Mrs. Hawking photo shoot I, part one

I have to finish the second draft of my seminar paper for the class I have to teach as part of my graduating requirements. It's slow, but it's coming. I should finish (need to finish, really) by the end of the night. But I realized it's been weeks and I never put up the pictures from the Mrs. Hawking themed photo shoot I did with some lovely compatriots. I am hereby posting some of my favorites, with a few notes on my thinking behind them.

Mrs. Hawking, version 1
Photography by Stephanie Karol
Hair and makeup by Gabrielle Geller
Directed and costumed designed by Phoebe Roberts

with Frances Kimpel as Mrs. Hawking
and Charlotte Oswald as Mary Stone

This image is in replication of those "family portraits" that were often the standard of photography back in the Victorian period. The mistress of the house, and her beloved maidservant.

Frances, while much younger than Mrs. Hawking is supposed to be, was my visual inspiration for the character. A small person, deceptively pretty with her wavy golden hair and capable of being disguised as something non-threatening, delicate, and socially expected. But, like Frances, she is fierce, agile, and much more physically powerful than you might immediately guess. The dress does a pretty good job of hiding just how ripped she, and the character, are.

Charlotte not only has the right look, she is around the right age. She is tall and strong, and I liked the idea of Mary having her statuesque Amazonian figure, her pretty face, her long dark hair, her freckles. I thought a girl of the lower classes who had to make her own way in the world should be physically capable, and I like the contrast between her kind of presence and Mrs. Hawking's. Also, a tall girl gets noticed, can't be ignored, for well or for ill. She has both the power, and the responsibility, to answer for herself.

( More pictures beneath the cut. )