Oh my goodness gracious, it's been a minute since I've been here!! Most of the summer I think... please excuse the lazy! Tell me your thoughts, should I go back and blog some of my old sessions or just renew my commitment for the new ones?!
Okay, now that the business part is done- I popped back here because I painted Emily gold and took pictures of it. Literally.
Let me explain...
I'm a huge fan of concept shoots but I wouldn't necessarily term myself a creative person. Around autumn, pre-Halloween, October-ish, I think everyone jumps into overdrive trying to come up with the most realistic, sometimes-scary, outlandish looks and photographers are no exception! After all, it's basically open season for any and all weird, spooky stuff artists want to do but would be considered socially unacceptable the other 364 days of the year! Now! I am one of the sad but few creatives out there who is in desperate need of further development of their artistic gene. I have inspiring ideas, but can struggle to come up with unique twists and spins (anyone else with me?! No..? Just... me..? Mhhmmkay!)
Anyway enter Emily. And well, Hobby Lobby. (BECAUSE SERIOUSLY, WHO DOESN'T LOVE THEIR WEEKLY 40% OFF COUPON?!)
I basically went to Em and said, "hey, I wanna do something cool, and creative, but I'm struggling to come up with ideas. So far, all I know is I wanna paint your face. Or at least half your face. Or maybe just put some glitter on your face. I don't really know what I want to do yet, actually!"
I wish I could tell you I was kidding, but that's pretty much exactly what I said. Every time I texted her with a plan, I changed it five minutes later. I changed it 30 more times once we actually got to Hobby Lobby and were wandering aisles.
Eventually, because anyone who knows Emily will assure you she is the sweetest human alive, I decided to settle on the theme "shines like gold."
....
Do you have any idea how many different shades of yellow, gold, and egg yolk Hobby Lobby has? And that's not even talking about matte, shiny, OR big glitter, little glitter, sand glitter!!!! Your little indecisive heart human was very close to a mess by the time we got out of there and none of the actual work had been started yet! "Shines Like Gold" went through several variations between landing on "golden heart, golden girl, in a less than golden world." I felt it aptly told the story of Emily in a nice, neat creative way.
In retrospect, there were things we could've done differently. I hand painted half of her and she ended up just pouring paint on the rest of her because there ended up being no need to be so meticulous! The glitter, despite our efforts, simply went everywhere! We also spent a fair amount of time going through outfits, only to wrap her in plain black fabric- something we were both happy with, because it emphasized the SPARKLYYYYY! And of course, last but not least, we really could've picked a different day... poor thing, it was 30º and Emily was completely freezing, (I wasn't all that toasty myself) but she was a total trooper and I'm in love with our results!!
Tell me, what do you think?!!
I certainly learned a lot in this particular concept shoot and would even consider doing another (probably.. maybe... once I'm warm again!)
Aha, If anyone has any cool ideas they wanna execute, drop me a message! You use the creative gene, and I'll work the camera magic! Deal?! ;)
Xo,
Mary
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