Beauty & Fear: IV

And finally.  After months of working against forces beyond my control, I finished this series!  I have had this plan (and this dress) since the summer, but we didn't get to shoot till December!  It was absolutely freezing, and poor Kendra had to lie on the frosted ground in the costume I had picked out for the summer. I was lucky enough to find a (rather random) patch of perfectly green foliage that was reminiscent of summer, and I finally had the chance to finish my series.

Model: Kendra Ozanick-Vanderhill

MUA: Alicia Marie

 

This death is less obvious than most of the others.  This girl was not very bright. Thinking she new her way around her families cabin out in the country, she decided to wonder of the path-to an unfortunate end. 

I had originally planned on using a fox in the foreground, but after the acquisition fell through, I ended up photographing paper butterflies from a coloring book and photoshopping them in later.

 Did you know that butterflies eat decomposing flesh?  I didn't either. 

I think this was a great finish to this series.  The butterflies eating the corpse add another layer to the beauty and fear that come with death.   Through this series, I have found that it is not the perfection that is shown in the paintings of death that make them beautiful-but the serenity and peace that can be found in the scenes.  I have found that the stark reality of death adds a different kind of beauty, like a tingle down ones spine, this fear can be twisted into a sort of beauty in itself-one of the reality that we all face and yet seek so much to avoid.

Model: Gretchen-horns test shoot

Meet the fall fairy.  What started out as a test shoot to see the appearance of the horns under a flash, took on it's own individuality through the amazing modeling of Gretchen, and makeup by Alicia.

I really had no ideas when we started shooting.  All I knew was that I wanted to continue practicing my lighting, and I didn't want to do the shoot "half way."  Gretchen really took the shoot into her own hands, pulling off all the grace and beauty of a greek statue. 

I liked the photos so much, I decided to photoshop her into a new location, one that would really help tell it's own story-something beyond just a "test shoot."

The horns are made from tinfoil, paper mache, string and paint, duck taped to a headband.  You will be seeing them again later!

Creative: Temptation

Every year Carroll has a Graphic Design competition.  I shot this photo specifically for the photoshop section of the competition. 

In Scottish folklore there is the Seelie and Unseelie court.  The story goes that the Unseelie court will lure humans down into the fairy world.  Once there, the humans are persuaded to eat the fruit-and once they do, they can never leave, giving the Unseelie court prisoners from which to draw their energy.

 

I made it into a fake movie poster because I wanted to play between fine art and commercial photography.

 

Here are the photos that went into the making of the final project

 

  

The crown and claw were both made of hot glue, and

then painted with yellow paint and gold nail polish. 

The background was hand drawn, scanned, recreated in illustrator,

then printed and made 3D by staggering the paper on cardboard.

Thanks Alicia for the makeup, and Marissa for her awesome modeling!

Class: Lost

Our latest project in fine art requires us to select a place from a hat and photograph it in 2 different ways.  My first way was "lost," which is what I often feel like when I'm at school. 

And here is how I got the ghosts.

Self: Lavender

Okay guys, I've finally done something I've always wanted to do: dye my hair lavender.  

For Christmas my mom offered to pay for me getting my hair done.  She was thinking red highlights or something-I was thinking "go big or go home." 

So here it is!  My new professional photo for my website.  

52: Week 51

 Week 51 was a Christmas shoot!  This is Danielle (again) who had laid claim to my next creative shoot.  This weeks shoot was based on Sugar Plum fairies/the Christmas queen.  I realized I hadn't done a shoot that required a good deal of editing for a while, so I decided to challenge myself.  This shoot was really fun, and one of my more intense shoots.  We stole the strobes from the studio to shoot in the chapel, but my teacher originally gave me the wrong combination to the lock, which lead to 5 people attempting to crack the code, only to end up calling him at 8pm to get the right combination.

The costume is all from the costume department.  The flower in her hair is an ornament, and the candy cane scepter was made by me!

And this is my lovely assistant Marissa!  She is a freshman photo major at Carroll who asked for my help in photography.  She was kind enough to work with me this shoot, and model for me while testing the lights.  This shoot would have been a lot harder without her help, so thank you so much Marissa!

