Walpurgis Night is April 30th each year, the night before the pagan festival of Beltane. In Germany, Medieval and Renaissance tradition held that during Walpurgis Night (Walpurgisnacht), witches celebrated their sabbath and evil powers were at their strongest. On this night, the witches meet on Brocken, the highest peak of the Harz Mountains in central Germany. Villagers would light fires on the hillsides to protect themselves and their stock. In Bavaria, it is sometimes called Hexennacht, literally meaning “Witches Night”.

The Shoot

Our concept for our Myth and Magic shoot was thus; Morticia Addams had invited several friends to dinner to celebrate the witches sabbath. Her guests are three witches, a vampire family, the Grim Reaper, and Morticia’s serving girl Dorothy. This was the largest cast I had put together since our Addams Family shoot.

Morticia

Morticia is a witch, and her family tree can be traced back to Salem, Massachusetts. She is the matriarch of the mysterious and decidedly odd Addams family. Slim, with ashen skin and long flowing straight black hair, Morticia commonly wears black hobble dresses. These match her hair, with tightly form-fitting, with a fringe of octopus-like cloth “tentacles” at the lower hem. As is her tradition, on Walpurgis Eve, she is at her ancestral holiday home high in the Bavarian hills. Seeing that dinner is planned, Morticia has invited her dearest friends to meet with her over a few fresh “wines” to celebrate the Hexennacht.

Morgan Le Fey

Morgana is fresh from meddling in King Arthurs business. She is the possessor of the Philosopher’s Stone that grants eternal life. Morgana is also the oldest and most experienced witch to grace Morticia’s table.

Marie Catherine Laveau

Known as the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans, Marie is a voodoo practitioner. A beautiful and wise woman, she holds the rank of the Supreme witch.

Sybil Leek

Sybil was taught witchcraft as a child by Alastair Crowley. One of the most famous witches in modern history, she has written many well-known books such as Diary of a Witch, Sybil Leek’s Book of Herbs, and Star Speak: Your Body Language from the Stars.

Marius De Romanus

Marius is a 2000-year-old Vampire. He was born in Rome in 30BC. Abducted by Druids when he was approximately 40 yrs old, he was made into a vampire by the God of the Grove just before the Feast of Samhain. In 1482 during a visit to Rome, he fell in love with the Venetian courtesan Bianca Solderini, subsequently making her a vampire.

Bianca Solderini

Bianca is an Italian vampire born in Florence, Italy, in the late 1470s. A Venetian courtesan, she is the partner of Marius, her maker.

Grim Reaper

The Grim Reaper is the Lord of Death. He carries a scythe that was traditionally used to harvest crops. However, in his case, he uses it to harvest souls. His signature and most mysterious skill is separating souls from the body. Most stories claim that this spectre’s mere presence will begin to draw the soul from the body. Then, when you take your last breath, he collects your soul with a well-practiced cut of his razor-sharp blade.

Harry the ‘ghoul’

Harry, who can only remember his first name, has been taken in by Bianca and Marius after finding him in Hogwarts’ ruins.

Dorothy the Possessed

Oz wasn’t quite like it’s been portrayed in books, and Dorothy has a devil of a time getting home. Morticia has provided her with a haven while she ‘recovers’.

Our Set

Our backdrops were four large polyester velvet backdrops. We set up two creating a corner of the interior – with our table in front, another two off to the side depicting the house’s exterior – and the forest they walked through to get there. The table was set with candles, potions, a spellbook and various drinks.

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Our Shoot

Last week, the admin team from Victorian Photographers Collective’s joined four cosplayers at Melbourne’s Docklands precinct for a photoshoot. Our cosplay characters were Batman, Nightwing, Orphan and Red Hood.

Batman

Easily one of the most recognisable of the fictional superheroes is Batman. Scarred by the murder of his parents when he was just a boy, he wages endless war on criminals of his city. Batman is Vengeance, the Dark Knight, the Caped Crusader. He has assembled a team of fellow superheroes known as the Justice League and has a huge arsenal of weapons and technology at his disposal. By day he is wealthy playboy Bruce Wayne. By night he dons his cape and cowl and patrols the streets and rooftops of his city

Nightwing

Dick Grayson was taken in and adopted by Batman when his circus acrobat family were murdered. Bruce shared the secret of his alter ego with Dick, training the young boy to be his sidekick Robin. However, as Dick became older, he tired of playing second string to Batman. He struck out on his own as Nightwing while remaining within the Justice League, and true to what Batman taught him.

