For the second year I have had the privilege of being the photographer for the Spring Sing program. I had a blast last year so obviously I was thrilled when I was asked to do it again.
Unlike last year where I was given a very specific photo concept to achieve, this year the content of the photographs was pretty much given up to my own interpretation of the overall theme.
I knew the visual theme for the show was going to be steam-punk: lots of gears, cogs, pipes, steam and clocks. After Googling steam-punk for several hours (do at your own risk, I might add) I finally had a grasp of what sort of photos I wanted to shoot for.
I was inspired by Victorian era portraits where the subjects were straight face. But I didn't want my photos to completely boring and sad so I decided to tell my participants to add a little sass and attitude. I think it just adds a little bit something extra, another dynamic.
This is definitely the most involved and time consuming photoshoot I have ever been a part of but it has been the most fulfilling because I got to see the idea from concept in my head to a reality in print.
Enjoy some of my favorites from Famous for Fifteen.
Ciao for now,
I set up the set in the makeup room of the Ulrey Performing Arts Center.
Here are a few of the props and other visual elements.
I had thirty minutes to photograph each club show. Here are a few of my favorites.
After all of the club shows were done I had two hours to photograph the four host and hostesses.
They eventually got bored with they serious faces and things digressed a little. But we had a good time anyway.
It truly was an honor to work on such a fun project. It quite literally would not have happened without the help of a few key people. Thank you to Cindee Stockstill and Steve Frye for the carte blanche to allow me to be as creative as possible. Thank you to Julie Hixson-Wallace for loaning me the beautiful purple chair. Thank you to Jeff Montgomery for loaning me photography lights. Thank you to Ben Jones for helping me with props and McKay Murray for helping with fabrics. And thank you to everyone who was photographed!
Below is the final version of the program with the photographs in their context (please ignore how faded the pages are, technology is hard and I couldn't get them to appear correctly on screen but you get the idea) and used in the Spring Sing edition of The Bison Newspaper.