Roisin

As an aspiring photographer, I'm always stuck for people to photograph as they never like your photos of them. Not because you have done something wrong, but because they don't like themselves. There's no photo in the world that's going to change that, so I was not really expecting any reply when I set my Facebook status to "wants a model". But two days later I got a message through from a girl called Roisín. I'd never met her, but I'd seen some photos of her, she was a college friend of my cousin. She was unbelievably beautiful, a natural blonde with hair out of a shampoo ad! It curled loosely on its own and had a volume that just surrounded her face and made you look at her huge, bright blue eyes and her perfect smile. She also seemed more of a class act than most. Whilst she was clearly a girl who liked a good time, and was no stranger to alcohol, there were no photos of her in compromising positions, no photos of her flashing her knickers, no photos of her on the toilet, no photos of her snogging other girls, etc. etc.

I replied to her message as soon as I could, and over the course of three or four more messages we thrashed out an appointment for her to come and see me one Saturday. I pointed her in the direction of my online portfolio which contained my limited selection of portrait work. One wedding I'd done as a favour, some mediocre photos of an ex doing implied nude, and a paid model in a 'cocktail' dress who I'd shot as part of a camera club evening some years ago. She seemed to like the photos of the model and the bridal stuff so agreed that she would bring with her an evening gown she'd just worn to the college summer ball, a couple of her going out dresses, and a few other bits and pieces. She got confirmation from my cousin, that I was who I said I was, that I wasn't some psycho, and the date was set.

I set my 'studio' up in the dining room of my house, the room is large, well lit naturally from a skylight and a large patio door, and has a lovely polished tile floor and a marble table with some designer chairs in it. The dining room is at the back of the house, and the house itself backs onto a large garden and then onto some woodland. The back of the house and the garden are completely concealed from view as I live in the only house on a road of bungalows and we are pretty well in the sticks anyway! I fussed around for the part of the morning, made sure the camera was charged, all the spare batteries were charged or charging, calibrated the white balance on the camera, checked out some test exposures made sure the battery lights were charged, cleaned the reflectors, and umbrellas, made sure the remote trigger was working and then put the kettle on.

Roisín arrived about 5 minutes early, marking herself as a cut above most models who think the world revolves around, and can wait for, them. When I went out to meet her taxi I could see she was a bit nervous, she waved nervously, her smile was fixed and she was ungainly getting out of the car. She looked be to carrying 3 dresses in bags, a large clutch bag and a pull-along suitcase. She fumbled getting her purse out and I stepped in, asking the driver how much and passing him a note. I told him to keep the change. He acknowledged my generosity and left. I introduced myself and she fumbled some more offering me her hand to shake, dropping her clutch bag in the process. She retrieved the bag awkwardly and introduced herself as well, now looking embarrassed as well as nervous. I offered to take some of her baggage from her, she accepted silently, the fixed grin relaxing slightly. I took the dress bags from her and put them over my arm and indicated that she should follow me.

It struck me now she was in my company just how tiny she was. Most of the photos I'd seen of her had been with her girlfriends, very few with men, and she just looked a little bit shorter than them. Before meeting her I'd have probably said she was 5'6" and about 110 - 115lbs. In the flesh she was much more petite, maybe only 5' and perhaps 90-100lbs. She had nicely curved hips and looked to have about a 32c chest. Her curled blonde hair and huge eyes were even more appealing in person. She was wearing a white skinny fit tshirt with no logo, a light coloured, pleated, faux suede skirt that skimmed her knees and 2" cork wedge heeled sandals. She was wearing make up, but had very much gone for the 'less is more' approach; Just a little mascara and a subtle lipstick. She was going to photograph beautifully.

I led her inside and she looked around a lot, not in a panicked way, but just taking everything in. The house is not huge by any means, its a 1950's suburban, detached, 4 bedroom house. It's main features are an imposing hallway with an original, real oak floor and the big dining room I talked about before. I put the dresses down on a sideboard in the hall and walked through into the kitchen, the kettle had boiled and gone cold so I put it on again. I pulled one of the chairs away from the small kitchen table and offered it to her. She sat and we finally exchanged a few words as I made a coffee.

