I’m mostly a studio photographer and I feel uncomfortable shooting outside where I don’t have control of my light. So I was delighted to hang out with fellow photogs, Hans and Michelle Smits, when they did this shoot with Gracie. I basically did over the shoulder shooting. My goal wasn’t to capture a great image; Hans and Michelle could do that. I was there to practice dialing in my camera settings more quickly.
This little house in a historic park in Golden, CO, reminded me a bit of my childhood home. My dad worked as a diesel mechanic at the railroad. We didn’t have a lot of money. We had a small home oddly situated in a small industrial area with railway tracks on either side of the house. These images convey the vibe of that place and time for me.
I normally edit my images so that they are realistic with very little manipulation. But I felt somewhat nostalgic as I was working on these and decided to push the editing a little more than I usually do and played with giving them a vintage and somewhat even hand-painted or colorized feel like some of the old photos I have of my grandparents.
Gracie is a beautiful model with quirky asymmetries in her face which make her very interesting to shoot.
I’m a control freak, so I had to do something with flash. These two images of Gracie in front of the log cabin are the only ones I actually posed. Everything else was shot over Hans and Michelle’s shoulders including these ones on the bridge. Here’s a couple behind the scenes images. You can click on any of the images in the galleries to see a full screen view.
