Photoshoot + Interview: 'Autumn's Cry to Summer' by Lauren White // Von Trapp Photography

Lauren White of Von Trapp Photography has been kind enough to not only share her ethereal and enchanting 'Autumn's Cry to Summer' series with us, but an in-depth interview about her project's process too!

We were absolutely mesmerized when we first viewed these incredible images and to find out that this series has been a work-in-process for months now made it even more special.

Below is an exclusive interview with talented photographer Lauren where she sheds some light on how she created this magical, season-inspired series of images:

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Q: 'Autumn's Cry to Summer' is a beautiful series and just looking at the photographs we can tell a lot of work went into it! How long did this series take you to complete from start to finish?A: The whole series took around 6 months from start to finish to create. This included scouting time for locations, selecting the models, shooting, processing and printing. It was a great deal of work over such a long time, and with only myself and my makeup artist as the creative team, minus our beautiful talent of course!

Q: What was the inspiration behind this shoot and what story did you want to convey through these images?A: I was greatly inspired by Kirsty Mitchell. She's an England based photographer I came across on social media who based a series around her idea of wonderland which took 5 years to create. The inspiration for her series came about after her mother lost her battle to cancer in 2008, so as a way of coping with the loss she utilised stories her mother used to read to her as a child and created an amazing series from that. She styled everything herself with a small team and made all the clothes herself.With my story I had the idea of the four seasons being 4 sisters, separated by seasonal elements, where they can never be united. I wanted my images to echo a sense of pain while also demonstrating an image of beauty through the subject and the locations.

Q: We understand that you scouted out all of the locations yourself. Was this a difficult process to find such enchanting locations around Sydney or did you often stumble upon them by accident?A: Two of the locations featured were planned in advance as they required a bit of travel to get to. Mount Wilson was used as one of my major locations, featuring a variety of beautiful garden scenes. The other major feature was the pine forest seen in my fall shots, which I accessed through the owner a few weeks prior to shooting. Most of my locations I came across by chance, usually off to the side of main roads, or by going for small adventures around local bushlands in Western Sydney. As most of the seasons weren't available to me at the time of shooting I also had to find spots that I could easily recreate to reflect each season appropriately. Photoshop was used greatly to colour correct, create fog and snow, the burnt oranges seen in fall and the vibrancy from summer and spring.

Q: We're also very impressed that you handmade all of the garments and props that appear in this series. Please tell us a little more about this?A: Yes! About 85% of the garments were handmade from scratch by myself. One of the garments featured was a bridal gown I borrowed from a store owner. Most of the pieces were a mixture of altering previous dresses to how I wanted them to look, for example the leaves dress was an evening dress I revamped with hundreds of silk fall leaves to create the fall look. Whereas the other dresses like the yellow and purple gowns were made solely from scratch. The hard part was I knew nothing about pattern making so in order to make the dresses I had to drape to a mannequin or measure off my own body in order to make the pieces. There were crowns like the icicle crown in the winter shots which I made from scratch using wire, beads and plastic bottles melted into icicles - lots of cuts came about from that but the injuries were all worth it in the end when the pieces all came together :)

Q: Do you have any more exciting, upcoming projects on the horizon that you would like to share with us?A: I recently spent 3 months completing a conceptual / macabre series inspired by the play 'The Crucible' - based off the events of the Salem witch trials in 1692 - it was a lot darker than I'm used to, featuring a lot of gaunt physical features, hangman's nooses, graveyards and empty paddocks at dusk. It was more a representation of the lost souls, bringing their story to life in still life images.Aside from that - I'm planning a trip to the UK at the end of this year, so I'm hoping that something creative will come from that, there may be a little something in the works ;)

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We want to thank Lauren for taking the time to answer our questions and provide all of us with an in-depth look into her 'Autumn's Cry to Summer' project. You can view more of Lauren's work over on her website and please be sure to keep up-to-date with her photography through following on Facebook and Instagram (@laurenvontrapp). Enjoy!