We never thought it would be damned near a year before we’d attempt to do a photo shoot again. But then again this year has been chock full of unexpected things. So there is that.
So... Why Now?
What spurred us into even doing this set in the first place was that Tacocat had a costume she wanted to enter for the Arda Wigs/Silk Baron contest that was ongoing. Which was Briar Rose/Aurora from Sleeping Beauty. She thought it would make a good entry for the contest. But she wanted photos that were a bit more than what could be done with just a cell phone.
Now we hadn’t put together any photo projects for some time for very good reasons. But as we started to look at a couple of factors we realized it might be possible to pull off. For one we’d be shooting outside which would help. Second, Tacocat and I had pretty much been nowhere for the past few months. Since I’ve not been working really the only place I go is the corner store to grab beer. For Tacocat she does volunteer at a local food pantry but it’s mostly organization/sorting and not working with clients. Also all of her college coursework has moved online. So as far as any potential exposure goes we felt the chances were low enough to go ahead with this.
The Setup
This was interesting from a character presentation standpoint. As a character Aurora/Briar Rose doesn’t actually do much in their source material. Given that this depiction was from a particular Disney version we initially went for a balance of Disney Princess and elegant poses.
As for the location we went to a nearby park that we hadn’t shot at before. What got our attention was that it had some natural features to the park we hadn’t seen elsewhere. The close locale certainly didn’t hurt either.
Working Through Things
This was actually a bit more difficult, to be honest.
Originally the forecast for the day was to be partly cloudy. Sweet! Possible sun diffusion to work with, interesting texture for the sky, etc.
Nope. Full sun the entire day.
So while some spots we shot at were shaded just having all that sunlight made it difficult for me to consider how to light things. We had Tacocat’s mom playing as assist to move things around which helped. But to have that much light hitting my eyeballs at all times made it kind of hard to really judge how things were lit. Even more so since I’d have to review things through the electronic viewfinder.
Which did lead to another issue. Since I was so deep into the technical problem solving aspect with the lighting it took me out of the creative mindset. Which led to not a ton of variance in posing. And we straight up forgot to even look at the pose references we collected. Thankfully this kind of situation is really uncommon for me though I have noticed it elsewhere. While we usually do a lot of work to try to figure out potential problems way before we shoot sometimes things just come up. This was one of them.
Final Thoughts
I was glad that we were able to do photo work again. Given the whole thing was thrown together for a contest with short notice we think the photos do work in that context. And there are certainly some pics we like. As a ‘proper’ MTA project there are certainly some gaps that did not get covered. But with all of the factors considered with this set there is work worth presenting.
We’re still trying to figure out where we can do more photo projects. We do have a number of ideas that do work in outdoor settings that would be more structured. Though with the world throwing us all the curveballs it’s been a hard space to navigate. So right now we don’t know when we can do more photo sets. But if there’s enough space to where we feel safe in doing so… we will.
