Production photography for this weekend's Morte event!

What’s up, Hive family? Just walked through the door. I’m in bed recovering from a really full day. Early part, dumb errands. My Nikon Z6II suffered a massive failure while on my trip to LA and Vegas. The rear shutter speed dial stopped responding, both to exposure and menu settings commands. I sent it in for repair under warranty, and received it back yesterday…not fixed. I went out again today, hoping that this time, it’ll actually be repaired. @guthrie got his hair dyed and cut, and then I hung out at @caffetto editing these photos until close.

These new images are from a shoot I did back in November of 2021. The concept was, “Morte”, the reminder that we will all die, eventually. The rotten fruit represents entropy and our finite time here on earth. The tailless whip scorpion is just cool. She’s mine pet and I’ve wanted to use her in a shoot for years. Surprisingly hard to find a model that is willing to let you put it on her face. Our friend Danni, the model for this shoot, was completely down after I put the scorpion on my face, proving that she was safe. Such a powerful image now that I see it.

This shoot was intended to be a promotional shoot for a photography event, similar to the recent post I made about the preproduction shoot I did for NOIR. My friend Moustache Jim also shot during this evening using his medium format Hasselblad film camera. We were to create banners and fliers, but by the time he and I got to our first images for the promotional material, the event sold out thanks to our mutual friend Farah who spread the word. The necessity for ads then took a back seat.

The actual event is coming up this weekend. Sunday, Jim and I will be shooting six models at the incredible, historic 300 Clifton mansion in uptown Minneapolis. It should be a great collaboration. I’ve been looking forward to this since we came up with this event. Always grateful that I’m able to create art for a living and express my vision of the world with such talented people. It’s not time for me to wind down and try to get some illustration finished before I go to sleep. Thanks, all, for reading. Have a great night!