As the end of August approached yet another opportunity arose that was impossible to turn down. Yohoi, a Chinese model who’d been living in England for a couple of years got in touch to tell me she was visiting Devon for the first time and staying in Exeter for a few days. As I mentioned in the opening paragraph of the previous post, all of a sudden I had more photos to edit than I reasonably could, yet I’d been following Yohoi’s work for such a long time and just had to take the opportunity whilst I could – after all, she would need to return to China in the near future and I might not get another.
The rough plan was to pick Yohoi up from where she was staying and then head down to Exmouth for a golden hour beach shoot. Timing it with the sunset.
Oh! Plans and all of those great things.
I set off from home ready to make the 10 minute journey to collect Yohoi. Except … the A30 was at a complete standstill. I figured it was holiday traffic and would clear once I’d connected to the M5. I eventually reached the M5 only to find that it had been closed due to an accident. Due to the road layout, I’d need to drive out to Haldon in order to turn around and make it back in Exeter. 1 hour later … and already 45 minutes late, I was precisely back to where I’d started from! I then had to make the journey through the centre of Exeter out to the other side. Not usually a long drive, but due to the afore mentioned traffic it took an absolute age. I nearly called off the shoot at this point, but felt I couldn’t let Yohoi down. Eventually, nearly 2 hours after I’d left home, I finally completed the 4 mile drive to pick her up!
Due to the late start, light was at an absolute premium and we arrived in Exmouth to probably only about 15 minutes of the sun before it set behind the distant Dartmoor hills. Shooting like a madman we reeled off the first set, which was Yohoi in a traditional Qipao. From there we just played around making the most of what we had and mostly concentrated on just having a fun time.
When I look back on it, I’m actually more than pleased with what we achieved and I’m so glad I didn’t cancel on her. Despite the travel difficulties, it turned out to be a great afternoon/evening and I was happy to show Yohoi a part of England she hadn’t seen.
Yohoi is now in China and I hope she’ll come back soon – I have a lot more to show her!
