American Beauty Erotic

 

My first shoot of 2025 featured the lovely Jade Monett. I had hoped to shoot the concept before Valentine's Day to have the images ready to share on my Deviant Art account, but the timing simply didn't work and we had to shoot the week after the holiday. 

The concept played upon the poster for the movie American Beauty but with an erotic twist. Jade came to mind as the perfect model for my version of the concept, and he certainly made the concept work. 

To prepare for the shoot, I separated four thousand silk rose petals from compressed stacks of 100 petals each. As I peeled each petal from its stack, I dropped them into a large plastic trash bag so I could transport them for the shoot. At about three thousand petals, our new kitten decided to take a running leap onto the bag, then whoosh!, I had a rose petal volcano and petals flew everywhere. Despite the eruption, I managed to save all the petals and finish preps for the shoot.

In the studio, I set up a black velvet backdrop and positioned a dark red bedsheet on the floor for the petals. I used three lighting sources–a large octobox on the left, a large softbox on the right, and a small stripbox overhead on a boom. The window light was blocked with tarps, so the sole illumination came from the studio flashes.

I asked Jade to wear red lipstick and to bring heels with her for the shoot. I provided the rest of the costumes for the shoot. Those consisted of various body harnesses that I thought would work well for the concept. Jade exceeded my expectations. I think you can agree that she rocked the concept.