In late August I had the pleasure of working with an amazing team of folks to actualize a photo shoot that had been in scheming for a long time. The finished product photos you can see throughout the website and will be used for an FOj lookbook, but here's a peek behind the scenes. Big thanks to Meghan Tansey Whitton for her patience, artistic vision & technical wizardry on the camera, Melissa Dube whose helping hands and experience were indispensible on site, Emily Moore who works magic with hair & make up, and Yailen who did an amazing job as a model who's not a model, rolling with it all, and lending her ingenuity to wardrobe glitches.
We shot in two locations throughout the day; spending the morning in a lovely pocket of forest, with the sun filtering through the trees, and the afternoon in a metal scrap yard I'd been dreaming of shooting in for years. It was a bit of a mad shuffle but we made it work, with snacks, wardrobe, hair and make-up changes on the fly.
For the forest shoot, we'd decided to run with the idea of building a structure using yarn (an elaboration of an idea that Meghan had explored through a self-portrait project she'd worked on a number of years back) to create an interesting graphic effect to combine with the natural backdrop of the forest.
Meghan and I spent the evening before the shoot building the structure out of rebar and yarn on site. This involved tying up each individual length of yarn, which took a while. We ran out of sunlight, eventually busting out the flashlights and working into the night. Fine tunes, beer and nuts kept us fueled and on track.
Meghan getting started tying the first few lengths of yarn.
The view at dusk.
It was pretty amazing walking up to the site in the early morning after having finished it in the dark. Here's what it ended up looking like:
And here are few more snapshots of our shoot in the forest:
After packing up, we headed to the scrap yard for round two. This place was/is such a marvel---it was really a treat to wander around amongst the most magnificent mountains of rusty metal. Here are a few snapshots from our time there:
It was a super day, a ridiculous amount of photos were taken, and I'm thrilled to have had the chance to make this happen with such lovely & talented people. Here they are workin it:
Meghan Tansey Whitton, photographer, in some serious action.
Melissa Dube (photo assist), Yailen (blurry but beaming model) & Emily Moore (Hair & Makeup Artist)
THX ALL!!!