Red Hood

Adopted by Batman as a child and moulded to be the second Robin, Jason Todd was killed by the Joker. However, he was brought back to life via the Lazarus pit and the warping of time and reality. However, deeply traumatised by his violent death, he returned an unhinged vigilante killer bent on revenge. Jason and Batman fell out over their vastly different views on crime-fighting. This led Jason to part ways with Batman and take on the new identity of Red Hood. He then went on to form his own team known as the Outlaws. Over time the Red Hood learned to control his rage, and he and Batman entered into an uneasy alliance.

Orphan

Cassandra Cain’s alter ego Orphan, was trained from birth by her assassin parents to be the ultimate killing machine. As she grew older, she escaped from her tyrannical father to Gotham city. Here, after proving herself to the Justice League, Batman took her under his wing. With Batman and she was taught to use her skills for good.

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The Story

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland tell the story of a young girl who falls asleep in a meadow and dreams she saw and followed a white rabbit down a rabbit hole. During her time in wonderland, she has amazing and bizarre adventures, meeting many strange characters such as the Cheshire cat, blue caterpillar, the knave of hearts, Red Queen, White Queen, and of course, the tea party with the Mad Hatter.

The books have inspired countless films, performances, and ballets over the years and remain popular to this day.

Our concept shoot

We gathered our cast together for our concept shoot of a mad hatters tea party. Alice, plus the Red and White Queens, Mad Hatter, and White Rabbit, all participated. We took a little from the original story, melded it with Tim Burton’s version from the Disney film, and centred it around the tea party. I sourced the backdrops and costumes for our cast, and members contributed props and chairs to complete our scenes.

Alice

“I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it.”

~Alice

Alice, a fictional character living in Victorian England, gives her age as seven and a half in the sequel, Through The Looking Glass. She is believed to be based on Alice Liddell, the daughter of the author’s friends.

Alice is a young girl with shoulder-length blonde hair and beautiful blue eyes and wears a blue Victorian dress. Alice can memorise things quickly and recites poems and rhymes with ease.

The Mad Hatter

“I am under no obligation to make sense to you.”

~The Mad Hatter

While the books never referred to the Hatter as the ‘mad hatter’ because he was portrayed as ‘mad’, the title stuck. The mad hatter is stuck in a never-ending tea party as he angered the red queen and was sentenced to death for ‘murdering time’. While he escaped that fate, he is forever halted at 6.00 pm forever.

The White Rabbit

“Oh, my fur and whiskers! I’m late, I’m late, I’m late!”

The White Rabbit

Famous for his quote, “I’m late! I’m late! For a very important date!” the white rabbit is the first character Alice encounters in Wonderland.

The Red Queen

“I dont know what your mean by your way, all the ways about here belong to me..”

~The Red Queen

Our Red Queen is closer to Tim Burton’s version, where she is a combination of the Red Queen and Queen of Hearts. She is arrogant, bad-tempered, demanding, and fond of calling for people’s heads to be cut off when they displease her.

The White Queen

“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

~The White Queen

Like the Red Queen, the White Queen is based upon a chess piece. The White Queen is the rightful ruler but has been usurped by her sister, the Red Queen, who has claimed the throne as her own.

Around 20 members of the Victorian Photographers Collective attended our shoot – plus helpers and cast throughout the day. Everyone had a fabulous time and their photographs coming out of the shoot looked great.

Our Cast

• Amelia – Alice
• Anjel Taylor – Mad Hatter
• Emily Reinhard – Red Queen
• Jess Garrett – White Queen
• Mark Busuttil – White Rabbit

Props

• Backdrops – Bevlea Ross
• Cakes – Carole Perry
• Chairs – Therese Kidd and Mark Busuttil
• China – Bevlea Ross, Kellye Wilson, Susan Martin, Glenda Laing

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Flappers of the 1920s were young women known for their energetic freedom, embracing a lifestyle viewed by many at the time as outrageous, immoral or downright dangerous. Now considered the first generation of independent American women, flappers pushed barriers in economic, political, and sexual freedom for women.

1920S history

Our Cast

Our four flappers were Jess Garrett, Emily Reinhard, Lisa Willmore, Anjel Taylor, and one gangster – Boris Struk. We also lucked out with Bob, the Conductor who took charge of our vintage tram. He proved to be an absolute hoot in front of the camera. To say there was a lot of laughter and shenanigans is an understatement. It was a fabulous, fun shoot – and after months of lockdown, it was just what we all needed.

Ballarat Tramway Museum

We booked a tram for the day through the Ballarat Tramway Museum. Our tram was a lovingly restored W2 class tram that first went into service in 1926 before being withdrawn from service in 1982. It was then purchased by the Melbourne Tramcar Preservation Society, where it was restored to prime condition. The tram is currently on loan from them to Ballarat Tramway Museum.

