Emily - January 2019

Added 1547723545 by Steve Butler.

Leighton House Museum, a 'private palace of art' and former home of Victorian artist Frederic Leighton in London's Holland Park, does not normally permit photography, so it was a real treat to be able to participate yesterday in an LPS shoot within some of the museum's dramatic spaces. The ‘Arab Hall’, designed to showcase Leighton’s huge collection of sixteenth-century Middle Eastern glazed tiles is particularly amazing, but sadly so subtly lit on a dreary January morning that it would require a better photographer (or at least a better prepared one) to capture its magnificence along with the portraiture I was there to shoot (to protect the paintings, no flash photography is permitted, but LEDs are okay).

However, after ascending a dramatic staircase, the first floor offered more possibilities with a number of living spaces and galleries more generously lit by larger windows. In particular, I kept being drawn to small single bedroom with blue wallpaper, bearskin rug and old brass bed. Just behind the bed frame was an area with a blue wooden door and a single small pendant light with decorative shade and low-wattage tungsten bulb hanging just above head height. Three times I went back to that room, determined to take at least one image that I would be pleased with, but it was only when I got home that I figured out most likely why I was so enamoured by that space in particular. Don't know if you've noticed, but there seems to be a particular trend at the moment in TV dramas and films to colour grade everything teal and orange. It's pretty much ubiquitous (at least one program I watched on TV last night [Mrs Wilson] uses it extensively). Guess I just subconsciously find that particular combination attractive now.

So here is my first image of amazing and lovely Emily in the blue room. Teal background and warm orange glow from the pendant light just out of frame above her head. ❤️