"Tea? Coffee? Something stronger?" I offered.

"Ohhh, tea pleease, white, one sugar" she replied, accenting the 'oh' and 'please' as though tea might just save her life!

I made the tea for her and she continued looking around, peering through the kitchen doors into the dining room where the lights were set up, into the living room with its two plain, but comfortable sofas and modest LCD TV, and back into the hall.

"Well" I said, "how does this measure up to what you were expecting"

"The house is lovely" she replied, "Simple but comfortable. Becky said you were doing pretty well for yourself"

Becky is my cousin, and its not the photographs that are buying me a house its licensing patents on half a dozen specialist electronic items for the film industry. With other people paying to use my designs it leaves me free to spend time and money on my hobbies; Photography and classic motorbikes.

"I don't know what Becky has told you about me" I said, "but let me just fill you in, from the horses mouth so to speak. I'm 30. I was married for a while, well, three years. You know how it goes, out of uni with a 2:1 in electronics, into an OK job at 21, married at 23. redundant from my job later that year, started my own company, designed some good stuff, licensed it out, marriage fell apart, divorced at 26 but with money enough to be comfortable."

"Becky told me your ex was a bitch..." Roisín interrupted

"I don't think that's quite fair", I said "She wasn't very nice to me, but I wasn't at home much then, she wanted more from me than I could give and instead of being straight with me she played games. We both ended up saying and doing things we regretted. We are kind of OK now, but we aren't ever going to be friends. Fortunately while we were divorcing I got the patents through on the stuff I'd designed and I started getting cheques in the post. I could pay her off without losing the house. I've been doing pretty much whatever I felt like ever since.

"Doing what you like sounds cool" Roisín mused.

"Trust me, it isn't all fun and games, I still have to do quite a lot of work and its work I'd rather not be doing, all the legal junk that goes along with letting other people use your stuff. Making sure they don't copy it and market it as theirs, making sure what they produce is up to spec, its all pretty boring." I tailed off. "Anyway, what about you? I don't know much about you at all, except what I can see here, you're 19, you go to college with my cousin and... what?" I invited her to continue.

"I'm 19, I go to college with your cousin" Roisín picked up "I'm studying drama, but I don't really want to be an actress, I'm more interested in costume and set but there isn't anywhere round here that does that stuff. So i'm doing a bit of all of it and I'll specialise later. I like going clubbing with my friends, I like to drink vodka in new and interesting ways, I'm single and I'm not really looking for anyone, not for anything serious at least, and I'm not a big fan of one night stands. Everyone thinks girls are the the needy ones, but boys are terrible, you let them get past second base and they think they own you... why can't they just keep it light and friendly..." she tailed off.

"I know what you mean" I responded. "when I was your age it wasn't such a problem, but now getting past 30, every girl my age can hear her biological clock ticking away and she wants to get married and start having babies... I can't stand babies... is that a bit harsh?"

"Nahh" Roisín took a big gulp of tea " I don't like kids much, I've got two older sisters who have toddlers and I have to be quite rude sometimes to get out of baby sitting. I guess I just don't do dependency. From boys or babies... Sometimes they're too similar for comfort. No offence"

She looked slightly embarrassed again.

"None taken, but just for the record I'm not a dependant bloke, I can cook well enough, I can operate a hoover and I know how the washing machine works. I don't need a woman around the house to mother me. I have a parent who visits for that!"

She smiled and I knew we had an understanding.

"Did you have anything in mind for this modelling session?" I queried her.

"Not really, I mean, I didn't know what you expected of me. I assumed you wanted me to model because I'm considered quite attractive and I, you know, kinda fill my clothes" She pushed her shoulders forward to create more cleavage. "I wasn't sure if you were expecting me to..." She paused, relaxed her shoulders and looked into her tea. "Ummm, un-fill my clothes"

"You weren't sure if I expected you to strip off?" I sought clarification.

"Yeah, I've never done that sort of thing, I'm not sure I wouldn't, but I'm kinda a bit shy about it all" she looked into her tea again.

