Camelot

I have always been fascinated with anything Medieval, an age of romance and chivalry, of adventures  with Knights and fair maidens - yes I know that most of this is fiction and not fact but it does not stop me! I have read so much about King Arthur, been to Glastonbury and Tintagel and when Craig was younger I dragged him along to Camelot theme park just to watch the jousting! 

I wanted to challenge myself with my photography this summer - I love doing personal projects, it keeps me inspired, makes me react to new surroundings and experiences and I believe it improves my photography. So I thought about what I would really love to photograph and remembered the Knights at Camelot and thought I would be brave and ask if I could come along to get some behind the scenes images - thankfully Richard , who is the head of Lionheart Entertainments who organises the Jousting did not think I was to crazy to ask and invited me along. I met the beautiful horses including Dave - yes Dave - the best name ever for a horse! I met the Jesters, Knights and Squires and was able to get into the arena during the shows as long as I stayed away from the flaming rings, lances and horses hooves!

These are some of the images from the 2 days I spent with the team. After watching the shows and chatting to them all I have to say that I have completely admire them all, they are completely dedicated to producing a show that will entertain, amuse and astound the crowds, they adore the horses and they did not mind me wandering around, generally getting in the way and pointing a huge camera at them for 2 days asking a ton of questions!

Thank you to Richard for allowing me to come along an indulge my passion, and thank you to all the team at Camelot....... and yes.....I still always cheer for the Black Knight!


Please feel free to click on any of the images to see the larger version but remember these are all Copyright of Jo Rutherford Photography and must not be copied or downloaded - thank you 

                 

               

Curiouser and curiouser ...........

I love to work with a team - I love to collaborate on personal photography projects, I learn so much from the creative people that I work with and the crazy ideas that we all come up with and this photoshoot was no exception. 


I had teamed up with Donna Graham who now has the official title of the most creative person in the whole Universe, and Jen Brook , an extremely beautiful and talented model who hides her slightly bonkers side quite well most of the time! This was certainly a team effort with Jen coming up with ideas for the set ups and the 'look' of Alice and Donna styling and making the incredible outfits as well as doing Jens hair and make up. I found a fabulous cupcake maker in Southport who made the cakes....including a few extras for us to eat during the day and I also found a beautiful and enchanted garden nearby for us to use for the day 

We set up the Mad Hatters Tea party and if you ever need any vintage crockery give me a shout as I got a little obsessed in buying it recently! The story for the day was that Alice in her beautiful cream and blue dress arrives at the tea party and explores all the beautiful cakes .....but there is always 2 sides to every story and every character and we wanted to give Alice the chance to show her rebellious darker side


Feel free to click on any of the images to look at a larger version 


And if you have the urge to be Alice - then get in touch and we can make your dreams come true!

And just to show you how hard it is when we are working on a photoshoot.............

There are plenty of people to acknowledge ........

Donna Graham - https://www.facebook.com/donna.g.mua

Jen Brook - https://www.facebook.com/jenbrookmodel

Debby - https://www.facebook.com/charlottescupcakehouse

Louise and her family for making us so very welcome in the garden - and particularly to her gorgeous daughters who loved having Alice in their garden and made us fairy wands and drew all sorts of gorgeous pictures!

And we are all really proud to have had this shoot featured on a fabulous Blog

Brazilica Festival 2012

Last year I attended a workshop which was part of the Look 11 Liverpool Photography Festival .The workshop was about using photography to work with Community groups to develop not only skills in taking photographs but as a way of exploring their surroundings and issue that affect them. It was there that I met Jon Dawe, an incredibly talented social documentary photographer. 


Jon approached me earlier this year to see if I would be interested in being part of the Brazilica Festival in Liverpool this summer - this would involve working with a small group of aspiring photographers to facilitate them in covering the Festival and having the opportunity to exhibit their work afterwards. The Festival is organised by Orb Events and Jon and Steph Rooney from  This is Cirrus have been working with Orb events to create an opportunity for aspiring photographers to cover the Festival from the initial brief through to exhibiting their work. 


This is an extension of all the workshops that I have been involved with in the past where photographers get the opportunity to practice their skills and learn new ones, get advice and support and generally have a great time! The difference with this is that you get the opportunity to understand how to work to a specific brief, to try and meet the brief and also to have the chance to exhibit your work.


We were invited to the Launch of the Festival this week at the amazing Alma de Cuba restaurant in Liverpool and I managed to get some images behind the scenes , and of the catwalk show to showcase some of the costumes for this years Carnival parade 

If you think that you would like to take part in this workshop then head over to see more details http://expotbrazil12.eventbrite.com/


The website for Brazilica Festival is http://www.brazilicafestival.com/


Alma de Cuba can be found here  http://www.alma-de-cuba.com/homepage/