Behind the scenes: Venturing to Venice

The location for our Fabulous fashion shoot last month was the beautiful city of Venice. We arrive bright and early to a crisp cold but sunny climate - we are thankful for this, as the previous days have been marred with torrential rain and flood barriers being erected! We don't fancy shooting in water up to our knees...

The only way to travel around Venice is by boat, so we (a team of eight) hop (I mean stagger with our various cases of clothes and photography equipment) onto a water taxi to take us from the coach station to the apartment where we will be staying for the next four days. Not a car in sight... bliss!

Day one of the shoot, and we are up at 6am to do hair and make-up for both models, squeeze in breakfast and leave the apartment by 8am to find the hotel we'll be shooting at for the rest of the day. Hotel Ca Maria Adele was roughly a 30min walk from our apartment - which may not sound too bad but it's not so much fun when you are lugging heavy suitcases full of clothes and essential photography equipment over numerous bridges! It also proved difficult, as none of us really knew where we were going- thankfully our production guru, Andrew Downs, is a dab hand at reading and navigating the Italian map to get us to our destination.

When we finally arrive at the hotel, we are all blown away by just how beautiful it is. Prior to arriving in Venice, we contacted the hotel to set the shoot up. The hotel offered us three rooms to choose from, each one was completely different but equally as gorgeous! We use the blue room to set up all the clothes and shoes and to change the two models, the red and brown room are to be used to shoot in. We only have the hotel for 4 hours so it's time to get a wriggle on as we need to get at least 8 shots done. The theme for this shoot was inspired by the Louis Vuitton A/W catwalk show and we nickname our take on it 'Bunny Girls in Pearls'. All the clothes are great for the Christmas party season and we have two amazing models to show them off! Lottie and Melissa start off being shot separately - Melissa is first in the red room and then Lottie in the brown, with great views of the Grande Canal. When we get to shot three, both girls are in it together. The team stops briefly for lunch, already having done five shots (pretty good going for lunchtime). We alternate between the red and brown room for the remaining shots. The last shot of the day is taken in the corridor between the red room and the dinning area. It is both girls playfulyl walking together and is a lovely image to end the shoot with.

By 3pm (we've run over a bit but the hotel have been very accommodating) we are all packed up and ready to get back to our apartment and start thinking about day two of the shoot. The prospect of walking back isn't appealing so we decide on a water-bus, which at £8 per person was the most expensive bus ride we have ever taken!

• Escape to the future

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