52: Week 50

 Week 50!  I realized I haven't done any sort of hard core photoshop for a while now, so here is my attempt to remedy that.  This shoot was one I have had planned for a long time.  Originally intended to be a couple shoot with an ex boyfriend, I decided I would do it anyway, since I had already taken the location shots, had the poses in mind and the costumes picked out.

The location photos are HDR shots of Frame Park in down town Waukesha that I took last spring.  The model is my friend Carly who I photographed in the studio this pas week.

Week 50

Closed the dress, fixed the braid, erased fly aways, retouched makeup, and usual dodging and burning.

52: Week 44

A Beautiful Death

It was the strongest of these emotions, that finally killed her.

I wanted to do something for Halloween, although this is an idea I've had for quite a while.  The title and caption should be enough to give you some idea of what this image represents.
Tom came out to play, and Danielle did my skeleton makeup.  

Creative: Halloween

 For Halloween, I wanted to do something different.  I tried to think of something creepy, yet still plausible.  I came up with the idea of attempting to wake your sleeping loved one, only to find they are infected-zombified-alienated, whatever.

 

 I decided to sort of combine things from my film class, and my 52 week project, which lead to a short film done in all stills.  The makeup was done by my model, Danielle Regan.  She is wearing yellow contacts to giver her eyes that hazed green look.

Thanks Danielle and Danny for modeling for me!

Happy Halloween!

52: Week 37

This has been an idea I've had in my head for quite a while.  A wiccan-magial scene, with the witch being caught in the act.  My roomie, Kaitlyn, was kind enough to come model for me in the heat and a velvet cape.  The books were checked out from the library, and the candle was one my roomie found for me.  After the shoot, we had fun in the rose garden!

A big thanks to Kara for helping me with this shoot, she was awesome!

Week 37

Kara as my assistant!

52: Week 34

My favorite model had been wanting to do a Lady Gaga shoot for quite sometime, and a week before she left for Italy, we finally got it done!  We wrapped her in saran wrap, put a wig on her, used fake nails, and drew 4 tattoos on her.  It was so much fun to have Lady Gaga on repeat, and play with all our props.  The whole shoot was so much fun!

An EXTRA big thank you to Alicia for the makeup, and the fake nails, you were awesome!  

And thanks to Gretchen for allowing us to have so much fun with you!

Week 34

Makeup artist and model

Self: Vampire Re-vamped

Lately, I have been redoing a number of photos I took over the course of my 365 project I did sophomore year of high school.  I have always had a thing for vampires, and decided it would be cool to reshoot this vampire photo.  

I have been reshooting old photos in an attempt to display my progress over the past 5 years.  Everything from my skill level in photography and photoshop, to the availability of costumes, props, makeup artists, and locations.

A big thank you to Alicia Marie for doing my vampire makeup!

 

I wanted to keep the photos as similar as possible, while still allowing myself room to update and improve the second shot.  The original photo was shot in my bedroom back home, my end table covered with fabric, a desk lamp, and a small jewelry box and rose sit atop it.  In the redo, I had the side table covered with fabric, but attempted to improve the elements by having a candle instead of lamp, and grapes and a book instead of rose and jewelry box.  I felt that these elements would be more realistic to find on an end table. 

Although I had access to a champagne flute, which is what I'm holding in the original photo, I decided to go a little more accurate and use a win glass.  I again, tried to be more realistic and filled the glass with blood, instead of simply holding an empty glass.  

I decided against using the same amount of blood on my face/neck for the simple reason of not wanting to drip any on the costume departments clothing.  I also wanted to appear more "elegant," versus “animal.”

Although I didn’t mean to do this, I feel that my expression is much more vampiric in the redo than in the original, where I appear rather sheepish.  My expression definitely has more of a dominating quality to it, which I believe to be appropriate for the subject matter.  I think that the improvement in my expression and pose is just a result of 5 more years of experience being in front of the camera.  This photo was taken in the beginning of my photography/self portrait career.

