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.