Sorry for the delay folks. I’ve been incommunicado for some time. It’s been a weird couple of months. That being said, I’m back and ready to go.
So a few months back, if you recall, I started doing a lot of collaborations with April V. Skyee – model and photography starting with Deadpool and Domino which was an incredible experience shooting on location in a completely destroyed radio station in the middle of nowhere and ,to spite the fact that I suffer from vertigo, climbing on a 20 foot high I-beam just to get the right shot. Corey Graham was very patient and took a ton of stellar shots and April…as always…was stunning.
After that, we did another cosplay shoot with April as Jubilee and the incomparable Jean Baptist as Wolverine. My favorite Ottawa photographer Mike Giovinazzo shot this one in Swizzles on Queen street with a bar full of regulars who no doubt thought we were nuts. But, again the end result speaks for itself and serves to further credit the statement that mike really can’t take a bad picture. ;)
After that April got behind the camera and managed to talk me onto a friggin horse. That’s right….a horse. A stupid way to travel but all in all it was a great experience. We shot the custom Roman Centurian armour on the back of cantankerous old black steed outside Alexandria. Although I’m not really a proficient model, certainly not on horseback, the pics came out quite well. The client was very happy with them to say the least.
Then we moved on to a meet up shoot with the oh so man-pretty Mike Giovinazzo wherein we degraded a nun from pious straight through demonic. April modeled in fine form, adapting to not only the time constraints but also overlapping fields of fire from a very talented groups of photographers under Mike’s guidance. It was a nerve wracking but all in all very challenging experience for me as i had to adjust the fx, switch the costumes and completely redo facepaint and blood applications between sets. But the results defied expectation.
Most recently however, I got the chance to really play in terms of body paint. There is honestly nothing harder than doing full head to toe body paint that looks good. April came to me with a geek concept, which blew my mind by the way as she is merely a Geek In Training so the fact that she stumbled across such a perfect character for her to portray is amazing. So she sat through three hours of body paint and makeup and tried her damnedest not to sweat it off for a sold out group of easily the most talented photographers I’ve met to date including the photo ninja known as John Wenzell who took a from the hip shot of the two of us in a cage that absolutely blew my mind.
Since we seem to be on a roll, as she would say, my partner in crime and have planned a series of meetup and group shoots in the coming months. Some fetish shoots, vampire shoots, pirate shoots perhaps we’ll even get down to Montreal for some one site shots and then straight into an upcoming horror shoot that will pay homage to the man that haunted my dreams as a child and made me the twisted fx and costume designer that I am today. **cough cough** Pinhead **cough cough** ;)
In any event, the next few months we will be hosting many photographer invitationals to give everyone the opportunity to shoot something fun and bizarre and as far outside the box as possible. So stay tuned! And sign up. Volunteer to model if you wish….and by all means, if you have an idea in mind for a shoot feel free to contact April V. Skyee to organize it for you and if you need costumes, or fx feel free to drop me a line. I love meeting and working with Ottawa’s new talent.
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