Digital Artist Dave Charsley

The Druidess of Midian and Nikolai at WGW 2009
One of the very nice things about this year's Whitby Goth Weekend, was spending two evenings with the very lovely

druidess1982 and her partner Nikolai. I consider her to be a friend, yet we've not had much chance to see each other since we worked together in Manchester in the Summer of 2008.

avatarsteve and myself were hoping to make up for this and get plenty of shooting in over the weekend but unfortunately it was already dark by the time

druidess1982 and Nikolai made it over from their accommodation outside Whitby. So for first shoot on the Friday, we shot some night images overlooking the Spa, accompanied by Leed's photographer Simon Cliff. Simon is a bit of a Whitby veteran and had come over to observe how I worked with my strobist equipment. We only shot for a few minutes before we bumped into

devolutionmag and chatted to them, but he got some sort of idea of my lighting techniques.

For the Saturday evening, we shot in the communal lounge of our B&B before we went out to see Psy-Doll and Uninvited Guest. As you can see in the images, the lounge was dominated by a massive fireplace. It was only really possible to shoot towards the main window or use the fireplace, so I decided to make it a feature. It didn't make the best shoot location but it was a lot warmer inside and there was a storm coming that really hit the east coast that night. Anyway, hope you enjoy.

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Current Mood: hungry
Current Music: W.A.S.P - Burn

Distorted Dreams shoot
This afternoon I had my "Distorted Dreams" shoot with my old friends

thevioletraven and Sarah-in-Tortureland, along with new friends

etoile_violet and Lars Wickett. The theme was our take on the wonderful paintings of artist Luis Royo, a very strong theme and one that will take some serious photoshopping in the weeks to come! Thanks to all the lovely models and Neo Geisha, for helping out behind the scenes.

LtoR: Violet Raven, Sarah-in-Tortureland, Lars Wickett, Etoile and Dave Charsley (Picture by Neo Geisha)

The Sisters Todd - Whitby 2009
In the middle of the Summer,

avatarsteve and myself got approached by the beautiful Stockton-on-Tees model Violet Magenta, about shooting while we were at the Whitby Goth Weekend. Violet Magenta had planned to be one of the models at our big group shoot the previous year but flu had got the better of her and so this was a great opportunity. We bounced a couple of ideas around between ourselves and new model Flamin Hell and came up with a homage to Sweeney Todd. Our original idea was to have the models playing Sweeney's sisters on holiday in Whitby but straight away we came up against some problems. First of all, the Victorian bathing huts we'd planned for our location had been put away for the Winter. Then secondly, it rained terribly on the day we'd put aside for the shoot! Thankfully our B&B came to the rescue and allowed us to shoot in their dining room, which was really nice of them but meant we had a host of new problems to address. So here's my homage to Mrs Lovett's pies and Sweeney Todd, "The Sisters Todd".

My huge thanks to the wonderful models Violet Magenta and Flamin Hell and for

avatarsteve for going to so much trouble creating us the props.

This coming weekend is my "Distorted Dreams" shoot which is another homage, this time to one of my favourite artists; Luis Royo. As usual, I won't tempt fate and tell you the models involved but they're a great mix of experience and new faces, so a great team!

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Current Mood: amused
Current Music: Kiss - Detroit Rock City

"City Nights" with Neo Geisha

I'm back from another Whitby Goth Weekend and this year was quite different from other years I've gone to. There was a lot of my friends missing but I did manage to catch up with avatarsteve and his wife Dan, druidess1982 and Nikolai, Leeds photographer Simon Cliff, models Violet Magenta and Flamin Hell, the newly engaged davefish and keris , frozen_amaranth, Shadowkat, devolutionmag, nevroli and fuzzygoth. I also had a nice chat with Biff Byford from Saxon about his latest album and his move back to Yorkshire from France. One of the highlights of the weekend for me though, was seeing Uninvited Guest play at the Resolution on the Saturday, a tremendous band!

Today's images are from a night shoot I did last week with the lovely Neo Geisha. Shooting at night always adds new challenges and this time I wanted to keep some of the ambient light from the city in the background. I ended up giving Neo Geisha a quick burst of light from three flash guns arranged around her but let the shutter remain open for a little while to soak up the ambient light. It was a bit of a hit and miss affair but we managed to get a small set, four of which I'm posting today.

