Julia Trotti picked up her first camera at the of sixteen, and immediately fell in love with taking photos. After experiment different techniques and styles, Trotti realized she loved taking portraits. This slowly grew into fashion photography, however, Trotti’s approach to shooting models hasn’t always been conventional: “- I realised I loved to take photos of people in the opposite way magazines and online articles would tell you to. I preferred taking photos of my models and subjects in the moment in between; when they were slightly distracted or in between a movement of brushing their hair from their face. I find those unplanned moments to be the most magical,” she explains.
Today the Sydney based artist is making her debut on Ben Trovato with a film and a beautiful set of images capturing the magic Trotti so swiftly described. Pastel Bones features model Ellie Hextall in amazing clothing by Oh Deer Boutique. Makeup was done by Abbey Love, and the music in the film by Chase Studios. We asked Trotti a few questions about Pastel Bones:
Tell us about your day shooting Pastel Bones?
We started this day taking photos in fields of grass in the shade of big gum trees, without too much of a plan. As we were walking across the road in the heat, we stumbled across an abandoned house. At first we only saw the metal-skeleton clothing line lonelily standing and swaying in the breeze. As we went to knock on the front door to ask the owners if we could take a few photos in their yard, we found ripped fly screens on the windows and a vacated white house.
And so we spent the rest of the day resting on flower bushes with bees happily humming around our ankles, treading through the squelching grass (the front yard had been flooded and all our shoes were destroyed by the end of the day), sitting by the lavender flowers and getting tangled in tree branches.
Apart from the beautiful surroundings, what inspired you when shooting the story?
My source of inspiration for the shoot was from the clothes; I wanted the final photos to mimic the lovely pastel colours of the outfits and the youthfulness you feel when you are wearing Oh Deer Boutique’s lovely dresses and floral shorts. I am also constantly inspired by light and youth in the majority of my work, and Pastel Bones is a perfect example of that.
Ellie seems to bring that certain beautiful serenity that you look for in your projects, how was she to work with?
Ellie was absolutely amazing. She is so young and already so talented at what she does! No doubt there will be big things waiting for her in the near future. She really brought the right amount of strength and freedom to the shoot, so it could turn out exactly how we imagined.
How about the rest of the team? Have you worked together before?
I’ve worked with Oh Deer Boutique a number of times before, and every shoot we do seems to be magic. Their style of clothing I think goes hand in hand with my photography. Abbey Love is also a very talented makeup artist and hair stylists and we’ve worked on a couple of shoots together as well.
All of us together for Pastel Bones means that nothing could have gone wrong!
We also asked Rose, the owner of Oh Deer Boutique, to comment on the beautiful pieces shot in Pastel Bones:
During the Pastel Bones shoot, we wanted to capture the pretty pastels & sheer blouses against the warm Spring afternoon sunlight. This shoot features piece from the August Street Spring/Summer collection.
