The Wild Women Adventures club is relatively new. It was created as a community group where women could get together, have fun outdoors, discover new friends and even new confidence.
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When I heard that Maggie (The Founder) was looking to create a Northumberland calendar to raise money for 12 different charities, I was curious about it. But then when she said it was going to feature naked women, I knew I wanted to be the photographer who helped her achieve this.
I am extremely passionate about helping women feeling brave, empowered and good about themselves. I usually do this by way of professional headshots and personal branding photoshoots. But never have I been involved in something like this and wasn’t quite sure what to expect.
It was a cold January morning when I drove up to Kielder. The forest rangers met Maggie and I at a pull-in and showed us the track where we could find the viewpoint.
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The rangers stayed at the road entrance to direct people as they arrived. We walked to the art installation to check it out.
I barely got my camera out of my bag when I turned and saw four ladies climbing up and stripping off! It was a good opportunity to take some test shots.
It was quite funny as some walkers on the other side of the water had noticed them and were waving.
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I got my own walkie talkie so that the rangers could keep in touch.
The viewpoint was on a public footpath along the reservoir, so they needed to let us know if any cyclists or walkers were on their way past.
Thankfully it all went very smoothly and no one had any embarrassing moments.
As the rest of the ladies arrived, we started to do individual portraits. Some completely naked and some wore their hiking boots and bobble hats – I can’t post these for obvious reasons.
However, I did get some amazing comments later from some of the ladies saying they felt great about having their photos taken and how it felt very liberating.
In fact, after seeing the images, one lady’s message said -“I actually had a tear…I’ve had to learn to love myself again, and you’ve made me fell very proud” – Needless to say I felt very emotional by this.
Two of the ladies had previously had breast cancer and one lady had had extensive surgery on her spine so it meant a great deal to them.
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The end result will be kept exclusively for the calendar. But it will be printed in the autumn.
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The forestry rangers were really great – here is the final image of the day.
We have 11 more shoots to do over the next 6 months, all across Northumberland, and I’m really looking forward to sharing them with you.
Want to chat about working with me? Contact me here
Please note these images are copyright of Rachel McClumpha – RJM Photography – Find out more about me here
