Day 3 of 9

Day 3 of 9

Fashion spread for Derks magazine.

(I hate group photos... so why shoot a group entourage? Because I suck at them and shooting more its the only way to get better.. but im really happy with this one.)

Its 7:40pm and I have to be honest the end of Day 3 feels like the end of Day 8. Today began at 9arrival time to shoot at 11pm.

This shoot is for a bridal fashion magazine, but traditional bridal fashion is not really my thing. Im not into adding textures in post and calling it "fashion" either.

But when I heard Gay hooked up Kelly from the AB Ballet with this uber crazy (Elton John inspired gothic circus gone bad costume). Then I was really on board.

I wanted the shoot to feel like an Mature rated "Tim Burton version of the Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus"

I sketched some ideas last night after my other shoots and brought them to the location in hopes for approval. When I arrived I presented my sketches to Gay. She simply looked at me, smiled and said "Curtis do whatever you want, that's why be brought you on board."

(check out the sketch on the top right, pretty much exactly what I wanted)
We shot this series at Gay and Darryl Derks house. Although the Derks are cool people, I was a little leery a t first when I was told our location was their house.

(you dont see it here... but in my head im thinking WTF am I going to do with this group photo??)

When we arrived I quickly realized their "house" was actually a photographers play ground, complete with vintage furniture, gold painted walls, cool textures everywhere, huge ceilings, props and details around every corner and a back yard garden with slate flagstones!

(originally I was thinking treat him like a puppy...then this came up)
Darryl (also a photographer and owner of Derks formals) even had black out curtains to block light if you wanted to control the day light!

(This is without question my favorite picture)
It was seriously 100 times better than any studio I have shot in! They actually could have charged me a studio rental fee!

I ended up shooting 50%out side on a cool set built by Christina from ID Bohemia... Then I simply moved indoors to shoot against some of the gold walls in the house. I ended up using a complex outdoor light set up for me (two lights :))

Indoors on the golden walls I rocked my friend Curtis's Prophoto Ring flash. As soon as I saw the golden walls, I called Curtis T and asked to borrow his ring flash.

The walls screamed "photograph me with a ring flash" Then I sent my assistant off to pick it up from his place.

So heres what I came up with.

Day 4 of 9 begins tomorrow at 7am. Interiors - then on to product at 1pm.

Oh none of these pictures have been worked on in postproduction they are clean out of camera.

Enjoy!

C