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Current Mood: cold
Current Music: Epica - Kindom of Heaven

"Silhouette One" and "Rising Sun Two, Three and Four"
I'm posting my weekly images early today as I'm off to Whitby tomorrow morning for the Goth weekend. So looking forward to meeting some old friends and making some new ones and doing a couple of shoots while I'm there. As of my last post, today's images are all from September's "Silhouette" shoot with Amaeya, Neo Geisha and Arcane Kai. These also have a strong Japanese influence and the "Rising Sun" images have a massive nod in the Manga direction.

I actually shot with Neo Geisha again this last Monday and she was excellent as usual! We did some night shots in Birmingham city centre, with the city lights in the background and I'll hopefully share those with you next Friday.

I've only posted my favourite images from the "Silhouette" shoot, so anyone who wants to see the full set, can find them here -http://www.flickr.com/photos/davecharsley/sets/72157622466407784/

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Current Mood: hyper
Current Music: Tristania - Equilibrium

"Silhouette Three","Dragon", " Lifeforce" and "Enchantment"
Today's images from my "Silhouette" shoot, introduce two new members to my team; male model Arcane Kai and the beautiful Neo Geisha. Along with principle model Amaeya, we created a dark and gritty vision, where peoples grip on reality is not quite what it was. And where losing hold, actually means breaking down to nothing!
Although it wasn't planned before hand, the whole shoot developed a strong Manga / J-Horror theme, as we all realised we shared a love of all things Japanese. I think my "Silhouette" and "Lifeforce" images owe a lot to the movie "Kairo" or it's American version, "Pulse" in particular.

So less than a week to go now to this year's Whitby Goth Weekend! I've got another little mini night shoot next week before I go and then I've got atleast two shoots while I'm there but I'm hoping I'll have more when I get there!

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Current Mood: hyper
Current Music: Epica - The Last Crusade (live)

Etoile in Moseley Park
I'm continuing my brief interlude today with some test shots I took of new model

etoile_violet in a local private park. These images were really taken to see how

etoile_violet worked in front of the camera and to see if she was a possible new recruit for my team. For someone who'd never modelled before, she was rather excellent and she'll be joining in on a full group shoot next month.

My plans for the upcoming Whitby Goth Weekend are coming together. As well as my pre-arranged "Sisters Todd" shoot with

avatarsteve on the Sunday, we now have a very beautiful and well known model for the Friday too, so things are looking up!

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Current Mood: optimistic
Current Music: Terminal Choice - Eiszeit

"The Ruins"
To give me time to finish off the images from my rather epic "Silhouette" shoot, I'm going to take a brief two week interlude and share some work from two mini shoots I had over the Summer. The first today, features the beautiful Amaeya taken in the ruins of Dudley Priory one Sunday afternoon. I'd been asked by my friend

bexbat to help her with some promotional photos for her belly dancing and I'd taken Amaeya along to help with the modelling side of things. Once we'd shot the main event, Amaeya and myself just took about fifty or so images around the ruins and we got about four we really liked. It was one of those shoots with very little planning but I was pleased how everything turned out.

So the countdown to this Winter's Whitby Goth Weekend has begun! It was three weeks yesterday, twenty days today! I'm looking forward to seeing those of you that are going this year. It sounds like the attendance will be down on the usual but I'm hoping to still have a great time!

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Current Mood: cynical
Current Music: Within Temptation - The Cross

Fleurs de la Mer (Part Two)
Here's the second set of images from my "Fleurs de la Mer" shoot in Wales with

pinkbeene and Aimee L'amour. The idea of shooting an implied nude set on a beach somewhere was one I'd wanted to do for years and it was a great experience. I try to be very much in control with my lighting, so shooting without my multiple flashguns and using just natural daylight was a challenge but I think the images have turned out well.

If anyone wants to see the whole set of images from the day, you can find them here - http://www.flickr.com/photos/davecharsley/sets/72157622181973730/

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Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: Delain - A day for Ghosts

The "Silhouette" shoot
This afternoon Amaeya and I, introduced another two models to the Declinegothica team with our "Silhouette" shoot. New models, Neo Geisha and Arcane Kai performed wonderfully, as did the new chromokey green studio we hired for the shoot. I'm hoping shooting chromokey will speed up my post editing but we'll have to see. Thanks as usual to Amaeya, who always helps me so much with my shoots.

