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

Chaos Theory

The simple story of a complicated shoot that quite simply wouldn’t exist if not for the flu named for swine.

Right now, on May 3rd, 2009 as I am typing this the outcome is yet to be written and four days ago him having a suspected case of the Swine Flu was kind of a big deal.  In other words I’d prefer he stay the heck home and we would gladly reschedule the shoot when he was fully recovered and much less contagious, thank you very much.

I know, I know… word on the street is we’re not supposed to call it the Swine Flu anymore, apparently some claim it may be offensive to people of Muslim or Jewish faiths who don’t eat pork (I am not making this up), instead we should call it the ‘Mexican Flu.’  I know what you’re thinking because I thought the same thing, since when does anyone think it’s OK to eat Mexicans?  They taste terrible!  Of course I’m only joking… Mexicans don’t taste too bad.

The email responses went out and everyone agreed that proceeding without the visionary hair stylist (who shall remain un-named due to doctor/client privelages) was not an option, and the shoot was canceled.

That would have been the end of the road if Keith Bryce wasn’t a friggin’ maniac, and I use that term in it’s warmest, most complimentary way possible.  Fans of Project Runway may recognize the name from last season. Keith was part of the team assembled for the Opposite Series yet in the hour or so since agreeing that canceling the shoot was best he had another idea.  He wanted to bring in a body-painter, a different hair stylist, a makeup artist and two models and shoot a different concept with chicken wire and tubes… in 48 hours.

“Sounds awesome!” I said, “but let’s be reasonable, styling one model with body paint, hair, wardrobe and makeup is going to take hours and two models could take days. How about we stick to one model just to be safe?”

Literally half-a-dozen emails later he finally agrees.  Phew!  In the mean-time the original model we had booked had already made other plans, which meant I had 48-hours to book a model.  Piece of cake!  Now I just have to tell my pregnant wife who loved the idea of a canceled shoot that we were now doing an even bigger production.  Can I just say that she is the best sport ever!

Two days later the full team arrives, Chad doing hair, Brett Hamilton doing body paint, makeup by Paula Dahlberg, custom wardrobe by Keith Bryce assisted by Adam, my assistant Dani Peek (who also brought Pumpkin Chocolate chip bread and White Chocolate Cinnamon Scones!), and the beautiful and ever-willing Carly Stark as the model that is completely unaware of what she just stepped into.  After six hours of styling, and lots of wire and heavy-hair-piece induced pain for the model I give you the aptly named Glamborg. The girl that simply would not exist if not for a some pig farmers in Mexico.

Swine flu eat your heart out.

PS – Carly thought it was only appropriate for me to let everyone know her struggle did not end when the photo-lights turned off, it took three showers and a mom-assisted sponge bath to remove the evidence. Yikes!

Storm

“There are two sides to every coin, two peas in a pod, two to tango and as far as photography is concerned there are two kinds of storms – good storms and great storms.“

I am nothing but an extraordinarily courteous photographer (that’s a lie) and since the bride was used to living in much warmer weather I called her at 1PM, five hours from the scheduled shooting time, and gave her the opportunity to reschedule the shoot for a different, warmer, more predictable day. Lucky for us she was brave… unlucky for her it was freezing.  Did I mention that she is from Ghana, as in blistering hot and humid Africa?

The rain started smattering the windshield when we were just a couple miles away from our first shooting location, and then the icy wind started picking up.  The camera is water-resistant, brides will dry off, and any amount of time the assistants spent feeling sorry for the poor girl in a wedding dress is a waste because technically it’s her fault we were outside in the ice-water rain.  I think we can all agree that the bride should be feeling sorry for bringing the photographer outside into the nasty weather.  Only kidding of course, it was a pleasure to make these images with the beautiful bride!  Well, mostly kidding.

The weather held off pretty well, considering, just enough wind to poof the wedding dress, the shivering was manageable and the warm car breaks frequent enough to prevent any permanent frost-bite.  The light was incredible, the dark clouds provided the worlds largest soft box creating a perfectly even, soft light on everything.  A little oomph added with an off camera Canon 580EX II fill flash and we have some of the best photo conditions on the planet.

