Hot Mess with Victoria and Cristal

It has been my experience that no matter how much prep you put in before a photo shoot, more often than not, there will be some point where you need to improvise. If you are lucky it will be something rather simple to switch up, such as a lighting set up. Other times though it can unfortunately alter all your plans when something is simply not working as you envisioned and you hope you can salvage the shoot and everyone's time and patience. 

Vicki and I have been friends for years ever since we did a Halloween (the holiday) themed photo shoot that ended up in HorrorHound Magazine.

We stayed in touch but never got around to getting another shoot going. That all finally changed a few weeks ago when she expressed her desire to do a zombie themed photo shoot. I had an idea visually of what I wanted to do with that idea, something different from the normal stuff we have done before. I liked the idea of an outdoor shoot with the sun setting and a lone zombie wandering through nature. Similar to a shot I remember seeing in an ep of The Walking Dead a long while back. Vicki then told me her friend Cristal wanted to play the role of her victim and we were all set to go. I had spent an afternoon scouting a couple outdoor locations and settled on a diverse little wooded trail area, that had a great concrete road through it, a small stream, tall trees and grass among other things that would make it ideal for this concept. The place was perfect and had no problems initially upon that visit. Unfortunately that all changed when we returned ready to shoot.

All set with equipment and crew in tow, everyone was excited even though the overcast sky took the originally planned sunset out of the equation, we were still looking forward to getting it done. Then the bugs made their presence known. In what was one of the worst experiences in a photo shoot I can remember these tiny biting gnats essentially had taken over the park and all the locations we had pre-selected. This drastically altered not only our shot selection, but also time. We hardly got any real shots snapped before it became unbearable. As it got darker and the bugs got worse, we had to improvise or just cancel the shoot entirely. The poor girls and our other friends with us helping just could not stand to be out there one minute longer. 

unused setup test outtake from original gnat infested location

Luckily the trail was essentially across the street from my uncles apartment building and a quick call to him gained us access to at least be free and clear of the bugs and heat, and the opportunity to at least TRY to get some shots in before it was too late. We quickly gathered the equipment and proceeded to hole up in an empty stairwell, all a bit delirious and relieved to be out of the bug infested outdoors, we really just attempted to get a few shots, but at that point I think everyone was exhausted, still the girls were real troopers and kept such an upbeat attitude that through everything it made this one of the most fun shoots we have ever done. We had a lot of shots planned out perfectly for the outdoor area, but now inside we really were limited on what we could do, so we decided to try and get at least a few cool shots while also kind of mentally preparing to work on a bugless shoot in the near future. 

The moral of this story is that sometimes, when things go wrong, as long as you have some great people with you, there is still plenty of fun to be had and something cool can still come of it, even if it isn't what you originally planned. So I cannot thank Vicki and Cristal enough for their patience and down to earth personalities to the situation we were dealing with. We laughed a great deal that night and it still was a blast and for that I am forever grateful. Below are some pretty neat shots we were able to get that I was happy with and I hope you all dig. We will be shooting again with both Vicki and Cristal soon and look forward to the opportunity to do something even more cool and fun.

Below you can check out a few more outtakes and behind the scenes pics from the shoot. Also have to give a major shout out to our friends Dany and Kari for all their help and patience as well. We couldn't have done it without you guys!

As you can see from the early outdoor test shots, we had a lot more shots and ideas planned out that we never got to fulfill that would have given this shoot an entirely different feel and look, it was a bummer we couldn't get those done, but still all in all it was a fun night and a great experience that still yielded some cool results and fun friendships so it was good times...aside from those damn bugs of course. Thanks for checking this out and stay tuned for more TrueHorror shoots very soon!