Dave Charsley, Neo Geisha, Amaeya and Karl Deegan

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Current Music: Godyva - Innocent

Fleurs de la Mer

On the Saturday of the August Bank Holiday, Aimee L'amour and myself joined like what seemed a mad exodus of Togs and Models from England into Wales. We met up with the beautiful pinkbeene and my fellow Tog avatarsteve at Cardiff central and Steve drove us round the coast until we found a stretch of rocky beach that was suitable for our shoot. Of course the nude model playing with a brightly coloured length of fabric is more than clichéd but it was something I hadn't done before and was a new challenge without my usual strobist equipment. I had at the time planned to use my flashes but when I realised how perilous the terrain was, I didn't think it was worth the risk and I'd already killed one flash working with pinkbeene in the rain the previous Summer!

In other news, if anyone noticed that my website disappeared over the weekend, someone hacked the entire host! So it wasn't just my website that got a new "You've been hacked" index page!! This coming Sunday is my "Silhouette" shoot, which is the first in the new hired room, so that will be exciting. I'm not looking forward to lugging and setting up all my gear each shoot but I'll just have to get used to it!

Before I go, Happy Birthday to my beautiful friend thevioletraven who was twenty yesterday! Hope you have a great Birthday weekend Raven! X

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Current Mood: aggravated
Current Music: Delain - Nothing Left

Beauty Inferred
These "Beauty Inferred" images of

chackra,

thevioletraven and

melaniemorticia were taken at the end of my "The Last Coven" shoot, after the fangs and blood got put away for the day. Poor

peterallison got evicted to the living room and the girls took it in turns to see how they could cover themselves with the fake fur coats. The images were a challenge to create because I had moved into a fully white room for this shoot and so it was harder to create any shadows.

I had a great little mini shoot this week with lovely new model

etoile_violet, which I may post in a week or two. But before then I'll start subjecting you to my adventure in Wales with my mate

avatarsteve.

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Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Music: KMFDM - Bait & Switch

The Last Coven (Part Two)
Of all the themes I return to time and time again, Vampires have to be my favourite. August's "The Last Coven" shoot with

thevioletraven,

melaniemorticia,

chackra and

peterallison was another great chance to get the blood and fangs out and play children of the night. We gave the second part of the shoot a twist with three fake fur coats I had inherited and I tried to portray the girls in a wild feral way, as opposed to the military styling I gave them in the first set.

Following the great death of 2013, a plague swept the earth, and that plague was the Vampires. Thus the Pogroms came, until only The Last Coven remained. Now the Quadra of this new Dominion, The Last Coven remain hiding in public view, the tyrants of this new regime. Yet within their midst, One controls the Three, reducing them to feral beasts through denial of blood. - Peter Allison, August 2009.

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Current Mood: happy
Current Music: Screams of Cold Winter - Nothing Left

The Last Coven
I wanted the final shoot in my old studio to be something special. So I invited four of my longest standing models to create a vision of a Vampire coven in a futuristic fascist state. All "babes, blood and guns". I've split the shoot into three parts and the first images today feature

thevioletraven,

melaniemorticia,

chackra and

peterallison in their medically controlled vampire states. Next week, I'll share what happens when the coven leader doesn't give them their regular blood dose!

Last Sunday I went to take a look at Rich Bitch Studios that's going to be my home for atleast the next couple of shoots. It's a great place, the sort of aladin's cave I would have killed for when I was younger and still making music! I've hired the green room which is a quite large square studio with a small stage. The whole place has some great facilities so I think the models will like it.

Following the great death of 2013, a plague swept the earth, and that plague was the Vampires. Thus the Pogroms came, until only The Last Coven remained. Now the Quadra of this new Dominion, The Last Coven remain hiding in public view, the tyrants of this new regime. Yet within their midst, One controls the Three, reducing them to feral beasts through denial of blood. - Peter Allison, August 2009.

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Current Mood: productive
Current Music: Stratovarius - The Hills have Eyes

"Fleurs de la Mer" shoot
Yesterday was my "Fleurs de la Mer" shoot in Wales with my mate

avatarsteve and the lovely models

pinkbeene and Aimee L'amour. I'd shot

pinkbeene very briefly at last year's Margam charuty shoot but it was wonderful to finally get a chance of working with her for a couple of hours. A great model and a lovely lady! Thanks to Steve for finding us a great location, even if it nearly broke my back carrying the gear and cut the models feet to ribbons on the rocks! Talk about suffering for your art!!!