We shot around and on the vintage tram for a couple of hours before they took us for a ride through the streets of Ballarat, in “our” tram to another outdoor location. Sam and Bob from the museum were fabulous and went out of their way to make our day a success.

The 1920s also brought about Prohibition, the result of the 18th Amendment ending legal alcohol sales. Combined with an explosion of popularity for jazz music and jazz clubs, the stage was set for speakeasies, which offered illegally produced and distributed alcohol.

1920 History

Many thanks to our fabulous models and the Ballarat Tramway Museum for a fabulous day.

Entry to the museum is free. The Ballarat Vintage Tramway is located in the Botanical Gardens on the western shore of Lake Wendouree.

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Mermen

The male equivalent of a mermaid is a merman. Although sightings of mermen were less common than mermaids, there is still a lot of traditions and folklore about them.

Our Cast

Fortunately, for our mermaid shoot, our three mermaids and one merman weren’t dangerous. But like an actual mermaid, they did all have great difficulty walking over the sand with their tails on 😉

Our cast for the shoot were Jess Garrett, Jess Carolyn, Emily Reinhard and Michael Nguyen. All were great sports perching on hard, sharp rocks or flapping about in the water.

Jess Carolyn was our pregnant mermaid with a baby mermaid due in the next few weeks.

The day was warm, so they were all more than happy to hop into the water for us this time.

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Planning…….

Planning had been in full swing for months. We were ordering backdrops, sourcing costumes, members were raiding their homes for props, and in recent days, they were baking cakes. All of which made our ‘mad hatter tea party’ table look awesome.

Setup started at 9am with the arrival of our crew armed with props and costumes. The Red and White Queens arrived and went to makeup with Jess Garrett. Mad Hatter was in makeup with Cassie Wright Kirk.

With our white rabbit in a latex mask, no makeup was needed for him. Our Queens and Mad Hatter also had wigs to wear – so no time was lost doing hair. While our models were in makeup, we got to work setting up our sets and backdrops.

Our plan was to have a green screen plus three printed backdrops in use throughout the day. The new backdrops had arrived and they were much better quality than what we used previously, plus they were a huge 3000 x 3600.

The ‘Shoot’

Off with their heads!

Alice in Wonderland

“Oh, my fur and whiskers! I’m late, I’m late, I’m late! Oh, dear, oh dear, oh dear! I’m here, I should be there.

Alice in Wonderland

“It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.”

Alice in Wonderland

“Everyone wants some magical solution for their problem and everyone refuses to believe in magic.”

Alice in Wonderland

The hard work all came together on the day and everyone had a fabulous shoot. Next month we do it all again for Take 2!

Our Cast:

Mad Hatter: Jess Carolyn

Red Queen: Emily Reinhard

White Queen: Lisa Willmore

White Rabbit: Heath Garrett

Alice: Amelia Waddell

Behind The Scenes

Makeup by Cassie Wright Kirk and Jess Garrett

Cakes by Carole Perry and Deb Hamilton

Concept & Styling by Bevlea Ross

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OK.. granted… not everybody thinks of mermaids on rocks, on the seashore. But photographers are a little outside the square. The thought popped into my head when I was planning a seascape shoot. What to do that makes it a bit different… hmmm …just add a mermaid or two.

I sourced their tails and wigs, added headbands. We chose a nice spot down Sandringham and arranged for a sunset time slot. Naturally, the sunset was extremely ordinary, a nice bit of colour but no clouds to bounce light off. However, being as I am not a purist, I am happy to swap skies out if it improves the image. I know, I’m a philistine.

Both our models, Jess Carolyn and Jess Garrett were awesome to work with. They had to shimmy and roll across the sand, as walking with that tail on, was out of the question. We photographed them on various rocks and on the seashore, before asking them to get into the water for the last half hour.

The water was cold. Very cold. But they were total professionals and troopers and got in the water. Gasped in shock as the cold water hit them. Then smiled for shots between the cold waves.

A huge thank you to both girls. You made an idea a reality and your cheerful personalities made it a fun night.

Blue Mermaid: Jess Carolyn aka Miss Fairyfloss

Pink Mermaid: Jess Garrett

Spray Tans by Gorjess Beauty Mobile Spray Tans

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I sourced costumes, gathered models and makeup artists and with the help of other admins of VPC and members, we set up sets and props while the models were getting made up. Then the fun started! 🙂

We had three clown girls.. and their leader, the evil master clown. Emily had studied ballet so she brought her ballet shoes along and went ‘on point’ for us.

“The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not.”

The Gatekeeper was Jess. She checks out the prospective victims and allows them entry.

“We lead strange lives, chasing our dreams around from place to place.”

