Inessential Stuff

I had been wanting to do a shoot with a band for a while, but I didn’t know where to find a band.  As it ends up, Tim Wallace (second on the right), whose wedding I shot several years ago, is now in a band, and they wanted some band pictures done.

So, this past Monday, on a cold, windy, drizzly day, the band got together and we did some pictures.  They rock, so they wanted to convey that in the images, but they were polite, gracious, and pretty excited.  To paraphrase Ed Sullivan, “Level Zero has five of the nicest youngsters we’ve ever had before our camera.”

To learn more about them, check out the facebook page of Level Zero.  And, of course, check out their promotional photographs!

Pullman isn’t THAT far away. Still, when traveling across the Palouse to do a shoot, I figure we might as well make it worth it and go all out. Fortunately, this was exactly Courtney’s thinking as well. So we made a day of it. Indoor shots. Outdoor shots. Industrial shots. Landscape shots. We shot for about four hours, with only a coffee break in the middle to warm up.

And yes, it was fairly cold, which makes Courtney’s effort all the more spectacular. Some shots seem quite summery, with a cotton dress and bare feet, but that is misleading. While she was moving gracefully in bare feet, I was blowing on my hands and bundled in a bulky sherpa fleece. She insisted it wasn’t that cold if you just put your mind elsewhere.

Oh, by the way, she’s also proof that beauty and brains go together: she’s a doctoral student in engineering at Washington State University. Anyway, here are about fifty images from the day.

I had talked to Nirvana for, literally years, I think, about doing a shoot.  We finally made it happen.  And then, once it happened, it was entirely different than planned.  I was thinking of doing a shoot with a car, but I wanted some good scenic buildings and background for the car.  I thought some of the old buildings in the Hillyard district of Spokane would be cool.  But once we got there, I liked the buildings as a background without the car at all.  So we just did that.  Plus I had just purchased a new (old!) chair as a prop, so we had to test that out, too.

At the end of the shoot, we happened upon a gentlemen who took us on a mysterious little venture into an awesome building where he invited us to do a future shoot.  And so, something to look forward to!  Until then, here are some of the photographs from last night.

For some reason, this shoot sort of slipped through the cracks.  Kylie and I did our third shoot together back in July, and I’ve had these images sorted out and ready to post, and then they never got posted.  So I’ll post them now.

It was, as usual with Kylie, a fun, relaxed shoot.  She chose the wardrobe thinking blue would go well with the green of the fields.  We stopped by an abandoned building on the way to the fields, then shot until after dark.  We also lucked into some noctilucent clouds.  So productive was the shoot, that the image you see at the right now is in my home studio.  Click this way to see the rest of the shoot.

I met Amy on the day of our shoot.  Within the first few minutes, she told me, “I’ve been sick all my life.”

She is 23 years old, and has been in and out of hospitals all her life. She has fought cancer twice. She has had open-heart surgery. She has had countless images taken of her body—–MRIs, CAT scans, X-Rays.

But she’s been in good health for a while now, and, as if to remind herself of who she really is, she wanted some pictures of the outside of her body, pictures that showed a healthy woman.

She told me beforehand she didn’t want me to photoshop out the scar on her sternum from the surgery, but that she really wanted me to make her look pretty.

That was not difficult to do.

It so happens that her boyfriend is a motorcross rider, so she wanted pictures of her with his bike and gear, and she found a great farm location.  I met her and her friend downtown, and they led me to the farm.  We did some shots around the barn at first, and then moved out to the field, which was much better.

She was very nervous at first, skitter-ish, and reluctant to look into the camera for more than an instant.  But with a bit of coaching and encouragement, she became more and more relaxed.

We tried a bit of this (some shots by the barn) and that (shots in the field), and by the end, not only was she anticipating what I wanted her to do next, and posing beautifully, but she was actually enjoying it

We finished up.  I packed up my gear, and she put away the bike equipment.  And as we were heading back across the field to the barn, she said, to no one in particular, “This has been the best day of my life.”

That makes for a pretty gratifying day of shooting.

We had scheduled a shoot a couple weeks in advance, so we simply lucked out on the weather.  It had been 0ver 90 that day, but a storm was rolling in.  That night would bring thunder and rain and the next day the highs would be in the low 60′s.  But for the evening, when the shoot was scheduled, the weather was perfect:  not too hot, but with spectacular clouds, as the storm came closer and closer.

I’ll post some pictures of the scenery later.  For now, here are a few of the portraits we got.

Britta is a photographer/model with a keen interest in fairy tale concepts.  She contacted me and showed me some of her favorite images and wondered if I would be interested doing a shoot along the same lines.  The idea appealed to me, in part because it isn’t something I’ve really done before.  So she came up with a wardrobe and location and together we kind of floated around this vague idea.  More of a mood, really.

Once we started shooting, it seemed clearer to me.  Nymphs.  Forest nymphs.  Water nymphs.  Tree nymphs.  Nymphs of the night.  Britta was great, and we got this little collection for our efforts.

I have been wanting to do a country road shoot for a while (and will be doing more . . . . lots of area left unexplored there). So I arranged and shoot with Haley, who brought along her friend Julie. We drove out towards Cheney (I think they thought I was leading them on a goose-chase for a while), and found a spot.

The concept is a breakdown, as you can see. But it ended up being as much about the sunset as anything. Okay, so there are some continuity problems (few girls would breakdown on the side of the road with a wardrobe change), but it was a lot of fun, as you can see.

And though the road was fairly deserted, I think it’s pretty safe to say that these girls would have no problem finding help if they DID breakdown.

I did another shoot with Taryn;  she wanted some sensual pictures done for a friend, so (for the most part) we moved out of the studio and to a little bedroom.

We needed a prop (though not much of one, since she does such a great job of modeling), so I offered the choice of a pink sheet or a red.  She chose red.  Based on the results (found here), I can’t say I disagree.

(There is no nudity in this gallery, but there is a lot of skin, so if you are offended by such things, just keep that in mind.)

I’ve known Taryn for over a year now, and done a number of shots with her:  in fields, in the studio, in abandoned buildings with skunks.  And she just keeps getting better and better.

She’s gotten used to me, I suppose, and is more confident. She can be playful about the whole thing, and not take it very seriously, but then slip into serious, somber poses that are just gorgeous. But best of all, her movements are like a dancer’s:  long, graceful, elegant.

Honestly, I don’t think I captured her grace.  I hope to photograph her in that dress again.  Give it another go.

In the meantime, here are the results of the latest shoot.