Thursday, October 18, 2012

Behind the Scenes of my Contest Entry

I barely know where to begin. So, the beginning then!

About a month and a half ago, I saw a post from one of my favorite pages on Facebook. That page is Rooster Baby (On Facebook). Rooster Bambino creates incredible feathered works of art. Absolutely amazing. Breathtaking. I could go on.

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I feel it's important to share information on the feathers Rooster uses. Straight from Rooster's personal Facebook is this:

"90% of the feathers I use are cruelty-free (molted). Birds molt their feathers each year and I scour to find the best ones. I have many friends who keep birds as pets and they save these feathers for me so that I can use them in my art and pass them on to you. The rest of my feathers come from birds who were raised humanely."
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Back to the story. So, Rooster Baby posted on their page saying they were having a headdress giveaway contest. The winner will receive a headdress designed based off the winning photo. I read the rules and the linked article on concept photography. It sounded simple enough, but I wasn't thinking I'd enter. I intended simply to watch the entries roll in, live vicariously through them, vote on my favorites, cheer from the sidelines.

But then, only a few entries were posted. I re-read the rules, thinking maybe it was harder than I'd thought. No, still sounded simple. I did more research into concept photography, and allowed myself to day dream. I sent out feelers to my photographer friend, to see if she'd be interested in working on it with me, if indeed I/we decided to enter after all. She said sure, she'd help me out. She needed to get out of the house anyway, and our separate lives had kept us so busy we hadn't had time to see each other in several months.

Since I got a yes, I let my mind go nuts. I've always wanted to do a mermaid-style shoot, so that was the initial idea. I asked my friends for local areas that would fit. I got a lot of suggestions, though none of them were local. I started exploring different possibilities, keeping with the mermaid idea. Finally decided on Tumwater Falls Park, as it's local. My serene mermaid idea was looking more and more impractical, so I figured it might end up being more of a water nymph, fae sort of thing and kept going. I spent way too long at the fabric store, made two separate trips looking for the right flowers, drove all over town trying to come up with makeup ideas... Practiced making "scales" on my face, which came out beautifully by the way, even though I ended up forgoing them.

Fabric and flowers


We decided to shoot on Tuesday, the 16th, just 2 days later.

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An aside; The weather has been gorgeous for the last 3 months. No rain, lots of sunshine, warm. Gorgeous if you're from Nevada or Texas and that shit's normal. Me, I hate it. It's Washington! Rain for me, baby!
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In between work and the necessary few hours of sleep, I started sewing my costume. I intended simply to cover a bra I had set aside for this project, make a flowy yet simple skirt/wrap, some sleeves inspired by a photo I saw once, and a few flowers. When I sat down and tried covering the bra, however, the fabric just would not cooperate. Frustrated, I put in on and tried pinning the fabric to the bra while wearing it. It instead would become a dress, which I think looks way more elegant than what I was originally going for. This also means a lot more work, but if it becomes a better costume, the happier I'll be. At this point, I decided to go for a goddess look, and save the mermaid for another day.

Sorry for the silly bathroom mirror photo. This is the front panel, pinned, before sewing began.

The crunch was on. I cut and pinned and sewed, stabbing myself with pins fairly regularly. I managed to watch the entirety of Supernatural Season 7 and Samurai Champloo in two consecutive days. I only slept for a few hours in the mornings, after staying up all night for the few nights I had working on this thing.

Of course, as soon as we set the date, Mother Nature remembered it's the middle of October and started pouring down rain, plus I got called into work to help out after one of our girls went to the hospital. This set me back several hours as well, but bed rest is bed rest and I feel a duty to help out when I can.
We decided to move the shoot to the 17th as the weather was predicted to be better.

I stayed up past 530 in the morning of the 17th working, fueled by coffee and anime, before I decided to take a nap for a few hours. I still had to make the back of the dress, and Crystal was heading down from Bremerton at 930 am when she got off work. I set my alarm for 930 and napped. Woke up at 830, tried to sleep, couldn't. Got up and got to work on the back of the dress. I had just finished it when Crystal arrived. She worked on making a makeshift reflector and diffuser out of some piping the Boy had in his truck while I got ready.

I didn't have time for rag curls so I went ahead and straightened this hair of mine. Eye makeup, fake eyelashes, glitter. (Yes folks, I actually purchased fake eyelashes and glitter for this! The end may very well be upon us!) Much later than I had hoped for, we set out to the park.

Glitter and fake eyelashes!

The light wasn't in our favor, as I forgot the sun is setting much earlier, but Crystal's camera took one for the team and we managed to get some great shots near the base of the falls. Crystal, I definitely owe you some lens wipes! As light was fast fading, we took what we could and headed back to town for food. Stopped at Applebee's to eat all the chicken we were craving, then drove around downtown looking for parking to go through photos at Burial Grounds, but alas, no parking was to be had so we just went home and made coffee/hot cocoa there.

Delicious chicken noms.

Choosing a photo was extremely difficult, some we loved but weren't headdress material. Narrowed it down to just a handful and asked the Boy to help us choose. His several minute deliberation just made Crystal and myself more tense; "I was hoping you'd go through them and see 'the one' right away!" she said. He picked his favorite and we went to work. Here's the final product:

"Divinity"

We nervously messaged the image, required credits etc to Rooster Baby. I worried Crystal was going to have an aneurysm she was so nervous. She was shaking and babbling incessantly but it's done! We'll go through the rest of the photos soon, but this was the most important one, the one we'd worked so hard at. 

After she headed home, I packed it in to call it a night. Curled up with the Boy on the couch and promptly snoozed for a bit. Something woke me up so I went to bed, and just after Monk turned off the light, my phone made the "Facebook message" sound. I groggily felt around for my phone, opened the message, and it was from Rooster! My photo was accepted and being posted right away. Full of excitement yet again, I couldn't sleep. I got back up to go sit on the couch and wind down, and eventually fell asleep again.

So that's our story!

All the entries can be viewed here: Link

My entry is here. If you were so inclined to click the "like" button on the photo, that counts as a vote, for whichever photo you feel should win. I'm also grateful for any resharing you might happen to do! ;) 

Whether or not I win is less important than the crash course in concept photography and the joy of creating the costume as well as the fun I've had in participating. I sincerely hope my photo portrays the concept of divinity, as it's my first time trying my hand at doing a concept shoot.

Now I must rush off to work, but I leave you with this: My test shot!


Thanks for reading! Enjoy the day!

-Inara

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