Mid-March monochromes!

Good evening, Hive! Morning for most, actually. It’s about 1:00a.m. Still trying to discipline myself with these nightly posts until it becomes a routine without thinking about it again. I have gratitude for this day. I spent time with @guthrie and planned a trip for us next week for an overnight at a tiny room in Wisconsin for one overnight. It’s been a while since we’ve just done something for ourselves together. I had a therapy session and then managed to meet up with @amberjyang, @mada, @lovejoy and @roadscape for happy hour at one of our usual sushi haunts. Community has been lacking in my life lately so it was a healing time with friends.

I’m gong to do one of my usual monochrome posts tonight, digging into old work. Color photos that I finally have gotten around to editing as black and whites. The first is from a shoot from about 2017 with @michelinepitt for her new clothing line, La Femme En Noir. We had lost touch after some industry drama from her former employer in 2015. It was a hit for me because she was one of my best friends, but we reconnected, squashed it all and this was our first collaboration together. This shot was taken at her old home and has such a resonating cottage core energy that I had to see it as a black and white. Why does it take me so long to do this?!

This next shot is from 2015 and was tangentially related to how @michelinepitt and I lost touch for several years. A regular client of mine booked me for a shoot and we made our way to San Bernardino, CA for a location owned by a doctor. There were endless options to shoot as the space had multiple levels and dozens of rooms. The weather was perfect, the lighting was ideal and I’d worked with this model several times. Unfortunately, the day ended with a dramatic breakdown that eventually ended our friendship but this was one of my favorite shots from the day. It’s even more effective as a black and white.

Lastly, this is a photo from another wild ordeal that I’d gotten myself into while in Los Angeles. Apparently, that is the theme of today’s blog. I drove two hours to Redwoods for this shoot and when I arrived, the model had just broken up with her partner. She was an emotional wreck and I fully expected that the shoot wasn’t going to happen. We talked for a while and she managed to pull herself together and got a few images that have gone on to stand the test of time in my dark pinup photography career. This one ended up even making it into my book, but until tonight, I’ve never appreciated it as a monochrome.