Today we are delving inside the lovely little pup, Lola-Bacon. You have another chance to catch Balladite Faye’s interview with photographer Briony Ridley and we are giving you a sneaky peek at the Ridley pages… never before seen online. Excited? Read on…

With layout genious by iamanoctopus and illustration by Stacie Swift we really went to town with rosettes, 1st 2nd 3rd places, the lot - a huge InDesign production, all singing, all dancing! Miss Ridley’s Best in Show story shimmers, and we are sure you can see why she got the cover!

Surely you caught it, but incase you didn’t, Faye Nottage spoke to Briony a few weeks ago about her inspiration for the shoot, her plans for the future, Ballad and Cheddar - Over to Faye:

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. (*Lindsey & Claire LIKE this… and wish real life had a LIKE button!)

- 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..

And over to Lindsey & Claire? You want to know what we think?…

C: Lindsey, why did we choose Bri for the cover?

L: I chose Briony because I thought the image was very different from any previous cover. I thought it was fun, energetic and a nice concept.

C: Yeah, if you look at all the teeny touches she really thought about the whole thing. I mean - the print of the jumper, the bow, the trophy, the frikkin NOSES! Too cute.

L: Yeah, it’s so great when we get submissions in who have taken the theme really seriously. It always shines through. For me there was no other option, I always wanted that image for the cover. We played about with other images but this was the obvious choice.

C: It’s so completely different from anything we’ve had before. I was nervous, but it was such a clever story that it was always going to win.

L: Thats what it is, the winner! The best in show! Submitting to Ballad is a competition. Getting published is like winning a prize, and getting the cover is the top prize.

C: Nice.

You can still pick up Ballad Of Lola-Bacon. Recent sightings suggest that Selfridges, Tate Modern and Jala News have a few left. Don’t delay, pick up your puppy today!

A few past issues are now available online incase you have missed out on a Mary Maud!

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