Sarah has been hard at work on wedding photographs so I thought I’d finish up post processing on some photos we took back in early November during “The Shoot”. Before I reveal the series of photographs I thought I’d share with everyone the whole back story on how this photo shoot came about.
First of all, we are obsessed with classic movies. Our own children have seen To Catch a Thief more times than I can count. What’s not to love with actors and actresses such as: Cary Grant, Gregory Peck, Jimmy Stewart, Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, Judy Garland…the list goes on. They all just seemed to exude class. Even the clothing and fashion that existed during that time period was incredible.
Back to the story. I was having lunch with my boss a few months ago and we arrived at a trendy local eatery. Before looking at the menu I noticed a girl behind the counter taking down everyone’s food orders. She had her hair up in 1940’s/50’s pin curl fashion and completed her look with what I thought was make up style for that era. I thought she pulled it off amazingly well.
I went ahead and approached her after my meal and said, “This is a rather strange request, I’m sure. My wife and I are photographers and are obsessed with the 40’s and 50’s. I love what you have going on and we would like to offer a photoshoot to you at no expense. If you are interested please give us a call or drop us an email.” With that I handed her our business card.
The truth was, Sarah and I had been talking earlier that week about trying to schedule a shoot that would be ‘just for the heck of it’. We wanted to do something that would match our love for old movies. That’s when we met Chelsea! She emailed Sarah within 24 hours of receiving our business card and agreed to do the shoot!
We wanted to approach this shoot with a good plan. So we decided to rent a couple of hot light kits from a movie lighting company. Popular photographers of the time period didn’t have the luxury of high powered studio strobes. Instead, they would use large fresnel spot lights to light the scene. After doing this photo shoot I have even more respect for the likes of George Hurrell and Clarence Bull. Those guys were masters of their craft. I’d love to toy around more with hot lights and hope to be able to do something like this again soon. Many thanks goes out to Chelsea for being our talent. Thanks to Tiffany from MAC makeup that came all the way from Chicago to help us out! Thanks to the photographers we invited out to join in the fun/heavy lifting. Thanks Jennifer and Eric for the good times! And last but not least many many thanks to Erica and Felix at the Hoyt Sherman for their continuing hospitality and open door policy to let us come in and shoot. Felix, you are a stud!
Here are our favorites from the set!
Really love the old film feel of the below photograph:
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