2015 52 Week Project // Week 3: Inspired by...? (With Before & After + BTS!)

Camera settings: ISO 100, f/1.8, 1/250, Daylight WB.

Here it is, another week down of the project! And so far, so good! I'm super happy with how this is going so far, the response has been positive and you guys seem interested in it, and those things make it a whole lot easier to spend all my free time planning, shooting, editing, and writing blog posts. I haven't lost the creative bug just yet, so prepare to keep seeing images weekly!

Anyways, this week I took some inspiration from a famous photographer who's images are both recognizable and iconic: Richard Avedon! He was the first well known photographer who's work really stuck with me; I remember having to do a presentation on a photographer in my first quarter 101 class at SFCC, and I chose him. All of his subjects hold this type of grace and elegance that is so striking, and yet his images are always so simple. If you haven't looked at his images, I highly recommend opening up a new tab right now and googling him to see what you can find! (And then obviously come back and keep reading this post. That would be super cool of you.)

To see more of Avedon's work, check out this link: http://www.avedonfoundation.org

Here's the image that inspired my own interpretation this week. I wanted to take Avedon's shot and modernize it a little bit. So, while keeping the pose and location relatively similar, I traded a long, fashionable coat for a black leather jacket and the kitten heels for combat boots. I guess you could say we hipster-fied Richard Avedon? 

When pulling my inspo images from Pinterest, I immediately had my friend Taylor in mind. Taylor grew up as a dancer, and now that she's a photographer, she's most appropriately doing dance photography. If anyone could pull off this super graceful, effortless looking pose, I knew it would be her!

So for an image with an umbrella, it kind of makes sense for it to be raining, right? Yeah I thought so too. So did my weather app. But the sky decided to disagree, as per usual. Don't get me wrong, I love sunshine, but this was the one time I didn't want anything to do with it! Sometimes you don't always get what you want though, and you gotta improvise. (Story of my photographic lifeeee.) 

All in all though, everything worked out in the end. Despite the lack of rain, this image has really grown on me! And the editing gave me a lot less trouble than last week, which I'm always cool with! 

We didn't just shoot this image though. Here's a few more of Taylor that I love!

And as always, I never do a photoshoot without some help, so Jasmina came along too. Here are some behind the scenes shots that she snagged for me!

When we were all done, we walked down to Rocket Bakery to warm up and hang out for a while. This is the best part about going out to shoot with friends: not only are you creating awesome images but you get to spend time with cool people too. A huge perk of meeting so many great people in photography classes!

Never a dull moment with these girls.

To see what I'm shooting next week and keep up with these blog posts and images as soon as they're posted, head over to my Facebook page and give it a like!

Also, if you're interested in seeing some of Taylor's dance photography, make sure to check out her page as well. Taylor Elizabeth Photography