During the Centennial Celebration for Fernbridge, Jerry Lema used his antique flat bed truck to ferry a bevy of beautifully dressed women across the historic bridge. One of those women was my wife Lori looking gorgeous as usual in her period garb. Sitting next to Lori was a young woman who I had never met before, but she had the most astounding period look. She had the perfect hair, face and makeup; she looked just like an old photo that had come to life. I instantly knew I wanted the chance to photograph her.

Luckily, Lori had found out a bit about her and knew that her mother Paula worked at the Ferndale Post Office. Lori will strike up a conversation with any woman how has long hair, which mother and daughter both have. So through Paula we found out that Kellyanne would be interested in modeling, but she was only going to be in Humboldt for a bit longer as she was going to Switzerland in a few weeks.

So we scheduled a shoot for just after the holidays, but on the day of the shoot I wasn’t feeling like I should be outside of a 5 second perimeter of a bathroom. So I had to cancel. First time I had to flake on a model after having about a 50% record in the other direction. I felt bad, but really there was nothing I could do.

When I next ran into Paula at the Post Office I found out we still had a small window to shoot before Kellyanne departed for the land of chocolate, fine time keeping machinery and anonymous bank accounts.

On the day of the shoot we first dressed Kellyanne in some vintage lingerie and an Edwardian dress. She looked just perfect in that ensemble, and when I get some time I’ll add those photos to our vintage clothing website.

Next we had her try on an Edwardian costume that Lori made and it looked spectacular on Kellyanne. I’ll post more photos of the dress on Lori’s web site once it’s ready to go.

I’m looking forward to Kellyanne’s return from Switzerland and having her back in our studio again.

Picture of the Month – July 2011

In July we travelled back down to the Bay Area for Lori’s 2 year checkup for her cochlear implants (which went very well by the way). I wanted to use the opportunity to return to a location I used in our last visit, a culvert that runs under a road in the Santa Cruz hills.

The model of choice for this session goes by the name of Sakura Blossom. It was interesting working with her because she likes to keep her identity hidden in photos so each photo had to hide her face either in cropping, pose or lighting. Normally that restriction might make me choose another model, but Sakura Blossom had one advantage that was appealing. She is tiny. That comes in very handy for modeling Victorian clothes.

The camisole and drawers she is wearing have only been worn by one very tiny 16 year old girl so far, and the corset, well she was the first model tiny enough to wear it. The corset measures 18″ around the waist, and Sakura Blossom’s natural waist measurement was 21″ so it fit her pretty good. I had pretty much given up hope of getting this corset photographed on a model, and I am glad to finally ditch the photo of the pillow we had been using up to this point.

It was a pleasure working with Sakura Blossom, and she was the first model I’ve worked with that brought chocolate (and good chocolate at that!) to the shoot to share. Now that’s the way to make this photographer happy!

Picture of the Month – October 2009

We photographed Katrina in a few different Victorian outfits for our Vintage Fashion website. I took a few of the photos and gave them the old glass plate treatment. By layering different textures into the photo in Photoshop, I take a perfectly good photograph and make it look old and beat up. Just the opposite of what I’m usually doing on the old photo restoration side of the business.

Picture of the Month – March 2009

When Natalie and I worked together last year, we discovered that we both wanted to do a romantic shoot with a horse. I pictured her galloping down the beach with the dress blowing in the wind, but the logistics of putting that together was more than I could manage.

First I wanted a pretty horse and finding one near a beach, and to have it be bulletproof was pretty tough. After a year of searching and numerous setbacks such as owners and horses dying, I finally settled on the pretty horse part. Melissa Fischbach was helpful in letting us use two of her pretty friesian stallions. 

My first shoot with Natalie we used this wedding dress from the 1930s so I knew she would look great wearing it. But mounted on a huge friesian she had a look of nobility. It wasn’t the shot I had envisioned a year ago, but still one I’m proud to have in my portfolio.

Picture of the Month – September 2008

2008 is starting to look a lot like 1929. So it was only appropriate that we photographed this sheer beaded flapper dress from the 1920s one last time before it was sent off to it’s new owner. To help pay medical bills, we’ve been selling off some of Lori’s vintage clothing collection. Some of them have been hard to part with like this one because they’re so fun to photograph. Becki assumed the role of the jitterbugging flapper dancer for us. She’s looking in her purse, but just like in 1929, it appears to be empty.

Picture of the Month – April 2008

After moving into my new permanent studio space I was anxious to work on some natural light portraiture. One reason I wanted the new space was that it offered big windows with a nice soft northern exposure, perfect for natural light portraits. Renée, the model, was dressed up in some of our Victorian clothing, including an 1890s corset.

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 – November 2004

Sometimes you just need to be a little mysterious. Originally this shoot was to document a vintage garterbelt for our vintage clothing web site, but this was my favorite pose.

Picture of the Month – September 2003

Kate is one of the models that we used in our fashion show at the Ingomar Club earlier this year. She also collects vintage clothing, and has an impressive collection of hats so we got together to work on some photos for both of our collections. This hat was one of my favorites, and I love the way the red bird matches her red lips.

Picture of the Month – June 2003

Sitting just a few miles from the coast, Ferndale can usually expect a healthy dose of fog during the summer months. So after a streak of several days of absolutely perfect weather, I knew it was time to do something with it. Chelsea makes a return engagement for Picture of the Month, this time wearing a Victorian camisole and petticoat, while watching the sun set over Bear River.