One of my photography prompts for this week is to “describe a popular movie plot”. Now, underneath my expansive folder of photoshoot concepts, I have several different movies whose cinematography I was just blown away by, and would one day like to recreate certain stills, or at least evoke a similar feeling. However, when I looked through them to decide which one I wanted to attempt for the prompt this week, I realized a lot of them I just didn’t have the necessary styling for. Rather than waste time and money searching for the perfect wardrobe and location, I decided to instead search for a movie that I already had these elements for, ready at my fingertips.
I landed on the well-loved classic of Cinderella.
For my inspiration, I looked to stills of both Disney’s 1950 animated version as well as their 2015 live action version. Here are some of the pictures I loved the most and want to capture in my photoshoot:
I found the perfect location, only a half hour away, in The Bishop’s Garden. Bishop’s Garden is a garden located by the National Cathedral, and has incredible greenery as well as fountains, gazebos, stairs, and a castle-looking cathedral in the background. I determined this would be perfect to capture images of Cinderella’s time at the castle, both enjoying the ball as well as running from the palace. Here are some photos I found online of the gardens to give you a better idea.
Of course, the space may look a little different, but given it’s spring and most things have begun blossoming, I’m pretty sure the space will work just fine. I also already have two dress options that I can choose between or mix together– my white graduation dress as well as the blue prom dress I used in my butterfly “transitions” photoshoot. I’m also recruited Kate to give me a few hours this weekend in between her studying for APs to model. We ended up deciding on the white graduation dress layered with a white top with puffy sleeves. Worse comes to worse, I can always color mask the outfit to make it more blue if I ended up preferring that.
I ended up doing the photoshoot on Saturday. The gardens open at 8 am each day, so we planned on waking up a bit early to get ready for the photoshoot and drive down there. However, rain in the morning hindered that plan, so we ended up getting ready and leaving around noon. In addition to the outfit, I gave Kate some dainty accessories– a pearl necklace, delicate gem-dropped earrings, and even a golden tiara.
When we arrived at the National Cathedral gardens, I was beyond happy about the location. And, while it was chilly and a bit wet due to the rain, the gardens looked even more lush because of it. It was a little bit busy, but we were still able to capture some very magical looking shots with the cathedral in the background.
Remember, these are my pre-edit photos, so I haven’t 100% decided whether to color mask the dress or not yet. That being said, I’m really happy with the turnout of the photos at this stage, and can’t wait to edit them! It may not be exactly reminiscent of Cinderella, but I think they hold a lot of the same magic in them.
Until next time!
EAC Photos 