Busy Beavers

There is much to catch up on…We had a shoot with Alethea at the dry lake bed. The wind cooperated (we wanted wind), the light held just long enough, and the model has a beautiful physique, not to mention can jump (gracefully no less) 4 feet off the ground. 30 feet of sheer fabric does come in handy on such occasions.

Meghan O’Hara also graced the lens again, this time in a purple prom dress (her actual prom dress I might add – know anyone else 10 years and one baby later who can still fit into the same dress?). She struggles with crowd anxiety but did an amazing job, no fidgeting or sweaty palms. I spent mot of the shoot trying to achieve [on the model] the 50’s pin-up style, exaggerated, happy expressions by acting a fool and making her laugh. It sorta worked. I kept calling her out for wearing a plastic smile. Closer to the end she got the hang of it.

Last night we shot with “anime character” Mike Henry for our first attempt at a Matrix-style shoot. The edits will be time consuming and probably not ready by the time I get this posted, by if everything comes to fruition it’ll be freaking awesome. That’s not bragging either. I kinda got relegated to watching the gear and occasionally fetching things instead of my usual – another photog was on hand to (attempt to) learn how Honey runs a photo shoot. I don’t know if he did. Either way it sucked for me. I’ve gotten used to being part of the process, predicting what Honey needs based on translation of a vague description of what he wants – it’s complicated but I get it. Anyway I’ll have to get used to it. If I work during shoot time, obviously someone will have to try filling my shoes. Good luck to them – I’m one of a kind. :)

Got a little sidetracked. It was a good shoot. Saw two security guards. One ignored us; the other came to tell us the doorway we were using was private property, could we please move, and that 100 or so people had watched the model change shirts on surveillance video. Pretty sure she though we were crazy. She asked if we were tourists, then if we were familiar with the ‘very bad’ area we were in, and why in the world we though a dark alley was ideal for photography. After all that was explained, I’m sure she though we were crazy. To be honest though, it was the cleanest, deserted alley I’ve ever been in and the little foot traffic was of the clean, normal citizen variety (as opposed to the drunken, derelict bum variety). As usual with all our shoots to date so far, we were done in two hours or less.

In other non-photo news, we had a rib cook-out last weekend (that would be my weekend, so Sunday) that was a big success and I got a massage. I could use a massage probably every weekend until I die, so if anyone wants to take pity on me…I was considering just now breaking this into more than one post, making myself look busier, but I don’t think I can get the computer time. So here it is en mass, as it were.

OH! Ok, I don’t know how many people can relate to this but here goes: if you discover one day that your deodorant has stopped working and you smell like a swamp rat two hours out of the shower, and you start using your significant other’s deodorant in a pinch and now smell like the opposite sex when you shouldn’t…I present and suggestion the deodorant crystal, or rock depending on who you talk to and where you shop. Same thing. It last 4x as long, no residue of any kind, and you don’t smell like anything, not bad perform, powder fresh (gag!), or Dad’s cologne from the ‘70’s, nothing. $5 bucks at Whole Foods. Join the hippie madness – you know you want to!!