"I'd be lying if I said I hadn't thought about it and you are a really, really pretty girl. If you feel OK about it, I'm not going to stop you. You've volunteered and its entirely up to you what we do." The last thing I wanted to do was seem pushy this early on

Roisín smiled at the compliment and looked quite relieved.

"Why don't you show me what you've brought with you, and I'll show you around a bit more and we can see what gels" I invited. "do you mind if I get the camera and just shoot some photos while we look at outfits, I'd like to get some candid pics."

Roisín shrugged and gesticulated a bit towards the dining room, I assumed it was OK. I went to get the camera while she went out to the hall and picked up the dress bags and brought them into the kitchen. I checked the camera over one more time in the kitchen as Roisín opened her roll case on the floor and started pulling out makeup and hairbrushes and other stuff. I shot away as she did so, making sure to try and get as many face shots as possible. As she hauled stuff out she started telling me a bit more about herself.

"I guess most of my trouble with boys, and my own self image comes from being a bit of a late bloomer, I pretty much got all my lady bits when I was studying for my exams. I did my exams and had the summer off, came back and had these" She cupped her boobs with her hands momentarily. "Suddenly I had all the boys trying to get into my knickers. I didn't know how to deal with it and it went a bit to my head. Becky will tell you I was a loose canon for a while. I went to too many parties, drank too much and made some mistakes. I did some stuff that I'm not proud of, with people who didn't respect me. Nothing really terrible but I guess I was an easy notch on a few bedposts. It kinda shook my faith in men, and myself." She went quiet for a moment or two and fiddled with her make-up bag. "Jesus" she exclaimed quietly "I've never told anyone that before... Shit... I don't want you to think I'm a head case 'cause I'm really not. Well, not any more."

I felt for her, she was clearly still struggling with who she'd become. I really felt that some good photos could help her see herself for who she was. It also made me even more determined not to push her to strip off. As a normal heterosexual male, I couldn't deny that I really wanted her to, but she clearly deserved more respect than that. I had to say something pretty quick, as I've had more than one person abandon a shoot because they had a burst of self realisation and a 'what the fuck am I doing here' moment just before I got the camera out.

"Roisín hun, I'm really surprised by that, but not particularly shocked, I've got a similar story, but its not the same for men – the old double standard. I'm mainly surprised by the fact you seem so 'not like you just described' but I think its really good you've told me.

"Yeah, well, it wasn't me" she said somewhat bitterly "I don't know who I was, I'm only just starting to find out who I really am now. Its like seeing a movie if I think about it, like I'm watching someone else going home with strangers, throwing up taxis and not having a clue where they woke up. Fortunately my friends had more respect for me than I had for myself, they were always looking out for me, things only went bad if I went out on my own. I'm pretty sure I would have come off much worse if they hadn't been there to stop me a lot of the time. They made sure no incriminating photos got onto the net. I wasn't a pretty sight." Roisín sighed, shrugged and carried on with her stuff.

Suddenly the moment of melancholy was over.

I looked at what she'd been up to as I snapped away with the camera. She'd laid out stuff all over the kitchen floor and all over the table. The items in the bags were on the table. A long, light blue, satin ball gown was draped there, along with a Little Black Dress and a short, silvery grey, loose weave affair. There was a little pile of jewellery with each dress, necklaces, bangles, earrings etc. I could clearly see she'd thought about this in a theatrical way as 'costumes' as each garment was an outfit in its own right. she'd even laid out underwear to go with each. Just a tiny black thong and flesh coloured hold ups for the ball gown – clearly a bra was out of the question! A pair of small, lacy, high legged briefs, a strapless black lace bra and black hold ups for the LBD. Two sets of underwear for the silver number; Another tiny black lace thong coupled with a thin lace bra, and then option two, a much bigger set of plain black 'proper briefs' in a slightly shiny material coupled with a plain 'soft cup' strapped bra in the same material as the briefs. On the floor she'd laid out three bikinis, a plain red one, a plain black one and one with a tie dye blue and white pattern on it. In addition there were 3 sets of matching underwear – one with a suspender belt, all of which, I suspected, were Agent Provocateur and a plain Adidas 3 stripe high leg swimsuit.

