Psycho Win

RIT hosts a shootout, a one day competition in the studios where students get a couple hour time slot to set up, shoot an image and break down to portray a theme they announced in advance. The photo had to be submitted, unedited, right after the shoot. This years theme was 'Psychotic' and I partnered up with Mike Fiske to portray the theme. We had done the shootout last year, the theme then was 'Dream', so we had an idea of the pace of the day.

We enlisted the help of Melissa Stillman, makeup artist, and Vanessa Murphy, our model, to put together the image we had in mind. It was a crazy couple of hours, hair and makeup was in the process of being done in the schools hallway as we ran in and out of the studio setting up the seamless, lights and camera. A frozen pigs head was bought the night before and was still not completely thawed but sat bagged outside of the studio until right before shooting, styling it was incredibly interesting. It was just a hectic, fun experience. Then, to top the experience off, we received a call later that day..

We won the MAC Group Shootout!

We were completely ecstatic, and our photo was posted in the School of Imaging Arts and Sciences. The image can be seen in the Editorial section of my website!

London Fashion Shoot

In the Notting Hills area in London we had the final photo shoot of the trip. We were once again split into small groups to work with a model and I could not have been happier with the model our group was able to work with. Our model, Lianna Fowler represented by Ford Models, had so much energy and so much positivity to run with. Styling/Clothing was changed three times during the shoot. I started with a beauty shot of her outside of the infamous London telephone booth.



Then after lunch we set up in an alley way nearby that offered a number of backgrounds and spaces to work with and capture different feelings and moods from.



I have so many amazing photos from that shoot and it really opened my eyes to something that I could be passionate about shooting.

**When I returned home from London, I was flipping the channels on the TV and came across "Britain's Next Top Model" which had been filmed before my trip to London and I watched for a moment. One of the models caught my attention and it forced me to watch the marathon all the way through, to see Lianna Fowler win.

Prague Fashion Shoot

While in Europe studying fashion we were able to go to Prague for a little less then a week. Such a beautiful city! It's stone streets and cathedrals and artwork are incredibly romantic and you can feel that there's history there, not quite like anything I've been to back home.

It is also rich with wonderful locations for shooting. Even the streets and walls have character. Part of that trip was spent location scouting, for which I was a part of a small group. We worked with a model named Dominika, who had gone through the process of hair, makeup and wardrobe when we met her. A hair stylist had her hair teased out, her makeup was done beautifully and a stylist arranged her clothing. After our shoot I saw her without all of that, and she didn't look any older then 14. Its amazing how much it transforms someone.

Our shoot started in the beautiful gardens in the city. I photographed Dominika posed in the sculpted greenery. We each used different aspects of the gardens, the plants, benches, walls, and small rooms decorated by murals. We had to work through a language barrier with Dominika but overall it was a great experience and I learned a lot.