Tor on Dartmoor
If you’re interested in working with me on portrait images or creating videos, feel free to get in touch 😍
To see more of Susan’s work and to order her latest book please visit her web site 💚