Whilst she was unsure if she wanted to do nudity it was pretty clear that she was willing to get very close to it! I was pretty surprised by what she'd brought. Both in terms of quantity and the type of clothing.

"Well?"

the question shook me from my thoughts and my attention turned to Roisín again.

"I'm amazed, I wasn't expecting you to put this much thought and effort into doing this. You've got it all so organized."

Roisín smiled at me, god she's got a beautiful smile, and began to explain to me what all of it was. The ball gown was her summer prom dress, the LBD was her all purpose going out dress and the silver thing, well, that was special. Roisín picked it up and held it against the window and I could see immediately that the dress was substantially see-through. She explained that despite her previous admission about going off the rails, she'd never been brave enough to wear it in public and felt it was time it had an outing. She'd brought with her two underwear options; The reserved one which she said she might consider going out in one day, and the, in her words, "downright slutty" one. It was pretty sexy the way she said slutty! She admitted she'd worn the slutty one in front of the mirror and in the right light it showed off just about everything.

"I get all the wrong attention in normal clothes" she admitted, "I'm not going out looking like that..."

I suggested it was time we got going and scooped up her outfits one at a time and took them into the front room in which is a very old (it came with the house) dressing screen in dark wood with oriental scenes painted on it. I laid each outfit out on the floor and showed her the dressing screen, the dressing table with a lit mirror on it and told her the room was hers to do with what she wanted. She could lock it from the inside if she felt the need. She moved stuff around for a few minutes, unpacking stuff onto the dresser before surveying the scene and turning back to me.

I suggested before she spoke."what do you want to start with?"

"Can I start with what I'm wearing, just to get my head on, just a few pics... just to get warmed up"

"Of course you can, do you want to sit in the dining room? The garden? Wherever."

"I'll sit in the dining room to start with" She decided.

I followed her through into the dining room and she sat at the table looking out into the garden. I took up a position beside her so I could catch her in profile. The light falling on her from outside made her already clear skin positively radiant. I shot a couple under flash, then a couple without, and finally added a soft gradient filter zooming close in to her face and also pulling back to show her upper body. Finally a couple of full length shots of her seated in the chair, shoes off, legs crossed, arms on the table looking contemplatively out of the window. This was going well.

Next I asked her to sit in another chair just against the blank rice paper coloured wall face on to me. She obliged and I shot a few with varying zooms from close in on her face to full length. Always, however, she looked away from me and looked slightly sad. I commented on it and she shrugged.

" I dunno, it just feels right, I guess having photos taken like this is kind of reflective" She gesticulated as she talked and at the last second turned face on to the camera, arms outstretched hands upturned, and smiled the most amazing smile I'd seen in a long time and I snapped it. She complained "No fair, I wasn't ready"

"Yes you were" I countered and showed her the picture, it looked fantastic, natural and unposed. She pouted slightly and decided:

"Its OK"

"Do you think its time to get changed." I queried.

"K... what do want me in?" she asked.

"I don't know, it all looks good, surprise me."

She looked at me thoughtfully for a moment and I wondered if she was going to say anything further. And then she padded away in her bare feet.

I made myself another cup of coffee and shouted to her asking if she wanted tea. She responded yes. I shouted to find out how long she was going to be and the smart arse reply came back "Long enough for you to make my tea." I liked Roisín, she was fun to have around and not really someone I'd be likely to meet in everyday life. God bless the internet!

I made my coffee and her tea and delivered it to her hand, proffered through the slightly ajar door. I left her to it and was looking over the photos I'd just taken when she re-entered the room, and I had to draw breath, she looked stunning, she'd put on the ball gown, added a bit more make-up, done something with her hair and put heels on. This was a chameleon like transformation from normal everyday girl to proper débutante. She did a little twirl for me. The dress billowed out and showed off a lot of leg. The dress was not that daringly cut, but it showed everything to its best advantage. The split in the dress came to the top third of her thigh, the back was cut way down, almost to the small of her back and the front plunged far enough to show off the inner slopes of her breasts but not excessively.