It's Go Time!

Today was the official climax to all my planning! Joanne came over to my house earlier this morning and we got right to work. I told Joanne to bring three outfits for diversity in our shots and so that we would have plenty of content to work with. Of course, Joanne brought four.

The first outfit Joanne changed into was a wonderful cheeta-print shirt with cut-outs and mom jeans with rips. I know, what a way to start the shoot out. Unfortunately, Joanne forgot to bring her camera, but I was able to use her IPhone X, which I believe did the job just fine. Because of the crazy patterns of her shirt, I didn't want a noisy background that would overwhelm readers. Thus, I chose to shoot her first in front of my garage door which is plain off-white backgrround. I had something like this in mind for my cover because Paper Magazine often shoots on a plain colored background.

These shots came out great. Joanne was very comfortable in front of the camera and was not afraid to loosen up and have fun. We played music during the shoot to relax the both of us and not forget to have a good time. I mostly did mid-shots and close-ups as I had this location in mind for my cover, and I don't neccessarilly need a full-body shot for my cover. I was very happy with how these beginning shots came out as the colors of the cheetah print and the off-white background complement each other perfectly and the blue of her denim adds a pop color. Since I don't want to spoil my cover shot, below is one of the shots that I don't plan on using for my cover just to show an idea of what the shots were looking like. As you can see, my plan of exploiting the natural light worked perfectly and added an extra glow to my model.

Before moving on to the next shoot, I made sure to snap a few shots of Joanne in the same location, just the back of her for my back cover. I want to do this cool of idea of having a back cover that is the same as the front cover, just the other side of the model. So, I took a few extra pictures to see if I could bring that vision to life. Here's one of them: 

Next, Joanne changed to her other outfit of camo pants, a black tank and Doc Martens. This added a more urban look that I complemented by moving to my street. Yes, I shot her in the actual streets. This added a more grunge, edgier look that fit perfectly with her outfit. Plus, the dynamic setting would add more dimension to my magazine. Because I know Joanne's final outfit is much more eccentric, I envisioned these next shots to be utilized for my table of contents. Since I already know the amount of space allotted for a picture in the current layout of my table of contents, I shot most of the next shots horizontally so that they would better fit this space. By gettting on the ground with Joanne, I was also able to take some low-angle shots to go with high-angle shots. This, again, added some dimension that I was very pleased with. Here's one of my favorite shots. 

For my final images, Joanne changed into my personal favorite outfit of the day. It was her frilly purple top that stole the show. The colors were bold and loud and everything that I was looking for when I envisioned this shoot. For the location of the final shots we played around with the gate in front of my house, allowing Joanne to use something as a prop. After, we moved into the street where we shot a couple of pictures of her standing. In the previous photos, she was sitting in the street, but her standing in the street allows the photos to showcase more of the environment which was cool. Because I plan on using these photos for my double page spread, I wanted to take a variety of pictures, particularly those that showed her full outfit from head to toe. Thus, I took some long shots that showed her full body and the ennvironment, before moving in for mid-shots and close-ups. I took a bunch of shots so I would have plenty to choose from when laying out my spread. I also encouraged Joanne to do poses she normally would not to bring out that funky vibe that many high-fashion editorials contain. Here's one of my favorites of Joanne really getting into character. 

At the end of the day, I was extrememly satisfied with my photo shoot as it went way better than I could have ever expected. Although I was worried that my change in location would be too boring, Joanne really made up for any energy that my neighborhood lacked and made the most out of our setting. I have plenty of shots that I am more than excited to include, and now the hard part is just narrowing them down.