Well, good thing the author pic our editor had selected for the back cover of our book was a little out of focus because it was on his to-do list for things to improve before the first printing of Hazel Moon. A good thing because without the push we wouldn't have come up with incredible author pic you see above!!
As you can see, this was no ordinary portrait. With the Wizard of Photography Oz, Larry Zamba, guiding the action with the skill of a Hollywood director, Larry knew that for us two subjects getting the background music right was going to be half the battle.
When asked to describe how the shoot went, here's what Larry had to say.
"The music started off with Wild Cherry's "Play That Funky Music White Boy," as the twins entered the studio. It progressed from that song through a stream of rap, featuring artists like Salt-N-Pepa, a concert Lisa had recently attended in Milwaukee. Lisa hit her stride with "Rapper's Delight" by the Sugar Hill Gang! By the end of young Michael Jackson's effervescent song, "ABC," finished I had the money shot for the author pic.
After the session we reviewed the images and settled on the one that most captured their indomitable, free, and ageless spirit.
It was Halloween weekend, so as a reward for their hard work, after the shoot it was off to a local haunted house. Arriving 15 minutes late, we went through anyway after seeing zombies, freaks, and goblins outside milling around in the parking lot. Lisa and Lori enjoyed a good scare!
Regarding the technical aspects of creating the author portrait, I had a very clear idea where I was going with the image before they arrived. I'd recently committed to a manifesto regarding the nature of my photography going forward--My images would now reflect fantasy, creating colorful photographs filled with escapism. They will be entertaining and full of illusions, ambiguities, and curious contradictions that celebrate differences. I want my subjects to look like they might have just jumped out of a comic book! Since my photos are a culmination of my life experience, they are in part self-portraits. And, since I love the collaborative process, especially working with talented people, their influences will be felt too.
With that mission statement in place, I had just finished painting the wall to match the mood I was going for. It has to have an '80s feel, hence the bright, almost neon blue, but still couldn't appear dated. In fact the paint was still wet in spots as Lori discovered when she accidentally got some paint on her hand. The crowd shot feature was added in later. It took a crew of helpers, including my daughter, to hold up phones and mics to get the group effect. My hands are featured in two of the images, one shot by my daughter, the other by myself. Adding them all to the finished shot was challenging.
After getting the right feel for the beautiful chaos before me, I rotated everything to the right to create the sense that the twins were being mobbed by paparazzi. The entire technical effort, including post production Photoshop work, took 16 hours. For example, Lisa was in a rush to get to the shoot and forgot to do her nails. I manged to painstakingly color them in using Photoshop. Also, the twins were both under the weather and it took some doing to sift through the many preliminary shots until I captured just the right image where they both looked like they were on top of the world despite their coughing and sniffles!"
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