A few rolls have been through the chemicals and the scanner (stupid scanner…) and are ready enough for display. A few dust specks notwithstanding. At this rate, I should be done by FestXI.
Claudine rode out to Todos Santos with us from the airport and it’s the first time I’ve seen her since Twenty Nine Palms three years ago. It was fun to see friends from earlier ZoeFests and it seemed like It had seen them weeks instead of years earlier. I had included a couple of images of Claudine in my slideshow and looked forward to shooting with her again. We had a relatively short shoot at Rex’s fantastic Casa Dracula and were lucky that a breeze came up, both for the cooling effect and the way it worked with the curtain and netting in the upstairs bedroom.
Hello everyone! I’m writing a series of blogs about our recent wonderful ZoeFestX experience on my personal photography blog and Zoe said it would be okay for me to post them here as well. I really truly miss all of you wonderful humans already. Here’s the first entry:
A week ago today, I got on an airplane in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico to fly home after one of the greatest artistic adventures of my life. It’s a long, long story. Certainly too much for one blog.
So this will be part 1 of 50. Here’s how it begins:
Last July, I got an email from a photographer whose work I really respected. Zoe Wiseman is a friend of a model friend of mine and was inviting me to her annual fine art photographers retreat. This year it would take place in Todos Santos, Mexico in October. I emailed her back asking her for more information.
“Drying my nails. Can’t type. Call me,” she wrote back.
I did and Zoe proceeded to enthusiastically tell me the incredible details. 15 international figure models. A group of photographers she personally respected. All of them hand picked by Zoe, who would spend 10 incredible days collaborating to create spectacular images in an amazing location.
“You really need to come to this,” she insisted.
“Give me 24 hours to think about it.”
An hour later I called Zoe back to tell her, of course, I’d love to be there.
The next few months were very busy and I had very little time to prepare as October raced toward me. A few last minute projects crept up and suddenly my departure date was here. I’d be flying into Cabo San Lucas, picking up a rental car and finding one of the other photographers and one of the models and driving the 120 miles up the Pacific coast to the little town of Todos Santos. The only problem was, none of us had ever met each other. Our flights had all landed within an hour of each other and somehow through a series of voice mail messages, texts and emails, Joris, Ella Rose and I all connected and headed off on Mexico Highway 1.
The photo above is one I made in Casa Dracula, a one hundred fifty year old mansion built as part of a Todos Santos sugarcane plantation in the 1850s. Keira was an amazing model to collaborate with. She had reviewed my previous work prior to our photoshoot and reminded me how I loved to create images with sheer fabric and long motion exposures. She had paid attention. This is one of the amazing images we made and I decided to start our story with this one because of it’s colorful nature and the fact that it’s been dreadfully dreary this week in Chicago.
So much more to come! Stay tuned.
Paco…….
the prequel
The Cannery became my favorite place to shoot in Todos Santos (apart from the sand fleas) Brilliant light and enough ruin to meet my minimum requirement of decay.
A few photos from our last party in Todos Santos. This one held at the beautiful Hotelito. I think a good time was had by all! Here’s a link to the images, warning: people having almost too much fun LOL
It was for me, a splendid gathering of artists for the FestX in the special artistic community of Todos Santos. Many thanks to Zoe for her significant efforts!
As well, thank you to the slide show judges, I am honored by your choice. I am very grateful to all the models and photographers who participated in the slide shows, I am the richer for viewing your art.
While researching the area where FestX would occur, I discovered Todos Santos based artist Jill Logan. Jill was at our meet and greet the first night of FestX and her gallery is next to the Hotel California where we all dined together the second night.
In the early morning hours on Thursday, there was a gathering of three artists at Jill’s gallery.
‘Twas an amazing time had by all. Being a film addict, the only thing I have to date to show and tell are some iphone imagery and some evil digital snaps. Coming back to non-tropical/desert weather, I am looking forward to developing and editing the work created with the amazing models. Will be a busy and active winter. On that note… si, please!!
As she is a self confessed beach babe and considering she hadn’t had the chance to shoot outside of the hotels, I thought Samantha Grace would like the opportunity to scrabble over some rocks and get wet at the beach. I think it’s pretty obvious from the photos that she appreciated it 🙂
Off for another sunrise shoot with the delightful Meghan. The gate to the beach was surprisingly padlocked that morning, so we took a quick detour over a hill, to get to the opposite end of the beach. The previous day I had scouted the track and was positive we could get right to the beach… unfortunately the little track we took was extremely overgrown. At one point we were tunneling through the undergrowth, crawling under the spines and bitey things. I had to remove my backpack on occasions as it simply wouldn’t budge due to the thorns!
Major points to Meghan…she was undeterred and we finally appeared the other side of the bush right on the beach. On our return to the car, we realised a track 50m in the other direction was clear…
