Jenny and Sammy-Jane start to explore a channel where the quarry waste was being pumped only minutes beforehand. The muck is very soft and wet on top, and there is a quicksand-like quality to its stickiness, gripping their boots and legs tightly even when only a few inches deep.
For all the many hundreds of shoots Sammy-Jane had done previously with other producers over the years, she'd never been more than about calf-deep, just maybe knee-deep.
She'd only done one deep shoot with me previously; that was 'Custom-made Mud Pit', where the depth was known and fixed.
So when Jenny, who hadn't done a lot, but had been shown and trained by me, wriggled in waist-deep, Sammy-Jane baulked and asked if she wasn't worried about getting stuck.
It was quite an eye-opener for me to see Sammy-Jane concerned about being thigh-deep in natural mud, and it was then that I realised she'd not done it before, in spite of her vast experience.
Jenny said that she wasn't bothered about getting stuck. She could get out, as I'd shown her how to get out, and if she couldn't get out, that I'd get her out, and she trusted me totally.
Jenny encouraged her to try it, and eventually Sammy-Jane was persuaded and eased herself slowly into the mud to almost waist-depth.
The girls chatted and relaxed for a while before coating each other in the clay silt, gently caressing it into each other's bodies, before filling each other's tops and lovingly applying more top-up layers of mud to each other.
They finish by heading along the channel to a pool of water where they clean up, again helping each other with rub-downs and rinses.
Love you, too