Heath was our evil clown. We had to lead him around by the hand all day as he was blind inside that mask hehehe.

And there are never really endings, happy or otherwise.

The Night Circus

Lisa was our lure to keep the unwitting visitors. One look at the ‘lure’ and they were lost forever.

“Life takes us to unexpected places sometimes. The future is never set in stone, remember that.”

the night circus

“But dreams have ways of turning into nightmares.”

The Night Circus

 

All quotes are from The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Our Cast

Emily Reinhard – IG: Emily Reinhard

Heath Garrett – IG: Heath Garrett

Jess Ami – FB: Jess Ami Modelling

Lisa Willmore – IG: WillyGarns

HMUA – Kelly Iacono – IG: AnnieHazel Face Painting and Kara Moulden-White

Sets & Props

Bevlea Ross – Bevlea Ross Photography

Therese Kidd

Lighting

Neewar Led Barn Door Lights and Godox AD600 – provided by Bevlea Ross, Pio Marcelaine and Michael Mclean

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A speakeasy, also called a blind pig or blind tiger, is an illicit establishment that sells alcoholic beverages, or a retro style bar that replicates aspects of historical speakeasies.Speakeasy bars came into prominence in the United States during the Prohibition era (1920–1933, longer in some states). During that time, the sale, manufacture, and transportation (bootlegging) of alcoholic beverages was illegal throughout the United States. Speakeasies largely disappeared after Prohibition ended in 1933.

Wikipedia

…… it was prohibition time, the booze went underground, warehouses and garages became seedy gambling dens, the mobsters would meet for high stakes card games, the dames followed the money and power…. the speakeasy was born

When Prohibition came into effect on January 17, 1920, thousands of formerly legal saloons and bars across the country closed down. Those wanting a drink could only buy liquor from licensed druggists for “medicinal” purposes, clergymen for “religious” reasons or illegal bootleggers. The other option was private, unlicensed barrooms, nicknamed “speakeasies”. The name came because of how low you had to speak the “password” to gain entry, so as not to be overheard by law enforcement.

Organised criminals quickly saw an opportunity to exploit the new lucrative speakeasies. Clubs welcomed women in as patrons. Due to prohibition and bootlegging, organized crime in America exploded. Al Capone, leader of the Chicago Outfit, made a fortune supplying illegal beer and hard liquor to thousands of speakeasies he controlled in the late 1920s

Our Gangsters in the 1920s Speakeasy Shoot were Mark and Bill, and the ‘molls’ were Emily and Sarah. Feather boas, pearls and guns abounded!

Our Cast

Gangsters: Mark Busuttil and Bill Holmer

Dames: Emily Reinhard and Sarah AW

HMUA: Miss Margarita Monday

Props: Kellye Wilson, Therese Kidd, Bill Holmer, Bevlea Ross

Lighting Deanne Holmer

Concept and Styling: Bevlea Ross

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Deanne and I set about gathering the photographers. With that in place, we came up with a cast of characters, with some photographers doubling as models.  We decided to schedule the shoot for November to the plethora of props and the like avail as it was post-Halloween.

Preparations

Over the coming months, Deanne created and sewed Addams Family costumes, plus making available a wedding gown we could use. So our cast grew to include a bride and groom. Then we had to have a bridesmaid (I never know when enough is enough 😉 Carole sourced props from op shop crawls, I made some at home, we hunted around for a suitable studio, found one, then it fell through, so moved onto the next one. 

At the last minute, we ‘lost’ our groom, so we did a cast change with our current Lurch swapping to the groom role and Bill stepping in as the new Lurch. Roy even went as far as shaving off his beard for the Gomez role!  All in all, a lot of fun and well worth the work that went into it. though it will be a few months before I attempt another 🙂

Credits

Photographers

Bevlea Ross

Website www.rustyramblers.com  Facebook Rusty-Ramblers

Deanne Holmer

Deanne Holmer Photography  Instagram  Deanne Holmer

Our Models

Morticia – Kirstyn Perry

Gomez – Roy Powell

Wednesday Addams – Brooklyn Garrett

Lurch – Bill Holmer

Fester – Kyle Donovan

The Bride – Lucy Formosa-Mort

The Groom – Heath Garrett

The Bridesmaid –  Amber Formosa-Mort

Grandma – Ann Jeffre

HMUA

Michaela Hannan – Gomez and Fester

Kirstyn Garrett – Lurch and Wednesday

Costumes

Wednesday and Bridesmaid costumes by Deanne Holmer

Fester costume by Bevlea Ross

Wedding Dress by Maggie Soterro

Cakes 

Carole Perry

Staging

Bevlea Ross

Thank you to Julie, Lisa and Suzanne, who also contributed to the prop stash

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