Closing in on Year's End

Jenn Cavaricci - Wind Fae

It has definitely been an interesting year. I certainly managed to stay busy shooting with a number of lovely models throughout the year. I met several new models through the Unchained Girls and through a few workshops that I attended through various Meetup Groups.  One model I met through a workshop is Jenn Cavaricci. She was working with a model I work with often, Floofie, at a High Key Lighting Workshop. I won't call Floofie on of "my" regular models as she doesn't like the use of a possessive to refer to her (oh, did she get teased by that). In any case, I gave Jenn my card at the workshop and we subsequently worked on a few projects together and will wrap up a couple more in 2012.

One of the most important shoots we did was the Wind Fae which is the penultimate shoot in my Fae in Us All series. I had hope to shoot the final images in that series this well, the Winter Queen, but alas there has been no snow yet, so it's likely that shoot will also happen in 2012 as well. The earlier the better, I think.

I have a couple of candidates for the Winter Queen, or the Ice Fairy. Actually, I'm not sure what the final title will be, but I'm planning for it to be one of my best. I have a great costume and accessories collected for the shoot, and I've engaged a wonderful makeup artist to assist with the shoot, as well as a terrific location provided I can get there in the snow.

The two candidates for the shoot are Grace and Veronica. I've done test shoots with both and each would bring her own beauty and character to the interpretation of the Winter Queen. In all likelihood, who will be with Winter Queen will be a matter of opportunity and chance as it will depend entirely on who can be available and present when the first good snowfall occurs. It's been suggested I use both, and that may well happen, but we'll have to see how it all works out. That will end the Fae in Us All project, though I will resurrect it from time to time for paying clients.

I do need to wrap up a few shoots with models that are in the middle of a sequence for my Women in Chains projects, but I do plan on concentrating much more on landscape, nature and event photography in the coming year. I'm looking forward to wrapping up the projects and actually begin putting my books together for publication.

Project Wrap-up & Interviews

The Water Fairy

The Fae in Us All project is coming to an end. In the past three years, I've completed 31 different shoots in the project with 27 different models. Ultimately, best images from the series will be going into a self-published book featuring 28 models. There is but one shoot left to complete, and it will be the most elaborate and most challenging of the shoots in the entire series.

The original series was intended to be limited to the five essential elemental spirits (water, earth, fire, air and spirit) and the four seasons (spring, summer, fall and winter), but the models and I were having so much fun with the project, that it seemed to just organically expand into other Fae creatures. In the series, the models and I have expanded the project to include such wonderful creatures as the Danse Fairy, the Bubble Fairy, the Sand Fairy, a Woodland Pixie, and Waterfall Nymph, the House Fairy (the one that does the dishes and laundry when you're not looking - a truly mythical creature who never seems to visit my house), and many others.

Don't Mess with the Combat Fairy

Theoretically, the project could go on forever, and I may resurrect it from time to time just for fun or if a model requests it for their portfolio, but I do need to move my attention on to other interests and projects. The last shoot in the project (for now) will be the Winter Queen, the most regal and inspiring of the Faery. I've actually been trying to shoot this particular concept for the last couple of winters but, for multiple reasons, the shoot simply hasn't happened. This year, though, I'm doing extensive planning to make sure the shoot can and will happen.

Waterfall Nymph

I've recently completed interviews with 5 different models and one of those lovely ladies will be my Winter Queen. To some degree it will be the luck of the draw that determines who will be the lucky lady who gets to stand mostly naked in the freezing snow while I (warmly bundled against the chill) wield my camera and lenses to capture her portrayal of the queen of the season. By that, I mean, I have prioritized the models and when the snow arrives, I will work the list from the top to the bottom to schedule the model that is available for the shoot. Utilizing this plan, I hope to successfully complete the shoot this winter without the issues I ran into in previous attempts. I've explained this to each of the prospective models and they each seem to be quite amenable to the plan. Each would bring their own unique interpretation of the concept to the shoot and any one of them could exemplify the queen, but I will need, of course, to prioritize the model that best matches my vision of the shoot. With any luck, and with the planning I've done, the project will be complete within the next few weeks and I'll begin working on the layout of the book.