Off to the Fair!!!

Hello Lovelies~

I hope this week finds you all well and settling into Fall if you're in the Northern Hemisphere. The weather up here in Maine has been almost perfect: warm days, cool nights, plenty of days of sunshine. In fact, I took last weekend to make a trip to our Common Ground Fair up here and I have a ton of pictures of that to share with you all!

But first, I shot my annual Halloween card last week and I am very, very excited with how it's coming along! Here is a teaser of things to come. My adorable model Katie is sporting a vintage, 1940's Halco Brand cheetah costume with hood. Cute. And soon, it will be available for sale over at STAG for Halloween buying!

And then, I shot the next piece in my Rein It In Series (#5!!!!). These are going so well and they're such fun. I mean, how often do you get to put a grown man into fake mutton chops and eye makeup just to make him a smarmy sea captain? (Answer: not often.) These are looking terrific. I will post the finished shots very soon.

Okay, so now that we have my project teasers out of the way, I will share the fair shots with you! My good friend Brian and I ventured a couple of hours north to our Common Ground Fair, which is the more "natural" and "organic" (read: hippy) fair in Maine. A ton of great food, an entire section on alternate forms of energy, robust livestock: in short, it's beautiful and quiet. I found the quiet a bit odd given the number of people. I'm used to fairs with rides and 80's rock and yelling, but there was none of that here. It was delightful. We had such fun and so many laughs! And then I wrapped the weekend up at my favorite friends' house which is always full of sweet animals, good food and good humor. A perfect Sunday ritual that ends the weekend on a calm note.

Fall is off to a very good start, my friends.

 

Until next time: unpleasant dreams...

Captain Lazarus...

Hello Lovelies~

I hope you are all doing well out there. Things here are busy as usual! To start, as promised, I have some new work out today. I finally finished the Red Army series with the shot below. This series took about 4 months to complete between finding models who fit into the clothing and finding the clothing itself. The series depicts "the real power behind the man" in a subtle way, and then the final image sort of adds a twist to the series (and also because I couldn't find a man to fit into that tunic...hahaha). Fun stuff, huh?

The shot I am most excited about this week though, is Captain Lazarus! I've had this idea in my head for awhile and when my friend Alan (and his glorious mutton chops) agreed to model, I knew it was going to be good. I tried some new techniques with this one to give the piece a whimsical, almost cartoonish look. It's listed in my shop for purchase as well. What do you think?

And speaking of the studio (not that we were), going through the lobby of the Mill the other day, I noticed they finally put up a nice professional looking directory for all the businesses and mine was up there with the rest! (And they even spelled it correctly...) I guess that makes it official, you guys.

I took a rare day off over the weekend to just drive around and enjoy the beautiful (but somewhat chilly) weather. We ended up going all the way out to Land's End via a winding and twisty road right near the water. What a beautiful area up there, sort of the quintessential Maine town you would picture. I got this shot of the fishing boats in the harbor and we also spotted a fox just about to run into the woods which I managed to capture mid-leap. But the best part of the day, was a trip to Fat Boys, a local drive-in restaurant that just opened for the season! Their frappes are delicious. I got vanilla.

Love that pink sunset, don't you?

I love those old, corrugated roof pieces with the teal and white. The sun looks great shining through them.

Those two seagulls on top were my favorite part of that sign.

Mmm fries. Love the old linoleum tables.

Oh, and I finally got a chance to see Drive over the weekend. Have you seen it? It's sort of an action/gangster drama starring Ryan Gosling (who most women find totally dreamy). I loved the cinematography and the soundtrack and the way that both built the tension throughout the entire thing. I also loved Ryan's jacket and the car chase sequences. Unlike most car chases, where you can't even tell what's going on, this movie really kept things calm instead, so you're actually more tense watching things unfold. Very strange, but good. I'd give it 5 out of 5 corncobs.

I want that jacket.

Until next time: unpleasant dreams...

Sea Captains & Fishing Boats

Hello Lovelies!

I hope you are all doing well out there. Things here have gone from busy, to super busy and it's great. Where to start? Oh, this is sort of funny. A good friend of mine who helps me a lot with shoots and costumes etc... asked me to make her a special T-shirt that she can wear on shoots and just in general. So, I did. Take a look, her words, not mine. (Several other people who help me like it so much they asked for one too...) Truer words have never been spoken, people really do sorta just do what I say during shoots. (I think that's why we all work together so well.) Hahaha! Too funny.

I have a really exciting shoot coming up this weekend that I can't really reveal anything about yet, so instead, I'll reveal some behind the scenes prep shots for a mini personal project I'm doing. It's going to be an amazing, artsy and humorous sea captain shoot. I can't wait to do this one.

This is the special octopus eye patch the model will be wearing.

I was inspired to do a patch like this by this shot of Salvador Dali, but of course, I will add my own twist for the shoot...

And, the background will consist of this great mod 1960's wallpaper that I found that has a somewhat impressionistic sea/boat them to it.

There is nothing more tedious than installing old, unpasted, paper wallpaper. Ugh. But it will look fine when I shoot it.

I can't wait to bring all of these elements together, standby for that!

I have found an amazing artist I wanted to share with you, Lovelies: Darion McCoy. Heard of him? Well, I find the juxtaposition of his pastel, Easter-esque color palette against the subject matter and the way he conveys it, deliciously unsettling. I don't know, something about those faces is creepy, don't you think?

And while we're on the topic of beautiful, creepy and unsettling, let me introduce another artist: Cristian Grossi. A fashion designer by trade, Cristian also has amazing artistic fashion designs that (I don't think) have never actually been made into clothing. Like his Insekta 2.5 collection. The lines and the delicate (yet sinister) faces mixed with bugs? And on his site, I believe some of them are gifs, because they move and glow and it's amazing. Check it out.

Let me wrap up with a blog recommendation: The Bold Italic. Beautifully laid out, interesting to read and full of funny anecdotes, this site focuses on things to see, do, eat and enjoy around the San Francisco Bay area. I don't even live there and I'm ready things that I find universally interesting and fun. I think every city should have such a good site to convey it's mysteries. Take a read and add it to your feed if you like it.

 Until next time: unpleasant dreams...