This year our charity work involved working with Alopecia sufferers. The project began with a request from a friend who has Alopecia. Shannon asked if I would photograph her without a wig…..my answer was naturally ‘Yes’. I have known Shannon for some time and although I was aware that she had Alopecia I had not seen her without a wig.
A date was arranged for her to come over to my studio. In the meantime Shannon asked if another friend who suffers from Alopecia could join us for the shoot. Unlike Shannon who has had Alopecia since she was a teenager, Marie has only had it for a few months and apart from close family no one knew that Marie has Alopecia.
The shoot had some tense moments but we captured some amazing images of these two beautiful people and at the end of the session both Shannon and Marie felt that they had re-gained some of their confidence and self worth. While chatting after the shoot I mentioned that I would be happy to offer free photo shoots to any other Alopecia sufferers and so the Alopecia awareness/confidence shoots Facebook page was created. Within minutes of the page going live we had requests from people all over the UK asking to come for a photo shoot.
The next step in this process, for which we have the thank my wife Geraldine for, was that maybe we could shoot an Alopecia charity calender featuring models who all have Alopecia and what a brilliant idea. The project culminated in a weekend photo shoot that saw our house and studio descended on by a whole team of makeup artists, a lady that makes the most amazing head pieces and a group of complete strangers who have Alopecia. Together we worked our magic and produced a fantastic set of themed calender images to rival anything else I have seen.
Everyone involved in the production of the calendar gave their time and expertise for free, and sponsorship was raised to pay for the printing costs so every penny will go to Alopecia UK.
These are a couple of the images that feature in the calender, if you would like to buy one please contact me.
To the ladies who were our models, I have one more thing to say to you all…….You are stronger and braver than you think you are, after taking part in this there is nothing you cannot do !! Love Life ❤️