Wind, Fire, and Bats

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I had met Angie through Chic Elite earlier this year when we were casting for a supporting female role in our last film "Out of the Clouds". Angie is an amazing actress and model. She can surely hold her own on and off the screen. She has a queen sense of fashion, thus I can worry about shooting ans let her take care of all the wardrobe, hair and makeup. We had discussed on several occasions on how much I love shooting in abandoned and desolate places, in which Angie knew of a great place that wasn't too far from suburbia. Our goal was to utilize a high-fashion motif and place it in desolate, dirty, and distressed environment. While this concept is far from original, it's fun as hell and I felt I could bring something a bit different to the table. We scheduled our day to shoot.

Apparently, I have walked under to many ladders or ran over too many black cats, because as with all my shoots, the tide always seems to work against me. It started with winds that were in excess of 60-70mph... Okay, we are in a building. We could stay out of large open areas and stick to the corridors where the wind would not bother us. Then two large wild fires decided to stir up the Salt Lake Valley, which closed down the interstate and the airport. The thick smoke in air nearly diffused out the sun and the I ended up being close to an hour late due to the traffic. The building was close to half mile walk from where we parked. I felt relieved that I had all my lightweight strobist gear that day instead of having to lug around a bunch of studio lights and battery packs. The wind pounding and trying to dismantle Angie's hair and makeup, we made it to the structure. If there was one positive thing the wind did do, it was keeping the bats in the rafters at bay. It also hindered the wasps from attacking me when I sat on their hive while compositing a shot. The only casulty was one umbrella.

Here are some of the results. I have entered one of these in the Utah State Fair. I'll post if it does well.