Me, Aimee L'amour, Charizma and Steve Avatar

Current Mood: cheerful

The Cell
Today I've got another new model to introduce; The Oxidising Angel. Angel and myself met through her MySpace page, which is an increasingly popular way for me to find local models. As you can see in the images, she has incredibly piercing blue eyes which I've tried to accentuate in the images. I wanted to create something a little different and eye grabbing in the images and The Oxidising Angel wanted to bring some blood into the equation, so I shot her in a Vampire role and then in a padded cell! Well a virtual padded cell anyway!

Tomorrow I'm off to Wales to meet up with my mate

avatarsteve for the day. We've got some exciting ideas to shoot on a beach somewhere and then on Bank Holiday Monday I'm meeting up with two very lovely Belly Dancing Vampires! Have a great long weekend and lets hope the weathers alright!

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Current Mood: impressed
Current Music: Fear Factory - Bonescraper

More "Faces of Eve"
Here's the second set of images from my "Faces of Eve" shoot with Amaeya and Sarah-in-Tortureland. This first one, "Echoes" is one of my personal favourites from the day and was taken right at the end of the afternoon when we were becoming a little rushed for time. We'd already shot several versions of this pose with more clothes on and they didn't quite work and it was Sarah's idea to give it another go before we called it a day, and I'm glad we did! Under the cut you'll find "Fr/actu/red" which shows Amaeya in a different light and has gone down very well on her MySpace account.

Next week, I've got a little interlude with a new model I shot some weeks back and then I'll start sharing images from my "Last Coven" Vampire shoot! It was the biggest shoot I've done since March and I've had twenty-six images to photoshop, which is quite a task but hopefully it will all be finished in the next two weeks.

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Current Mood: anxious
Current Music: L'ame Immortelle - Lass Mich Fallen

"Faces of Eve"
Two years ago a young sixteen year old called Sarah contacted me to say she really liked my images. We corresponded for a few emails and then she let slip that she had done some modelling in the past, herself. I went and had a look at her portfolio and was totally, utterly gutted!! Here was an incredibly talented model! Sarah was beautiful but I had a rule of not working with under eighteens!!! So I had to wait for two years for Sarah-in-Tortureland to become eighteen and of course it all could have been a complete anti-climax but let me tell you it wasn't!!

Last month's "Faces of Eve" shoot was also going to be my first collaboration with my new MUA but sadly she got flu and cancelled on the morning of the shoot. So it all got off too a really bad start really but thanks to the sheer professionalism of Amaeya and Sarah-in-Tortureland, they just got on with it! Sarah applied their extra make up in absence of the MUA and I think they both looked fantastic! This was my second shoot with Amaeya and I can't sing her praises higher! Tremendous models and you'll be seeing a lot more of them in my future work.

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Current Mood: busy
Current Music: Heaven & Hell - Bible Black

"The Last Coven"
Today was always going to be an emotional experience, saying goodbye to the home and studio where I've created my images for the last six years. It was wonderful to share my very last shoot there with four such great friends as

thevioletraven,

peterallison,

melaniemorticia and

chackra. Thank you all for making "The Last Coven" a very special shoot and giving me the chance of sharing the day with you. Don't worry life will go on, I'll be doing more locations shoots soon and I'm on the look out for somewhere new to rent for a studio.

Today's "The Last Coven" was the story of a group of Vampires led by

peterallison, who if not fed their regular dose of blood drug turn into feral animals. The day was split into the two distinct sides of modern day blood drinker and untamed cannibal Vampire! I've got to admit, the shots of the girls dressed in fake fur and doused in blood, looked pretty good in camera. Looking forward to getting them into photoshop very soon!

Lacrimosa, Alrune, Violet Raven, Chackra and Me

Current Mood: anxious

More "Dreadful Tales"
Today I'm posting the second part of my trip to London to work with Tepidboo and Lachesis Muta. This time I'm concentrating on some of the solo images we took around Abney Park cemetery. The ladies changed into more traditional Victorian outfits for this part and fantastic they looked too! I hope its not too long before our paths cross again as they were lovely models to work with.

On Sunday I'm surrounding myself with my friends for what will be the final shoot in my studio before I have to give it up. The day will be made even more poignant by the fact it will also be the last shoot of my friend

peterallison, who's been part of my core team for a good while now. I'm still on the look out for a new location I can hire but as I don't really want to pay photography studio prices, I've so far had no luck!

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Current Mood: sad
Current Music: Motorhead - Limb from Limb

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