Holly in Wonderland!

Hi, Steemit! I’m trying to finish a few things on a busy mid-week afternoon. Errands, emails and @guthrie has a dentist appointment soon. I’m going to get him out of school a bit early, then for the rest of the day, the two of us will be picking up @vermillionfox and enjoying our weekly family fun day. He usually gets to choose what we do, and during this beautiful Minnesota spring weather, he wants us to go to a park and read books under a tree. I have to say, that sounds absolutely perfect. Taking a page from @eveuncovered, I just bought the first book of Game of Thrones for my Kindle.

I have some new work. A few edits I’m really proud of. In 2017, you may recall I shot with New York Times best-selling author and Playboy model, Holly Madison. It was a big moment in my career, and sadly, I didn’t feel like I reached my full potential. I was getting over being sick and we had a small [stressful] window to fit in our shoot. She was wonderful, we stayed in touch, and she even allowed me to include some of our photos from that shoot in my book, Dark Pinup, by @wcpublishing. I lamented that I felt I wasn’t at my best that day, even though the images turned out great.

Fast forward to last fall, Holly and I put a date on the calendar for another shoot together. This would be much chance to redeem myself, if only for myself. I gave this opportunity a lot of thought and I decided, a subtle nod to Lewis Carroll in an Alice in Wonderland tea party would be perfect. Holly has that Alice look already. I began planning. I knew of a location at the abandoned Griffith Park zoo in Los Angeles that could work. Through Holly’s Instagram stories, I noticed that she hikes there a lot, so I made the suggestion. She loved the idea, and the morning of, I bought $60 worth of fruit, cakes and tea.

I couldn’t have hoped for this to turn out any better. My original thought was to somehow shoot these images on top of the old lion cages. Thick cast iron bars with her sitting on top. Shortly after we arrived, so the park police blasted some kids for running across the very spot I’d hoped to shoot, and we decided we shouldn’t. I found a small, confined tunnel just above the caves, conveniently wrapped in vines and ivy. It was even better than my original concept and it was there we set up the miniature mad tea party. Sometimes these shoots just fall in place, and I’m so glad this was one of those occasions.

Thanks very much for reading. I’m really happy to share these images. The work that went in to the concept and stress to make sure everything was perfect really took a toll, but the outcome couldn’t be better. I do have more to come from this shoot. I had a chance to review the entire folder of images last night, and there are some gems that I overlooked the first time. Lots of new work coming here on Steemit in the next few weeks, so make sure you’re following me! Photography, art, illustration and the stories behind the work. Thanks Steemit. have a great day!