I play both vampire and victim in both photos.  As an only child, if I wanted multiple people in a photo, I was forced to model both parts.  In the redo, I attempted to make it more obvious I modeled both parts by not cropping out my face, as I did in the original.  I also attempted to make the gender of the victim more clear in the redo, although I believe it was a man in the original as well.  I pinned my hair back, put on a button down shirt and tie, and did minor adjustments in photoshop to make myself appear more masculine, such as strengthening my jaw line, straightening my eyebrows, and straightened my nose.  The blood was added later in photoshop.

I’m overall pretty happy with the final photo, although a lot more work went into it than originally planned (wallpaper was added, multiple shots composited together, etc.)  I think that my goal of comparing my then and now work was definitely reached, and for that I am very grateful.

p.s.

-I originally wanted to redo the shoot as a vertical, like the original, but my camera decided otherwise.  

-The candle is a carrot painted white I found in the drawing room.

-I might have scared the crap out of one of my teachers when he saw me in my vampire makeup.

p.p.s.

I love it when I find things in my photos I didn't notice while shooting.  Like the fact that there were goldfish crackers everywhere.  I had to edit them all out.

52: Week 22

This has been on my list of "to do" photo shoots ever since I found my moms old ice skating costumes in the basement.  The biggest problem was finding someone who would fit into them!  When I informed my makeup artist of my idea, she informed me that her younger sister Casey, owed her a favor, thus, she was volunteered as our model.

Hair and makeup were done by Alicia, as well as the light painting in the background.  Christmas lights and strobes controlled by Alicia and Casey's mom, Cindy.  

Thank you all so much for helping me with this, I hope you had as much fun as I had making this all work!

Week 22

52: Week 21

Yeah, another self portrait, sorry.

Self: Chicago

All my plans for the day fell through, so with nothing to do, and fully charged equipment, I headed to the art building to have some fun.

The final photo is about 4 photos total.  I took the photo of me, and then layered several photos of light paintings over it.  I used one of those little kid red/green flashlights to pain the chairs.

Master flash on camera, slave camera left with a red filter.

More light painting!

Model: Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better

As I said, here is Alicia!  This was inspired by the stigma that used to be placed on women in the past.  Women were only allowed do to certain things, and were looked down upon by men, and often seen as property.  I wanted to place a woman in the position of man, proving that she could do anything a man could do.

Hair done by yours truly, makeup done by Alicia.

Self: This Ones a Fighter

A continuation of my Bad A** self portraits.  

The cigarette was a rolled up piece of paper held together with bobby pins, recreated and smoke added in photoshop.

52: Week 19

Week 19 has seen the continuation of my May Format surrealism series.  

Trust is like Paper

When paper is crumpled and ripped, it will never be the same. Much the same way as trust.

The butterflies are crumpling and fall apart around her, 

like her trust does every time she lets her walls down.  

28 photos were used in this compilation.  Each butterfly was 

photographed individually by dangling it on string from a stick. 

Here is grandma helping with my butterflies!

And butterflies on a stick

Thank you grandma for your help with the butterflies,
and thanks to my model Katelyn for holding my stick!

52: Week 18

Week 18:

I really wanted this photo to tell a story, a girl, sitting on her front steps, reading a book, and the book coming to life around her and swallowing her into its world among the pages.  

The weather was freezing cold, the grass was wet (and I was bare foot), and I spent about 45 minutes throwing paper and flowers, all right across from campus, so I got quite a few strange looks.  A car even slowed down to stare!  No one questioned me though, not even the owners of the house (thank god) who I don't actually know!  I figured that the owners were probably used to strange things happening in front of their house, since like I said, it is right across from campus.  

There are about 13 photos in this image.  This photo took about 6 hours of work, mainly because once I got all the photos together, I didn't know what I wanted to do with it!  I eventually decided on this red-green color theme and I am very pleased.

This is the beginning of a series, so look for more coming soon!

52: Week 17

Presenting one of my new favorite people: Alicia Marie.  Alicia is a famous-to-be makeup artist.  She requested to shoot with me, and I agreed, as long as she modeled!  For this shoot, I sent Alicia an inspiration board and a photo of the costume I had planned on using, the rest was up to her!  She did more than just pull through, she amazed me.

Alicia, I will definitely be working with you again in the future, and next time, I won't make you model!

Week 17

I'm keeping my editing a secret, I'm far too in love with this technique to share!

Dress and crown from the costume department: