Heather is featured in Woman and Home magazine

When I was invited to be featured in Woman and Home magazine, in an article on “Blogging for Fame and Fortune”, my first thought was “OMG!!! Fame at last!” quickly followed by, “OMG! how will I lose a stone in 2 weeks?”.

My initial chat with Nathalie, the features writer, to test the water was quickly followed up by a confirmation that yes, they would like to include me in their feature and would I be available next week for the shoot? We did a long telephone interview which was really just a nice chat covering such weighty questions as; How did you get into blogging? What tips do you have for others who want to start a blog? and What was the proudest moment in your blogging career?

A week or so after that initial call, during which I lived mainly on grilled chicken and salad, I was driving up the road to the house in West London where the photo shoot would take place, most of the spare tyre firmly in place. Ah, well at least Woman and Home is a magazine that makes a point of featuring normal women and their achievements, not just pencil thin celebrities, and I was hopeful that a bit of hair and make-up could work wonders.

I knocked on the door of a small cottage, which opened up into a huge sitting room that was open to the roof with wooden beams and huge skylights. With huge, squishy sofas scattered with pretty silk cushions, glass lamps and Moroccan silver trays, I could totally understand why they’d chosen this as their photography location. It looked like a love pad made for parties as well as a great location for a spring feature photo shoot.

I was to be featured along with two other bloggers in a feature about about “Blogging for Fame and Fortune”. I’ve certainly had some fun in my 5 years writing my blog but as for the fame and fortune – well maybe some day! The other bloggers were Ren Behan, a food blogger at RenBehan.com and fashion and lifestyle blogger, Josephine Lalwan of Chic at any age, who was certainly looking very elegant with her chic grey bob and fuschia pink silk shirt. It seemed that we had been picked as being ladies of a certain age, as most of the people featured in the magazine seemed to be in their 40s and 50s.

Sharon, the picture editor greeted me and introduced me to the rest of the team, and I settled into the kitchen, now in use as a beauty parlour with Liz and Sarah-Jane at the ready to do my nails, hair and make-up. I sipped my coffee made by Jim, the photographic assistant, had my nails painted and my already clean hair was blow dried and left in curlers. After half an hour of make-up, with numerous shades of beige eye-shadow, my ‘natural’ look was ready for me to move on to wardrobe.

In ‘wardrobe’ which was actually a small room crammed with two rails of clothes and half a floor covered with shoes, I met Rachel the stylist and her assistant Amy.

My first job was to strip down and put on a nude Spanx roll-on to keep the spare tyre under control, which was slightly humiliating but certainly did the trick of creating a smooth sillhouette. “Don’t worry” confided Rachel, seeing my doubtful look, “some of my red carpet clients have to wear 2 spanx on top of one another”. Looking through the rails we tried on a few different outfits and settled on some tight Eileen Fisher white jeans with a coral orange vest and drapy cardigan from Rohen Chen both of which I loved, plus some very high gladiator style LK Bennet heels which left me tottering around although they looked very elegant.

Back into the living room which was now a photography studio, Angela the photographer had her big lights and tripod set up and I was positioned by the door surrounded by luggage, as if I was just about to leave for a glamorous weekend in Marrakech. Angela was full of fun and clicked away from behind her tripod, scattering plenty of encouraging comments around; “OK my gorgeous creature?” Click,  “Lovely!” Click, “Excellent!” Click, “Beautiful my darling!” Click. I shifted my weight slightly from one leg to the other, holding an ipad in one hand and a large leather holdall (which wouldn’t have passed the Ryanair police) in the other. Every few clicks one of the team would rush forward to tweak my clothing, powder my nose or cover me in a cloud of hair spay.

The attention to detail showed by this crew was even more rigorous than my habit on blog trips of taking five of the same shot that drives my husband crazy. A hundred or so photos later, all slight variations on the theme, and we were done. I could breath again as I unpeeled the Spanx and slipped back into my own clothes. Now I got the chance to be the spectator as Josephine the fashion blogger was photographed looking very thin and elegant in an emerald green cocktail dress (a brand that’s favoured by Nigella Lawson). This time the piles of clothes were arranged around her and she held a pair of high heels in her hand, the props of a fashion blogger obviously!

I was fascinated to see how the photos were instantly transferred to Angela’s laptop and I could see them popping up as I sat behind her during the shoot. The man arrived at the door to deliver lunch – no waitrose sandwiches but slices of herby chicken, squares of quiche studded with goats cheese and a watercress and beetroot salad. Lovely!

Poor Ren, the food blogger was still standing around in curlers in her dressing gown, waiting for lunch to finish so that she could be photographed in the kitchen surrounded by cookery books. At that point I’d completed my part of the shoot so I said my goodbyes and headed back to Bristol to tell my family all my stories. Just another day in the life of a travel blogger masquerading as a fashion model. All great fun, but I won’t be giving up the travel blogging (or the day job) just yet!

Look out for the April 2014 issue of Woman and Home at your newsagents now for the article on Blogging for Fame and Fortune or if you’re not in the UK Read it here

Heather Cowper shares her travel stories, videos and podcasts at Heatheronhertravels.com and you can also find her on Facebook and Twitter.

This article is originally published at Heatheronhertravels.com

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