Picture the un-seeable. That is what I’m trying to do as a photographer: . Today I have a picture to share that “shows” what I am talking about with a little peek behind the scenes.
If you’ve been following our blog you know that we tailor our photo shoots to fit the personality of the subject when we can. It’s not enough for us to just make a subject look cool, Jen and I seek to create images that show off what is uniquely cool about that person. And that is what we were aiming for with Adry’s most recent shoot.
Adry is a model on our 2022 senior creative team. She really puts the “creative” in our Creative Team as she is an artist that likes to explore the visual arts. But she’s also interested in exploring music. We wanted to collaborate on an image that felt like an exploration of music.
I’d love to give you the impression I’m supremely confident when I set out to make a creative image. That I always know what I am doing. But part of why we like to do these creative team images is to challenge ourselves as artists to do something new. That’s taking a risk for us. It’s why I like working with models like Adry - she was willing to take a risk with us to create some compelling images.
So I told her I had half an idea. I was going to try to combine her and her guitar. That I was going to try to make it look like she was posing ON her guitar. So that’s how we ended up walking around Alma College campus with Adry, her guitar, my camera and an idea.
Again I want to remind you this project wasn’t rehearsed. I had some experience from compositing Blake and his fish in his boat. So I knew my job in Photoshop would be easier if I shot the guitar in the same light as I shot Adry’s portrait.
Sounds simple. Or maybe it doesn’t? I sound confident, but there were a few minutes where things were not coming together as I had planned. The sky was overcast. I couldn’t find a straight shot on campus that the neck of the guitar would fit in. The first few setups we had shot weren’t extraordinary.
So what did I do? I made jokes. I also stood in silence looking around for opportunities to pull my idea together.
I could have lowered the bar. I could have cranked out a nice set of simple, safe shots. Those shots would have looked good too. But we were pushing ourselves to make something out of the ordinary.
And then I found a spot. And the sun came out for a minute. And I shot the guitar. And Adry playfully pretended to walk a tightrope. And … honestly … I wasn’t completely sure I would be able to pull it together. But we did! And you can see the results for yourself.
Check out more video of us in action below: