various authorities affecting photographing along the
River Thames,” she explains.
One of the scenes she had to recreate in a setting away
from the location of the original event was the 1814 Frost
Fair, an impromptu four-day festival that took place on
the frozen river itself. The reason was simple: “It was the
last time the river froze over completely in the tidal part
of the Thames in London,” says Fullerton-Batten. After
1814, changes to bridge construction improved the flow of
the river, and the Little Ice Age that had chilled Europe
for hundreds of years was coming to a close. The Frost
Fair’s original location became permanently unavailable.
At first, Fullerton-Batten’s plans for recreating it were
modest: “My original idea was to hire an ice-skating rink,
have a few people ice skating, erect some tents and create
a painted background.” But her usual creative ambition
got the best of her. “As I researched it more, I thought,
‘No, I’ve got to have a fire breather, a sword swallower, a
contortionist!’” By the time she’d finished planning, the
production had grown into her most extravagant shoot
yet, with about 50 cast members and 45 crew on set. “I
hired this huge, enormous drive-in studio,” she says.
“We set everything up and completed the shoot in three
days. And they were really intense days.” In addition to
shooting stills, Fullerton-Batten directed a short film of
the fair. “I felt I needed to show more of the atmosphere
and the sounds in the story,” she says, “almost as if you
could smell it.”
She pulled it all off thanks to an exacting, months-long
preproduction process that’s typical of her fine-art shoots.
“I do as much preparation before the shoot as possible,
knowing the story I want to tell, the mood I wish to cre-
ate. It then makes the shoot itself much easier,” she says. “I
can focus on directing the actors and getting my crew to
adjust the lighting to what I want to create.”
Preparation is especially important when it comes to
casting and briefing her talent. She hired specialists, like a
professional fire breather and the acclaimed contortionist
Pixie Le Knot, and then put out a casting call for other
roles. “Many people came forward, and I was just looking
for really interesting characters,” she says. “Most of them
were actors, but others hadn’t much acting experience.”
Fullerton-Batten likes to audition actors herself instead
of leaving that to a casting agent. “It’s only when I’ve actu-
ally pointed my camera at them and have them acting
out their role before I really know if they can do it,” she
says. Once she’s chosen her cast members, she talks with
each of them about their characters’ stories. For the Frost1814 Frost Fair, Fire-Eater, 2018 digitalphotopro.com November/December 2019 | 33