Introducing... Zoe Page
Introducing... Zoe Page
Does Zoe need an introducing blog? I'm pretty sure she's my most shot with model. Zoe replied to a casting many moons ago, and I believe (depending on how humble and honest she is being, or kind/drunk enough she is to impart this wisdom upon me which she may later deny) that I plucked her from the fetish world and accepted her in to the more modelly mainstream world.. of which we then went on to shoot some of my least mainstream and most quirky shoots. As a result of my loving grasp, she's stuck around out of respect, loyalty, or because she likes my smile.. or something. Occasionally she'll drive two hours to come up and play on the arcades for four hours, beat me at mini golf, and then drive back again... wherever back is!? She actually lives in Spain now when she's not touring the UK, but back in the day she was a resident of our fair shores.
Zoe is the kind of person who doesn't listen to a word I say ever, and when I'm anally waxing lyrical about mood boards, concepts and narratives, she nods her head while ignoring it all. Luckily, and in part due to the world in which she arrived to me from (I imagine), her lack of inhibitions and her love for acting means she's very expressive and doesn't really fear any narrative.. other than balloons.. apparently!? Basically, if I have a crazy narrative that would be too weird to present to someone I don't know, I sell it to Zoe, dipped in layers of philosophy, brilliance and metaphor, and then she turns up and asks "so what are we doing?"; at which point I just hope she bought the one thing I needed her to for the shoot.
A shorts video which was a part of a miniseries for Halloween last year. It was just for our own amusement more than anything.. or at least for mine!
I'm sure I've told this story before, and I may have even done so here in a different blog when it was relevant to the context of what was being discussed there in some way, but our first shoot was in ashed in the garden of my old place. Basically my first exchange with Zoe was "have you seen the Prodigy's "Smack My Bitch Up" video? I want that vibe, and we're going to do it in a leaking train carriage shed and then a come down scene in the shower after.. are you comfortable with all this? - Back then she was probably listening to me more because of first impressions and all that.
If you're not familiar with said song, it was obviously widely condemned for being misogynistic, and this was a time when lad mags were about to thrive for their "tits out for the sake of tits out" glamour, as opposed to our now PC world of 2023 where girls are doing porn on only fans instead. Wherever you want to stand on that provocative scale, and we could sit and discuss where the power lies and who owns these companies pushing a narrative in comparison to someone choosing to do it, and owning it themselves, all day long, the point is, it's an interesting conversation to have with someone you've just met. That and the fact that as a piece of satire with a massive twist at the end of the music video, the Prodigy were going to shake up the song's response even moreso a second time around when their video finally got released, and then promptly banned pretty much everywhere. You can have a read here about it.
The Prodigy "Smack My Bitch Up"
Anyways, I used that video as an example of the dishevelled look I was going for, with a nod at the narrative too. Basically, "you're a party chick. You live life, it's seemingly great, but the reality is you come home alone, unhinged, paranoid, but continue the party to convince yourself in your own mind that your world is amazing. Later you have a hard come down and realisation in the shower. We're going to use sugar as the drug, clichéd maybe, but it'll be a social commentary in layers, exploring morality and the concept of fast foods and sugars being a drug that is comforting, yet actually dangerous..." yadda yadda yadda, so on and so forth. Zoe had probably fallen asleep by now, or was just smudging some eye make up across her face.
My first ever shoot with Zoe Page, long before Splash Point Photo Photography studio. Looking at the metadata, this was May 2015.
As mentioned, this pretty much set the standard for what we shot from here on out. I could publish a book with the amount we've done, in fact, that reminds me, I had one made up (and still didn't include everything) with the intention of using the digital version to look for publishers for such a venture. No doubt, one day, it'll be a thing. If anyone is into that side of the industry, and you want to get involved, do get in touch.. even better if you have a budget for us to add some newer weird stuff in to the equation. Again, I can't include it all here, hell, I didn't even include all the edited images from that first shoot in the above gallery.
Zoe Page on Purpleport Zoe Page on Instagram
