Tracie and I have been planning to shoot together for a couple months now… we were just waiting for the right project to start it for. We had decided to drive an RV across California for a week and shoot in various locations, and had 2 other people coming with us… one was an assistant and one was another model. Tracie, being a makeup artist and hair stylist as WELL as a model was going to do all the hair and makeup… and I’d have 2 models to shoot across California.

Unfortunately as the date approached the other two participants had to cancel… so we decided to change the scope of the project and relaunch it another day. Details about that will be coming… and there will be a cool one-on-one workshop opportunity for one person.

So… we decided to just stay home and shoot at a few local locations… and just try to keep it simple and get one photo done each day for the week. We ended up shooting for 7 days and came away with 20 photos that we liked… and here are the first 9 of them… shot between Sunday and Thursday. The video above has a TINY amount of behind the scenes footage… we actually did a terrible job of recording… but we are planning another shoot week coming soon and we will do a full behind-the-scenes-explain-everything “tutorial” series of videos then.

Sunday

Tracie actually needed a new headshot for something… and while the actual headshot is nice and normal and worked fine… this was our favorite of the 10 minute headshot session in front of her house.

Monday

On Monday we went to the Disneyland employee theater to watch Beauty and the Beast… so we didn’t actually have much time to shoot afterwards… we decided to set up a couple of small flashes and a ringflash for a vampirish shot in Tracie’s room. I’ve gotten some interesting/cool feedback on the backdrop so far… what do you think it looks like / reminds you of / actually is?

Tuesday

We wanted to do something with a slightly city feel to it so we decided to head to downtown Fullerton. There is a small street with some cool streetlamps that I thought would give the look I was going for… sorta city girl in the city at night. Then we walked to a little cement park with a bunch of benches for the next shot.

Wednesday

Having a Deluxe Disneyland pass means I can visit Disneyland almost any day of the year except Saturdays and holidays… which works out perfectly since I don’t actually WANT to be there on those crowded days.

We started out at The Grand Californian Hotel at an interesting fireplace that just sorta exists outside at a patio.

The we took off into the park with intentions of shooting at the big blue staircase… but also happened upon some gorgeous light on the wooden bridge near Big Thunder Mountain while on our way. We stopped just to look at the water really quick and Tracie said “oooh, sun” and she automatically started posing as I automatically backed off with the camera at my eye. It was actually really hilarious. But you’re probably not laughing. I guess you had to be there.

Thursday

Thursday was a bit of a letdown… we actually planned on shooting at the OC Fair but the parking was closed by the time we got there… so we just went to a park and took this. We also witnessed some people doing some sort of cultish idolish thing while wrapped in a blanket… and ended up ruining the fun of 3 guys and a girl on the other side of the park who were doing who knows what in the big rocketship on the playground but took off when we started shooting right outside of where they were… too bad for them (though it was unintentional)!

Friday we actually did our best work… so I decided to save that for the next post… coming Monday… and we revisited the fair after that for the final shots.