Picture of the Month – December 2007

I came across Natalie’s work on ModelMayhem and saw that she had the perfect figure for a 1930s wedding dress in our vintage clothing collection. Since she lives in the Bay Area I was hoping to get the chance to work with her someday, and when it turned out that we were going to be traveling to the Bay Area for the holidays, we decided to schedule a shoot. We also used the opportunity to check out some friend’s Victorian in Alameda, who graciously allowed us to set up in their recently renovated parlor. Natalie wanted some jewelry shots for her portfolio, and I used a little bit of Photoshop trickery to make her eyes and earrings match.

Picture of the Month – January 2007

Sometimes it pays to follow a hunch. Just before Christmas last year I saw a photo in the paper of a very pretty ballerina. I’ve worked with several models with ballet experience and they’ve always been fun to work with as they bring an extra dimension to posing. I was able to locate Stephanie (thank you MySpace) and we worked together twice last month. The first shoot we dressed her up in some vintage clothes, and then for the second shoot I asked her to bring her pointe shoes so we could work on some dance themed photos. Stephanie amazed me with her control, remaining carefully posed on her toes while I got the shots. In this shot she is modeling one of my favorites from our vintage clothing collection, a capelet from the 1880s.

Picture of the Month – October 2006

A couple of months ago while I was draping Kaline in white spandex, I also brought along an antique lace tablecloth and used it in a few shots where she was holding it in front of her. Then I thought it would be cool to drape and pin it so it became a dress and we tried that with Melaine during the recent shoot with her. The lace made a very interesting dress, but the problem with it was that it trained in the front. So attempting to deal with that I made it into a fin shape, giving the whole costume a mermaid look. So I knew that it really needed to be photographed at the beach instead of in the studio. Fortunately, October gives us some of the best weather here on our normally foggy coast, and on one particularly very nice day, we took Sarah out to the Lost Coast, and carefully posed her on the rocks. This location was just down the coast from where Sarah painted her self portrait last year. I guess this will have to become an October tradition to pose Sarah out on the rocks along the Lost Coast!

Picture of the Month – September 2006

October is the month that we all get to dress up and be whoever we want to be. While I was in the middle of photographing Melaine wearing some Victorian clothes I kept finding that the corsets that I had picked out for her were too big. Since she has a cool purple streak in her hair, I mentioned that I had just the right corset for her. Before we knew it the photoshoot went off in a completely new direction, and Melaine had fun being a nasty pirate wench.

I met Melaine while I was staffing my booth at the fair this year, and I thought she would be perfect for an upcoming project that I need someone who can project a nice and mean side of their personality. After watching Melaine instantly switch from a sweet Victorian lady, to a pirate who was ordering me off of her boat, I have to say I think I found the model I was looking for.

Picture of the Month – August 2006

While I had the white scrim still set up in the studio from last month’s session, Jessica popped in while on a break from college. Jessica was last featured back in May of 2002, wearing a classic black velvet dress from the 1930s. We got to talking about draping since Jessica is studying fashion design and my wife wrote a pattern making book. So I figured she would be an excellent choice to continue my draping expirements. We tried several different “outfits”, all made by draping a single square of white lycra fabric. This design was one of my favorites, and Jessica added her own shades to provide that high fashion look. All for a couple of dollars worth of fabric.

Picture of the Month – July 2006

This photo was an experiment, and Kaline was the very trusting model. It started out when I ordered 3 yards of some white fabric to use as a backdrop. When I received the order I found that they sent two pieces, one was 1 yard and the other was 2 yards. So I started experimenting around with the fabric, draping it on one of the mannequins we use to display our vintage clothing collection. I then made a backdrop out of the smaller piece, stretching it tight like a theatre scrim. The longer piece Kaline and I experimented draping in different ways. This was definitely the most unusual photo from the set, and I like it as a demonstration of what you can convey with out using hardly any variance of color or tone.

Picture of the Month – June 2006

It was tough picking a photograph of the month this month because I had a lot to choose from just from the day of this photoshoot. I had traveled with two beautiful young women to one of my favorite spots to photograph. Both Ayrika and Kaline have lots of dance experience and that always makes the posing easier for me. I had shot Kaline wearing this vintage wedding dress in the studio earlier in the month, but I really wanted to use it for a photo like this. Even though thunderstorms had recently passed through the area, we decided it was safe to climb this mountain peak. Once again Kaline came up with a dramatic pose to fit the situation. This marks the fourth appearance of Kaline in a picture of the month. It had been several years since I last got the chance to work with her, and I was happy to see her return to modeling.

Picture of the Month – October 2005

This photo is part of a series I’ve been working on that has pictures within pictures. We shot this photo out on the Lost Coast, in the same spot that last month’s POTM was taken. Unfortunately, the day we picked ended up being very windy which only complicated further an already complicated photo. In addition to putting together the two photos of Sarah, and making one of them look like a painting, I also had to Photoshop my wife out of the picture because she had to crouch behind the easel and hold it so it wouldn’t blow away. This photo is much better when you see a full size print of it because the texture and styling in the painting gets lost at this resolution.

Update: This photo won the Grand Prize in the 2006 Vernal Equinox Photoshop contest, sponsored by the Eureka Photoshop User Group.

Picture of the Month – July 2005

Maria makes yet another appearance in a picture of the month, her fourth one this year. She is wonderful to work with and I never fail to get great pictures from our photoshoots. Several years ago I saw this rhinestone bra and thought it would be cool to photograph. At the time I had no idea how I would use it, but I knew it would take just the right model to wear it, since the cups aren’t flexible like most bras. So like Prince Charming I went on a search, only it wasn’t a glass slipper that had to fit just right. By the time I met Maria, I had the concept of the magician in my head, but I had to find the other props for the picture as well as find the rest of the costume. It finally all came together this month. Originally, I was going to use our pet rabbit in the photo, but she has since passed away. So instead we used a stuffed animal version, which was probably a lot easier to photograph, and it looks just as cute.

Picture of the Month – May 2005

The weather is always fickle around Ferndale, and often plan “B” surprises me by creating the best shots of the day. Other times it’s best to just call it quits and try another day, which is what we did for this shot. The first evening we shot in Loleta with Kathryn it was cold and windy and we gave up long before sunset. Two days later though we had warm spell hit the area and we enjoyed shooting right up to sunset.