For the past three days I’ve been collaborating with a single great makeup artist, three hairstylists, a couple wardrobe stylists, and 11 different models. Each day’s shoot lasted 6-7 hours. I’ll admit that I was pretty nervous the first day. But after each shoot, my confidence grew and my creativity was pushed to its limits.

We worked in a small living room that was only long enough for my 85mm to get upper body shots. I brought my background stands and a 9′ x 8′ muslin cloth, my 2 alienbees (b1600 and abr800) and my elinchrom dlite2 kit. The biggest challenge was keeping the lighting interesting for each models look. Wardrobe, hair, makeup as well as the model’s attitude all contributed to how I wanted to light each model. It became a challenge as to whether i wanted to focus on the hair or the makeup (tight headshots came easiest because of the size of the room). I was armed with a 70-200L 2.8 IS that I borrowed from my friend Quan (www.blu-e-motion.com).

By the end of today, I had taken almost 1500 shots. I’ve culled that down to 46 shots i really like. I hope to cull that down even more to 15 or so. Here’s one of the best images from the first day of shooting.

I met Erica a couple weeks ago and she wanted to shoot with an old wedding dress what was passed down to her from her mom who also received it from her mom (Erica’s grandmother). Erica is pretty goth and wanted to stick that dark and edgy kind of look. She liked my style because i’m not real heavy on the post processing (it just doesn’t look heavy at least) and because she thought i could offer her the same feel she was looking for without the typical dark/grungy/goth look. My first thought was a “twisted” Alice in Wonderland theme. I spent over a week running through ideas but none were that great. One day I was driving and was reminded of the old ghost stories people used to tell at the Skyway fishing piers. They were always about some girl in a white dress. That girl in the white dress became the concept for this shoot.

I’d like to think that the first shot pays homage to the great Philippe Halsman… pioneer of the “jump portrait”. Nothing special going on in the shot to make her float. All Erica did was jump… many times… over and over again… until the pose was right.

my power pack blew out during some lighting tests the night before this shoot. unforunately, i didn’t know that it wasn’t working until we were already on location. so i shot the entired day with no flash… just natural light (and a little bit of photoshop). i’m pretty happy with my editing… here are the same shots before processing in photoshop and lightroom.

one thing i’d like to mention is that Alienbees (Paul C. Buff) has AMAZING customer service. once the shoot with Erica was over, i called customer service to see if we could trouble shoot the problem with my Vagabond II power pack. The tech person not in that day so I had to wait until the next morning to try again. I let them know that it was an emergency because I needed the pack for shoots next week and they forwarded my problem to the tech. I spoke to Joe (the tech) the next morning and told him the problem and that i’m pressed for time. He shipped me a loaner unit that day so I’ll have it an entire day before my shoot. Then i just return my unit for warranty work in the box that the loaner came in. When i get mine back in working order, we swap again! No downtime! I’m impressed.

I feel like i’m on a streak of good work right now so I’m trying to schedule as many photoshoots as I can to keep the momentum going. I learned some valuable lessons during my last shoot and I vowed not to make those same mistakes again. I kept things much simpler this time around and put my trust in my gear that i KNEW i could count on… just one lens (85mm f/1.8) and one light (AB1600 with beauty dish) did the job.

In my never ending search for new models, I found Victoria. I contacted her and three days later we were shooting. She wanted to do a vintage inspired shoot since she has alot of that kind of wardrobe and accessories. She’s also moving to Tennessee this Saturday so I decided to let her choose a location that might be meaningful to her. We ended up on a dirt road in Weeki Wachee that was actually familiar to me. At the corner of this street was the Bayport Inn (i shot a photo of it for the 2009 HPH Hospice calendar). Victoria was very well prepared and enthusiastic for this shoot. We lucked out with the weather and the storms cleared for the entire shoot.

Here’s a preview of the series… more images to come!