I think sometimes you have to celebrate your challenges and failures along side of your victories. This session was a challenging one across the board. Ruby and I may have locked in this shoot over a month ago, but a week ago she let me know that she just wasn’t feeling as energetic as usual and wanted to take things a bit more low-key than the costume shoot we had planned.
Cool. No problem. I’m here to do the work. I don’t care all that much what I’m doing, as long as I’m doing it. Also I prefer to test new equipment on more “low stakes” shoots anyway (not to brag, but most of the time I really do like being a photo industry secret agent and getting to play with pre-release toys…this will come back to bite me in just a few seconds).
I’m not sure what happened this time around, but I think I was fighting my equipment from the first frame. My first mistake was thinking I could use good quality lights with a poor quality modifier. I’m spoiled I guess with having access to better equipment, but I still can’t believe I can notice a difference with something I relied on not too many years ago. However, that was only the first battle. No matter what troubleshooting I did I kept having blank frames where my strobes just didn’t fire. I have some troubleshooting to do, and even though I’m happy with what we ended up getting, I’m still a little disappointed we had to cut things short (even if it did mean we did get more time mobbing around a new antique store and Target for the afternoon).
Dark Gray
Caitlin - 2023.
I warned my housemate that I was going to be using “canned atmosphere” and told him not to worry if it looked like my studio was smoking, only to realize how flammable the whole ordeal actually can be (I’m glad I blew out that scented candle before we started shooting).
If you have never used fog in a can (as I hadn’t until today) it has a unique smell between burnt toast and rotting flesh. I’m not sure how long that scent will be sticking around, but I hope it dissipates while I’m away for the next week for work. Thankfully neither of us has any asthma problems, and nobody outside of my studio windows called the fire department.
After several rounds of unfortunate rescheduling, Caitlin and I are again back in the studio—this time with more (and alliterative) horror-themed hotness.
To be honest, at first, I was a little skeptical about the Ghost Face concept that Caitlin brought to the table, but after some trial and error, I think we ended up with something interesting.
Lady Hephaestus - 2023.
While I was scheduling the previous post with Retrofatale, I was made aware that Lady Hephaestus was going to be coming along for both morale support and talent. Of course, I wasn’t going to complain at all.
It was nice to get them back in front of the lens after our debut shoot last year, and in such a short time see what new things we could create together.
I love how open and honest they are with themself (“We can banish this one to the void”) and the process of shooting photos that depending on the audience can be a little bit risqué (I don’t know too many other people who have said the phrase “I guess its time to pull my boobs out […] Blake doesn’t mind, he’s just doing his thing”).
I wish we weren’t so rushed this time around, but I still think we came out the other side with something fun.
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Retrofatale - 2023.
It may have taken a few years, but it’s great to reconnect with someone and get them back into the studio. Even though in many ways this is a first for us, getting to work again with Retrofatale was a fun experience.
With the rise of “Content Creation” and “Fan Pages” I’m always open to working with people to help create something visually interesting and fresh, and this shoot was no different. Even though we had to cut the day short due to some unforeseen delays, I’m happy with what we were able to create together with Lady Hephaestus (blog post right before/after this one depending on how you found this entry).
I already can’t wait for our next adventure together where we will tackle something a little shinier ;).
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