A silent star

The silent film shoot has been in the works for a while. One day at work, I was looking at photos and I came across one of Lillian Gish. One look and I was sold. I sat there thinking, I want to do a photoshoot with someone pretending to be her. And the idea was born. That's how alot of my ideas are born. Getting it all together, now that's a different story.

Trying to find make-up artists (mua) and wardrobe stylists that are willing to shoot for free is crazy hard. I have to ask so many different people. At least rejections don't bother me anymore. When it comes to that stuff, I just can't take it personally. I posted a casting call on Model Mayhem (MM) which is this great website that has really helped me move forward with my portfolio. I got tons of responses, so it was all about weeding through the responses and finding the right people for the job.

After rescheduling the shoot once and getting everyone's schedule together, the shoot was finally confirmed and ready to go. Only one problem: The wardrobe stylist cancelled, but at least she gave me a week's notice, so had to go shopping for vintage attire and assories (and on a budget too!). I went to my favorite store, Urban Outfitters and I found this cool hat for only $5. The vintage clothes shopping didn't go so well, let's just say I ended up with mostly nothing. I got saved. How? The model owns vintage clothes!

Day of shoot, I look out the window, there is a huge grey sky and the the clouds are just screaming, I want to rain! I'm thinking okay, if it rains, we'll just figure something out. I drive to the model's house and it's drizzling, the mua is already there, and we set off to begin the getting the model ready part of shooting. There was bleaching and curling and tons of powder to get the look just right. All in all, it took about 3 hours. I do have to say the MUA did a great job, I would recommend her to others.

We decided to use the model's house and neighborhood for the shoot since it was cloudy and could start raining at any time. At first, things weren't going all that great, the model was stiff, and was having trouble getting into the role of being a silent film star. I will say this, most models need a warm up before they start taking good photos. Once I told her to stand up and pretend to water the plants while looking away dreamily, she started to get into the role and the shoot went much better. The street scenes are my favorite. The mua helped me with poses and expressions for the model. (Pretend you are kissing someone, there you go!) We got her doing the classic pout and some carefree moves too. It's funny how people will stand and watch us, or to have men yell obscene comments or try to flirt just b/c they see some girl getting her photos taken. As photoshoots go, this one went smoothly and I got some shots I'm proud of.