Faye Nottage

 We know how much you all loved our beautiful cover for the Ballad Of Lola-Bacon issue and we thought you deserved to know the tale behind the image.  So I chatted with Briony Ridley to discover her inspirations and a little more about our wonderful cover artist.

 - What was your inspiration for the front cover of Lola-Bacon and how did the picture come about?

This picture was from the end of a long day of hair and makeup, the hair in this shot literally took hours, but Victoria the model promised me we could pull it all together, and we did. After having her hair pulled and pinched for half the day she was amazingly energetic.
The inspiration for the shoot was Carrie the dancing dog, and I’ve always loved Best In Show. 
 

- Why did you want to get involved with Ballad Of?

Ballad Of is a lovely magazine and it was great to be able to showcase my work alongside all the other wonderful artists. Plus you’ve got to love a couple of girls putting together such an amazing magazine independently. 
 
- What inspired you to focus on photography?

I was studying art history and decided that I wanted to make art instead of write about it so I dropped out of my art history degree, moved across Australia, and enrolled in a commercial photography degree at Melbourne’s RMIT. In the beginning though I just wanted to make nice pictures to go on my walls. 
 
 
- How would you describe your work?

Stories, colours and characters. Most of my ideas start off as a comedy, but by the end have morphed into more of a drama, which is a nice natural progression. My personal favourite images are the ones that could be film stills. 
 
- What are your plans/hopes for the future?

Right now I just want to make time to work on a series I’ve been planning to shoot at my parent’s property. It involves a lot of collecting of costumes, people and props, and a flight half way around the world. 
 
- And finally, what 5 things do you just love?

 Cheddar (the old crumbly kind), Gruyére, Berg Käse, Parmesan, Pecorino..

Briony is originally from Western Australia and has been living in Berlin for the last couple of years.

We love her work and we know you all do too.

Faye