Once again I decided to get out of the confines of the Hotelito and experience the rustic glory that is the Casa Dracula. Such a great space full of character and spirit. I could have spent much more time there.
Claudine and I took advantage to work there. Prior to shooting Claudine showed me some things she brought and one of them was a roll of cheesecloth. Immediately I had a vision to capture with it, so was very excited to execute this.
Along with the majority of the shoot at ZfestX, the visions will eventually end up in series but for now I am displaying individual posts.
The first series explores void and a time past. When life seems empty, we move on.
The second series I set the camera up to view straight through a bunch of rooms. The camera stayed on one spot throughout and shot in the various locations.
The third series was utilizing the cheesecloth. Its properties and uses were endless. ‘Cocoon’ was a vision I had when seeing the material and I was extremely happy with what was created. Claudine, as most know, is awesome and she worked wonders with all the themes.
Having Tara and Emma in International parts 1 & 2 respectively, Anne makes up the finale of these overseas collaborations.
While staying at the Hotelito the days prior to our shoot, I was in admirance of the architecture about the place. Having spent copious amounts of time in or around the pool, I loved how the wall lights lit against the static walls within the pool compound, and the casting of shadows it produced as well.
This inspired me for a dusk/dark shoot to exploit these qualities. Anne was up to the challenge and was brilliant. The beauty part of the shoot was that even during the evening, temperature was not a factor (YAY warm climate). We took advantage of what light was barely available to capture some slow shutter work with the hammock. The remainder was exposed to whatever the lamps gave us.
I did have some focus issues, which made me a bit sad. Regardless, I was stoked with what came from our work. It was different from the norm which was very cool.
Here are samples from our collaboration. Enjoy!! 🙂
I’m really a bit sad about this. This is my last shoot. I don’t have anymore photos to post. I have snaps and video, but all my work has been posted now. I guess we’ll have to do this again soon.
Tara and I thought to shoot the last day. I got there early and Meghan was doing nothing, so I worked with Meghan for 1/2 hour before Tara found us on the roof of the house. So it was 1/2 hour with Meghan (11 down below), then 1/2 hour with Meghan and Tara, then 1/2 hour with Tara. Cool how that all worked out.
Now I need to go throw a dart at the map and figure out where we’re going next year.
You always hope to pick up shoots with those you weren’t able to pre-book throughout the week. On Halloween I thought I would just sit around. Then sitting around got boring. Meghan was just sitting around too. So we did this for an hour. 🙂
My tenth shoot! In year 10! In the 10th month of the year! On the 30th day of the month! 3’s. 333. I made a wish for good photos. Brooke Lynne is awesome so wishing was kind of silly. Enjoy.
Looking forward to seeing all the rest of everyone’s images! I have two more shoots to post then my fun posting is over. Kind of sad about that. I need a commune somewhere so this can continue all year round. ho hum.
I’ve posted some of these already… developing process was exciting. 🙂
I wanted to use a horse. But I’ve seen so many “nude with horse” photos in my lifetime that I shied away from it and asked to use a Goat. I’ve never seen a “nude with goat” photo before. Maybe there’s one out there somewhere, but it hasn’t crossed my path yet. We still shot with the horses, but not “nude ON horse” in the Lady Godiva sense. So I’m OK with that. We utilized some other random props we found too.
It seemed like Stephanie and “Boots” (the goats name) were doing this tango together on the sand. The owner of the Hotelito had her employee help us with the goat, prepared with nibblets from the feed bin he was on standby so Stephanie could dip her hand into the treat bucket to keep Boots dancing. This was a really fast 15 minute shoot. As always, Stephanie is always in pose ready for my shutter to go off. She really is an amazingly present model. Present in the sense that she’s always paying attention to every detail, conscious of where her body is positioned in relation to the direction I’m pointing my lens and ready to perform magic at my 3 count (1…2… and a 3… click). I always give a 3 count. Habit. I appreciated knowing when the shutter was going to fire when I was modeling. Nothing worse than seeing one of those images of yourself in mid-pose because you had no idea what the photographer was doing. I try to avoid those images when possible. Don’t want models thinking I’m taking crap images of them. Heck, they still may think all the images are crap, but at least they don’t ever say so. haha. But if they did… I’d never post them. Confidence shouldn’t be discouraged. (hey, i’m rambling… wanna see some photos? great!)
The memories are still quite fresh of the time spent in Todos Santos with wonderful friends, some long time and some new. A most magical place which will need to be revisited in the future as I saw only a fraction of what magic it has.
All rolls have been developed and images scanned. Roughly about halfway through the editing and though some of it was ready for presentation a couple of weeks ago, decided to start the posting of work from Mexico in the new year, which is of course, today 🙂 ***due note, Australians had to suffer the wait until the 2nd, ;)***
Normally I do my edits in order of who I photographed first but this time around I decided to draw names out of a hat and the first was Candace. We have worked together numerous times since 2005, both at the Zoefest gatherings and visits to British Columbia. Outstanding model as we all know and never a dull moment.
We shot later in the week and utilized the exteriors of her room. The brick had a lot of character with nice lines and textures. The stucco made for a nice blank canvas for Candace and who is now known as Paco to do their magic.
I posted my images of Ella Rose first here: My Part 1 would end up at Part 1,253 That was my 6th shoot (October 28) developed and scanned first. 🙂 And I just realized I snuck in shoots between the shoots I scheduled before arriving. So this timeline might be completely and totally WRONG, but who cares? Right? So much has happened since then. I am ready for years end. You know, I am taking suggestions for next year’s get together. Don’t be shy in sending them my way. I’d love to announce it before February so we can all start planning. Throw a dart at the map!
Sara Liz and I started off at Todos Santos Inn for my 7th shoot on October 29. TSI is not really my flavor, which is why I stayed at the Hotelito to start with, but it was an absolutely GORGEOUS hotel. Every little detail you could imagine wanting, they had. Beautiful bathrooms, lovely white linens, gorgeous suites and and and… I just like it modern. I tried forcing the shoot a bit and just decided that we were going to all three hotels in 2 hours! So, that’s what we did. Todos Santos Inn, Casa Bentley and Hotelito all in one. Enjoy. 🙂
St. Merrique and I shot at The Casa Dracula and at the Hotelito. Lots of pictures! I posted some earlier as I was in the midst of editing everything, but might as well put them all in one space.
We stopped at La Esquina cafe before our shoot and I had them fix up an iced mocha with three shots of espresso. I was feeling kind of “duh” in Todos Santos. Not sure why, maybe it was the drastic cut to my coffee intake upon arrival. Well, espresso intake. Espresso makes all the difference in the world! Anyway, it finally did the trick. I wasn’t moving at a snails pace anymore. And I think I took more photos because I was just stupid high on coffee! ha. I work best with lots and lots of mocha.
I worked mostly with my Rollei and later switched up and used my tilt-shift lens with my 35mm Nikon fM.
Merrique rules! By the way, incase you needed telling.
