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.