Last year when I went to Vegas to attend WPPI, I was standing in line waiting for Jerry Ghionis’ platform class and started talking to the girl in front of me. What a small world it was; she was from Calgary! I hadn’t seen Stephanie since meeting her then, but we agreed we’d definitely get together in Vegas again this year (don’t worry, I’ll have a post coming about that soon enough!).
This year found her with a baby in her belly, so we decided some Vegas maternity photos were in order! The Vegas strip has a million fantastic photo locations that always get the gears in my head going, but I just couldn’t make it past the hallway to the convention center at MGM! The colorful walls called to me…
Stephanie was willing to strip down in front of all the other photographers walking by, and it was fun stopping for everyone who was chimping the back of my camera to see what we were up to! It was so much fun and challenging working in a totally different environment for maternity photos; usually I prefer to use a lot of natural light and give the photos more of a soft feel, but if you’ve been in any of the casinos in Vegas, you know they are very dark and very dramatic! My mom acted as my lighting assistant with my single strobe (I wanted to travel light – no pun intended), which made the shoot much easier, seeing as how I didn’t have a light stand with me ;)
It took some planning and a crew of people to get the artistic vision perfect, and I was happy with the results of turning Cassandra into her own version of Blind Mag from the movie Repo. This is a bizarre, wonderful dark rock opera, so if you’re into quirky things like that, be sure to check it out! I was hoping to do some evening light painting with this shoot, but the temperature dropped quite considerably and our fingers went pretty numb, so we stuck primarily with strobes.
Sara (who is new to the photo scene; check out her link below!) was a huge help with moving my lights around and manning the flashlight so I could get the focus right, and we wouldn’t have been able to do it without her. This was also the first shoot I had Bonnie do makeup for, and I hope there will be many more because that girl is talented! And if the zombie makeup is any indication of what those two can do, you shouldn’t be too surprised with this costume.
The talented cast…
Hair: Cayley Moncrieff, Chatters @ Park Place
Makeup: Bonnie Ferguson
Assistant: Sara Giséle
Costume: Cassandra Pollock & Jeremy Nordstrom
Cassandra contacted me a while ago to do a photoshoot inspired by the character Blind Mag from the movie Repo, and things finally came together to make this happen! We had a great team on this and I have a few more to post, but won’t be able to get them online until I get back from WPPI. Stay tuned!
Hair: Cayley Moncrieff, Chatters @ Park Place
Makeup: Bonnie Ferguson
Assistant: Sara Giséle
Costume: Cassandra Pollock & Jeremy Nordstrom
The results for the Lethbridge Sun Times Best of the Best contest, where residents vote for their favorite businesses, are finally in, and I am proud to announce I received second place for photographers! Thank you so much to everyone who voted and for all the support everyone has given me over the past year. I love what I do, and it is worth all the late nights and lost weekends to be able to do this for a living. THANK YOU!
I wanted to put together a slideshow showcasing my work, and thought this song, which I have been in love with since I heard it a few months ago, was a perfect fit (Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zero, Home). Most of these photos are on my new website, but there are a few in there that hadn’t quite made the cut the first time around :)
It was so hard narrowing down photos for the galleries, and was painful to make some of the cuts I did. However, I’m so happy with the final result. I hope you like it!