We shot in multiple places, pressing our luck as the sky continued to darken and then it eventually it happened.  You know how every once in awhile you experience one of those incredible moments whose timing seems far beyond coincidental? I suppose that in a lifetime full of moments it would be more statistically remarkable to not have a handful of those remarkable moments but never-the-less they still seem other-worldly. After snapping the last photo we wrapped up and started walking back, as soon as the bride walked within spitting distance of the car (nope, you won’t hear that sentence many times in your life) the storm broke, and I mean it really broke.  The cartoon-sized rain drops started pounding down in one of those theatrical displays of pouring normally witnessed only at the movie theater during a break-up scene.  We rushed to shelter and as we all piled inside the warm-ish car the future-sister-in-law put it best.

“Jake, the photo gods must really love you.”

I sure hope she’s right.

Located about 1.5 miles from my front door it’s an abandoned school of some sort, since it’s probably trespassing I won’t mention any more about the location so don’t ask, but lets just say we found a way into this completely boarded up building and discovered that what appeared to be a small brick structure is absolutely giant! Two floors of long hallways and dozens and dozens of rooms in various levels of muck and grime. Some are pitch dark and some are lit by broken sky lights. Some rooms smell like ‘yard sale’ and some smell like ‘hillbilly farmer’s market’. Some rooms are beautiful with vintage wallpaper and some are absolutely creepy, like the one with a whole bunch of baby dresses strewn about with the words, “Satan was here” scrawled across the wall in thick yellow paint.

What better place to bring a couple of models, a talented wardrobe designer and a half dozen gorgeous hand-made dresses! A big giant thank you goes out to everyone for having the absolute worst cell phone rings in the history of creepy cell phone rings. As you are wandering long, pitch black hallways with two weak flashlights there is no better sound to hear than a slow melodic whistling eight rooms over when your party of six is all a short arms length away… that split second it takes to realize it’s a phone in someone’s bag is not a pleasant split second to say the least.

I’d say the creepiest experience occurred shortly after the shoot in the purple dress and pearls, we had found our next room (the white insane asylum type room) and I went back to collect all the lights to re-set them up. (PHOTO TIP! I used a Lumedyne 1,000WS strobe with battery pack for this entire shoot) I walked back, by myself, and collected the light stand, battery, camera, and then I noticed an almost new bright yellow backpack sitting next to my camera. I was positive that it wasn’t there when I set up everything so I figured it belonged to one of the girls so I picked that up too and made my way back down the long hallway. When I arrived back to the group I set everything down and held out the bag expecting its’ owner to thankfully take it from me, instead I got a bunch of odd looks. The bag belonged to no one. In a house of ruinous decay somehow the one pristine object found it’s way next to my camera…

Models: Kenzie and Cassie, Wardrobe by: McKell Maddox

Photography Blog

Lots of people seemed to enjoy reading my old photography blog, I had video tutorials, stories from my shoots, before and after images, tips and tricks, and sneak previews of new work… but the problem is I didn’t love my blog.  It didn’t look like my style, uploaded videos didn’t look nearly as good online as they did on my computer, image size and placement couldn’t really be controlled… I finally realized that I loved creating the content but I didn’t love figuring out the blogging technology.

That’s where my new blog and entire new website comes in!  I commissioned my long time friend Sterling Okura, a flourishing social media consultant, to create a new blog for me that would be easier to use, have better technology, and would visually integrate with my website.  Well, he went above and beyond by not only creating a better blogging platform using customized WordPress templates but also creating an entire site template that I can edit and change with extraordinary ease!  If that wasn’t enough he also integrated my carbonmade gallery into my website, so now updating galleries is extraordinarily easy!

So what does that mean for you, my loyal viewers?  Better blogs, better content, more frequently updated galleries, better everything!  My old blog will go by the wayside but I plan on reposting some of my most popular stories and tutorials here… keep in touch!

-Jake

PS – If you are interested in a similar setup for YOUR website feel free to contact Sterling at http://bizlift.com/ and tell him that I sent you!