Tag: Light Painting

The first time I met Katie was during a meeting for Art as Action’s show “Break Open” . The first thing she told me was, “I like to work with fire.  Can you photograph fire?”

I had no idea how, but went “Sure!”

Hey, why not…right?  So we did a fire session as practice for her engagement.

But on the day of the engagement session, it was so windy that we didn’t get to the fire.  Instead there was Katie and David, me, Brian (my trusty assistant), a bike, and a bed.

Katie (Mesmerie) is an aerialist, hula hooper, and fire breather artist.

David (aka The Fermentor) is a foodie who is completely fearless.  He rides his bike everywhere, loves passionate people and risky behaviors.  Katie loves to say that he is the dangerous one 🙂

For this session I wanted to give them some classic, colorful, and timeless images.

I also enjoy sneaking secret messages and dates in my images 🙂

Because she is a performer and he is happily joining her on stage, I thought a bit of a cinematic feel was in order.

Denver can be very windy, which can also be a very lucky thing.

David’s bike is very important to him. They told me that we had to find a way to have it in our shoot 🙂

I agreed to the bike and then thought: If we are going to have a couple, a photographer, an assistant, and a bike with a trailer, we might as well carry a bed!

So we did.

We walked two blocks with a headboard, footboard, side rails, bed slats, pieces of plywood, mattress, bedding and pillow. In the wind of course.

It was so worth it!

The “bed” shoot was important to me as I wanted to add a fine art feel to the session, and after all, that is why they hired me!  (little did they know about carrying all that stuff,  but never mind..)

The bed was set by the Rialto.  We built it in 5 minutes, the shoot lasted 10. By that time, an uncomfortable amount of onlookers  started gathering on the side walk and it was time to move on.  We only had one homeless guy try to lie down.  Not too bad!

After the bed episode, we were so tired that we stopped for a beer.  I convinced them to do one more shot (not of Tequila! ) and we settled down in the middle of Larimer street.

This shoot was CRAZY.

I loved it because it was completely fearless.

I also loved it because Katie and David  understand that images  become art in the hands of passionate people. There is no way to create something awesome without a bit of hard work, but it was their priority to do whatever it took to turn this session into a series of unique, artistic images.   They also understood that this shoot was a collaborative work where every creative idea was welcome and tested. There was no right or wrong, no judgement, and the process was exactly the same as the one described in my fine art portraiture blog.

Needless to say,  I can’t wait for their wedding on August 9th!