In ‘New Experiences Part 2’, I left y’all as I was about to enter the house where the photographer collaboration was about to take place. I didn’t know what to expect out of a photographer collaboration. What was that all about anyway?
Once inside the house, I was greeted by a young lady dressed as a maid. She was wearing a black and white outfit and a little white hat. Well, well, I thought, where’s the butler? I continued into the foyer until I saw the man I met outside, sitting at a laptop looking at a screen full of pictures.
Continuing into the living room, I saw a photographer curtain backdrop with Spider-Man posing in front of it. Several photographers were taking pictures of him in various poses. I must admit, I didn’t understand the significance of photographing someone dressed as Spider-Man. I do now and will explain shortly.
In the kitchen and eat-in dining room was a lady arranging paintbrushes and little containers of paint. Hmmm, ok I can’t wait to see how these will be used. Again, I do now and will explain that later as well.
Before I go any further with this story, I have to explain what I found out about the photographer collaboration. This particular event was set up to bring together photographers and models alike to photograph models in various costumes. The category of costumes would be cosplay/steampunk, body paint, and boudoir.
Let’s begin with Cosplay/steampunk. Cosplay costumes are akin to dressing up like anime characters. You may be wondering what that looks like. I suggest googling it. It’s better to see it than hear it. Trust me. Steampunk is like Mad Max characters. Women dressed in medieval attire. I liked this one.
Next was body painting. Yes, it’s just as it sounds. Models have their bodies painted in various themes — some paint clothing on their entire body or parts of their bodies. Good artists’ work will be hard to discern at first glance. There were two ladies there to do that. I spent most of my time in this session. During the painting and photographing them.
Last and by far NOT least, was the boudoir models. Yep, you guessed it. Up stairs was the boudoir setting where models would be posing in various positions in the bedroom. They were clothed but I use the term loosely. I didn’t attend this one mainly because I didn’t know it was going on upstairs until it was over. I did see some of the pictures though!
It was a long and productive day. Being an amateur photographer, this new experience of photographing models in Cosplay/steampunk, body painting, and boudoir is unique.
As the day wound up, I went outside to ride BJ to a friend’s house to spend the night. It was a good thing I had somewhere to stay that night as it was still raining outside, and it was DARK! Yeah, yeah I have lights on my bike, but my old eyes can’t see that well at night anymore. The next morning, Ronald McDonald and I had breakfast, and I headed home up hwy 176. My head was still trying to process all the new experiences using a camera.
So, the lesson I learned from this was new photographic techniques. It was time well spent, But making new friends in the field, priceless!
