countessian

blood and butterflies

You know you’re not in Essex anymore when your house is full of glamorous girls wanting their picture taken and breaking out the fake blood. I’m not sure where the blood came from: there’s a theory that it was left behind by a visiting band called wallpaper who were friends of a former flatmate (who cheerily wished me a good trip back to the motherland and then immediately set about moving out and never bothered to say anything about it, but that’s another story) and has been sitting in the kitchen ever since. I do know it doesn’t come out of the carpet, cuz little Sally Fay of the Scarf People has been scrubbing at it to no avail. We think she maybe should’ve blotted, but blotting never feels like it’ll work, right?

We don’t usually roll around in blood, that’s true, but it isn’t that unusual at all to find impromptu photoshoots erupting at my house in the early hours of the morning, starring real LA women like people right songs about (English girls better have skills or cameras or something, to make up for their wonky teeth). The shoots get a little more involved each time (which reminds me — Sally Fay, I think that tripod’s still in the back yard) but the pictures keep coming out better and better, too.

It started out innocently enough, pictures of pretty outfits post-party eating pizza around the oven and posing with parasols. Then Brenda grabbed the camera and started rearranging my clothing (but I’m the photographer!) before Sally had the brainwave that everyone needed to wear tube dresses. At some point we started contemplating Roxy Music album cover recreation, but decided we didn’t have the right underwear. By the time we got tired of being covered with bamboo leaves and woodchip and headed back indoors, some kind of weird mania had overtaken my models, who started attempting ersatz Pilates on Sofia’s green rug. How that inspired fake blood and vampire biting I’ll probably never know, but we dived head-first down that rabbit hole nonetheless.

Anyway, some things don’t change. When Sally and Brenda passed out mid murder on the white fur rug and I ran to fetch Maria to laugh at them but found her fast asleep on the leopard-print settee, I realised that I’m destined to always be the last one left awake. It’s never been otherwise, thank God: when do non insomniacs find time to edit photos?

PS — see dita dimone for jpg magazine for another pic.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 7th, 2007 at 9:17 am. It is filed under documentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.