Pt. 2 The Lake - Sky Full Of Song BTS

Hello again, long time no see!

Apologies for the slight delay of part two of this blog post - we have been incredibly busy here at All About Audrey, which is amazing of course, but doesn’t leave an awful lot of time for writing. 

If you haven’t already, before reading this post I’d recommend you check out part one of our Sky Full Of Song photoshoot blog here. 

Now that we’re all caught up, let’s get into our second half of the day!

So, we had successfully completed our trip to Arundel Castle, had a delicious lunch from a local cafe, and our next stop was Swanbourne Lake. 

If you have never been there yourself, Swanbourne is an idyllic, quaint lake with beautiful countryside vistas surrounding it, and the enticing opportunity to take row-boats out by yourself for a wonderful afternoon in the sunshine. 

Before the shoot, we had envisioned shots of our gorgeous model, Laura, lounging out on one of these row-boats, basking in the sun, showing off our equally gorgeous new collection of clothes. 

So, we arrive at the lake, turn round the corner to take a look, and…

…where are the boats?

Right by the entrance to Swanbourne, there is the small boat house out of which they operate the rental boats, and it was closed for business, not a soul in sight. The boats were there, but instead of being moored close by for easy access as they normally are, they were seemingly marooned in the middle of the lake with nobody using them.

Oh no. 

After a quick, panicked google search, we soon realised that we should have done some more research beforehand, as the boats are seemingly only available to use on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. 

It was a Wednesday.

At that point, we simply had to take this as a sign from the universe that we were not meant to be on those boats on that fateful Wednesday afternoon, and began to improvise. 

Luckily, the setting of Swanbourne is already picturesque enough that the shoot would of course not be ruined, it would just take a little more creativity than we were prepared for. 

After a quick change of clothing in some public toilets, we situated ourselves for the first round of photos on a nearby little wooden jetty.

I personally love these photos - there is something incredibly sweet and innocent about the framing of Laura sitting, peacefully reading by the water, with the swans swimming over to keep her company, that matches the girlish energy of the Catherine Blouses so perfectly. 

(Thank you to our manager Dom for donating us his incredibly precious special edition copy of Florence + The Machine’s book for these pictures - we took very good care of it for you.)

We were incredibly happy with the pictures we had taken of the blouses, so decided to move on to a new location not far away to shoot some of the other whimsical dresses in the collection. 

After purchasing some overpriced food to feed the ducks, we wandered over to a little pebbled area right next to the lake to get some product shots of the Charlotte Dresses, the Eliza Maxi Dress and the pink Venus Wrap Top. 

At this point, rather than trekking all the way back to the toilets to change, we simply found some bushes to hide behind so as to not lose our spot to some wandering tourists, and did our very best to protect Laura’s modesty! She is an absolute trooper. 

I think my absolute favourite shots of the day are the ones below. There is something so effortlessly magical about this scenery, and of Laura walking around gracefully like a mythical lady of the lake. The utterly peaceful nature of the lake complimented the fairy-tale-like clothes so excellently, and I’m incredibly proud to have taken these pictures. 

Satisfied that we had gotten everything we needed, we decided to take a short wander round to the other side of the lake to finish off the rest of the pieces for the day. 

The opposite side of the lake offered up a new energy for the photographs - with stunning woodland, shady trees to stand beneath, all with a small opening to the wondrous lake behind. 

We began with the Harriet Lace Robe Dresses, which I think turned out incredibly well - with the stunning bright colours of the pieces practically glowing against the natural greenery. We also decided to showcase some of our timeless Sierra Wide Brim Hats for these outfits, which, in my opinion, worked brilliantly. 

In addition, whilst there, we took some photos of our Rebecca Maxi Dress, and our Laura Maxi Dress - neither of which are in this particular collection, but came out beautifully all the same. (Yes, we did name the second dress after Laura herself as she looked so wonderful wearing it.)

Having been to Swanbourne virtually every weekend of my childhood, I knew that there was a little boathouse around the corner which would provide the perfect backdrop for our final pieces of the day, the Iris Blouses.

We made our way over there, blouses in tow, and quickly realised that the boathouse was being occupied by a young, seemingly teenage couple. Realising we only had three more pieces to photograph, and that it was getting very close to sunset and therefore time was running out for us, Tallulah mustered up enough bravery to ask the couple if it would be okay for us to use the space for no more than ten minutes. They were luckily incredibly gracious in being evicted from their romantic evening, and let us use the setting!

Feeling guilty at what we had just done, we were incredibly efficient and got the pictures of the blouses finished in record time. I think that despite the countdown, these photos came out wonderfully, and showcase the blouses incredibly well.

As you can see in the pictures, Laura was very precariously balanced on a big rock in the water, and did almost fall in on numerous occasions, but we managed to get it all done whilst staying dry. 

And there we have it! We had successfully taken all of the pictures we set out to, all within the timeframe we had to do so, and thus made our long and traffic-filled journey back to Brighton. 

It was an incredible day out, and I honestly have to pinch myself at the fact that going on a fun day out to Arundel is my actual job. 

I want to say a big thanks to everyone - to the wonderful Audrey for providing us with an absolutely dreamy collection of clothes to shoot, to Dom for organising and imagining up the setting, to Tallulah for being an incredible photographer and keeping the energy high all day, to Laura for being an absolute pro at modelling and getting changed in very public settings, and to me, for managing to edit over 200 photos in one day to get the collection live in time!

And of course to you, dear reader, for getting to the end of this post and for choosing to shop with us here at All About Audrey!

Until the next shoot,

Josie xx