The

Marathon Project

1 Makeup Artist, 1 Hairstylist, 1 Photographer, 14 Models

Whenever someone tells me they are training for a marathon I always assure them that it is completely un-necessary, I will be more than happy to give them a ride. “Really, it’s not that far out of my way,” I tell them.

But no, They don’t want a ride.  They want to “Prove to themselves that they can do it.” They also like to tell you how many hours it took them.  I always act really impressed…

“Really, only nine hours?  Wow!”

But secretly inside I’m thinking to myself, “Uhmmm, you could have driven that in a half hour, and don’t even think for one second that if the ancient Greeks had cars that they wouldn’t have done just that.”

I say all this knowing full well that some people just have a passion for running, it’s a passion I won’t ever understand but I do understand passion in general.  I believe that there is this passion in every single one of us, some people are lucky enough to discover and nurture their passions and others spend their whole life searching… but when you find it you know, it just is inside of you and wants to burst out of your stomach like an incubated Alien in a successful movie franchise starring Sigourney Weaver.

The format was simple – every half hour a model would arrive for a half hour of makeup, a half hour of hair, and a half hour of photography.  The theme was Accessories, we asked each girl to bring a variety and we’d plan the shoot around them, some brought a closet full of treasures and some brought nothing at all.

In my head, before the shoot, I planned on a single look for each girl for a total of 14 images, a daunting project in itself.  But as soon as the shoot started I realized it would be much bigger than that, I couldn’t stop shooting.  The creative buzz was palpable, the energy just so fun and a half hour was plenty of time to get several looks in especially when the lights didn’t require much resetting.

In all we shot 2,188 images, just over 50GB of RAW images.  To put that in context if I were to save all the RAW images onto CDs it would take about 68 blank CDs to fit all of them.  All in all I selected 46 images for final retouching.

Why would we do this?  Part of it is to prove we could but most of it was to satisfy a creative passion in each of us.

After the shoot was over my stomach and head were buzzing with this creative adrenaline rush, I really don’t know how to explain it other than to say it just might feel like that runner’s high after they push through the wall… maybe that’s why they run.  But all I know is I can’t wait for Marathon Part II.

Hair by Steven Robertson, Makeup by Paula J. Dahlberg, Photographer Assistant Ryan Muirhead, Models: Paris, Achlé, Jenna, Sue, Claire, Morgan, Erynn, Arianna, Madeline, Carly, Lindsey, Cassie, Samantha and Kali. Photography by Jake Garn