Trick or Treat with Wilnette

Every year when we start out our October planning, we have a long list of things we want to do and achieve, sometimes everything falls into place and we get a majority of it done (2014) , other times circumstances dictate otherwise (2015) .

This year was kind of a mixed bag, as we absolutely wanted to get more photo shoots done, but with a busy weekend schedule and traveling, it left us with little time to accomplish them. Luckily the final shoot of October is full of enough Halloween spirit to close out the season in style.

For a while now I had wanted to do a trick or treater themed shoot, and upon speaking with our new friend Wilnette, I knew this would be the perfect opportunity to finally get one done. I originally wanted to do something in a full plastic Ben Cooper style costume, but it just wasn't an easy find, for one that was not only in good shape, but reasonably priced. So I eventually compromised on part of that vision when I came across this perfect dress online, which not only looked more flattering, it also kept the spirit of the original idea with its vintage Halloween decor pattern. Still we were missing the key ingredient to the look the vintage style mask. 

While scrolling through instagram I came across a post that caught my eye and potentially solved our biggest problem. It was an account we follow @amongthelivingmasks who produced new vintage style masks, and as I had been hoping for a black cat mask of some sort, they had the ideal piece in their "Scratch" mask. I reached out to them about seeing if they would be interested in letting us use one for the shoot and they were cool enough to oblige. Without their contribution we may have had to resort to lesser options that would have not given us the desired effect.  We think you will agree that the mask adds so much to these shots. Of course without the right model, a shoot isn't worth much and we lucked out with Wilnette. 

One of the coolest people we have worked with, Wilnette did an absolutely wonderful job throughout this shoot. She was fun, had great energy and is just an excellent model. Her poses and expressions were so on point, I rarely had to ask much of her at all. The only part that was difficult about her being the model for these was that it ended up being tough to choose which photos to use because there were just so many damn good ones. I can't thank our friend Amber enough for putting us in touch with each other. It worked out perfectly. 

So preparing for a shoot is always 50% fun and 50% stress. On the day of the shoot, after everything was prepped and ready to go, the sky opened up and it began pouring, and of course, this was planned as an outdoor shoot. So we still went ahead as planned, and while we hoped for the rain to stop, we decided to snap some fun indoor shots just to get warmed up that you can see above and below. I really dug how they turned out and were a good way to get acclimated with each other. 

As luck would have it, the rain would lighten significantly just as we finished up these inside shots. This allowed us to finally shoot things as originally conceived.

The concept was simple enough, just a trick or treater themed shoot, with a hint of horror (ie bloody candy sack). I knew that with Wilnette involved, she would sell everything and take it up another level. She did just that, she looked fantastic in the outfit and the best part is many of these shots turned out just as I envisioned them, which is always a sign of a great model and a successful shoot.

These next few shots are the ones I selected and edited after much debate and going back and forth trying to choose the best ones. It wasn't easy but managed to narrow it down to a choice few. Then the editing began to help give them just a little extra oomph and color to make them pop.  

Upon wrapping up our outdoor session, we moved to another interior location where I knew we could capture some moodier and creepier shots. This helped me get just a bit more horror oriented with it all and get a couple money shots with the mask, bloody candy sack and saw. I love the vibe of these and think they are a nice contrast to the colorful outdoor shots. They also fall in line with our Blood, Babes & Boogeymen tagline. 

As I mentioned before, Wilnette was just so much fun to work with, and turned out so many great photos, all slight variations of poses and looks, that all would make great final products. Of course I couldn't edit and post all of them, but I did go back and see more I liked a lot. Enough so that I decided to edit them as well in a different style and look. I was really happy with the results and decided to include them here as well.

It is always a bummer when we can't get all our October shoots finished up, but this year, thanks to Wilnette (and help from Amber and Dany I am still truly happy with how we are closing out the month. This set of photos is one of my favorites we have ever done and it feels great to see an idea I have had for quite sometime come to fruition in such a fashion. We hope you all enjoy the photos, and that you all have a safe, happy and most of all spooky Halloween. 

To see more from Among The Living Masks check out there Facebook page here