Adventures in Loveland... Part 2

It is early Friday morning here in CO, it's barely 7am. I have been up since about 5:30 "working" on the computer at some behind the scenes stuff for book #2. I am trying to stay on NY time, which means it is really almost 9am and a lazy bum, but oh well. Today is the last day of shooting and WOW! so much to tell you all about.

First, by the hits on my Flickr photos, lol, I can tell y'all couldn't wait to see what was going down at the photo studio. I have so many things I want to remember to tell you, now I don't know where to begin! Hmmm... I will start with the man behind the lens... Joe Coca. Such a cool old guy, lol. I think he would be very comfortable sitting on the beach with Jimmy Buffet as he is working behind a camera. There is such a gentle laid back quality to him. I am loving getting to work with him. The photo above is the very unassuming entry to his studio. It was a grocery store in the 19 teens. And now it is a studio, with his wife and him living in the flat above the store. An absolute dream of a spot if you ask me.



Behind that front door is this. A HUGE room with vaulted ceilings, blocked out light, more camera equipment then I have ever seen in my life, and a gigantic MAC screen. Too cool, huh?

Wednesday was the first day of shooting. I created a "shot list" several weeks ago outlining each and every photo we would take for my book. When I counted them up there was 264, if memory serves me. We end up taking 4-5 of each shot so the art director as lots of angles and options to choose from. Do the math and we have literally taken more than 1000 photos.

It wasn't a task we jumped right into though! The morning was relaxed, I unpacked all my tools and all the jewelry, piece by piece. And as I was unpacking, editors from Interweave arrived. I got to meet my art director, my acquisitions editor, and the assistant editor (Rebecca, who has spent the whole shoot with me!). All the ladies are great, and so good at what they do. The first task was deciding which color background to shoot the process shots against. It sounds like an easy thing right? WRONG! It took almost two hours! The feel of the book is going to be very playful, fun, and fresh, so no dark serious colors. I have very pale skin, so anything too like and my flesh tones look weird.



The debate over which background ended with the one in this photo. A very neutral gray, that isn't too blue and isn't too yellow. Nice. The next debate was the angle to shoot from and how much "hands" to show. My art director hates "fleshy books" where when you flip through the pages all you see is skin. My acquisitions editor likes hands and thinks it is important to have them to show how to use the tools and do the technique. As we took each photo we kept those two points in mind... as little flesh as possible while showing the technique as clearly as possible. *sigh* it is so much harder then it sounds.

Once all the details were worked out we just started ticking things off the shot list. We worked through the entire "basics" section, all the earrings, and a couple of the bracelets the first day. Yesterday, Thursday, we finished up all the bracelets, all the necklaces, and did drop outs. Drop outs are images of the jewelry on a plain white background, so photo peps can lasso the object and drop it down on the finished page so it looks like it is floating. There was a point yesterday afternoon where I was just beaming with pride as I looked at Joe's computer screen and saw these huge images of my jewelry looking just absolutely amazing. It is something I highly recommend. If you can ever find a way to swing it, have a professional take some images of your work. It will give you a whole new perspective on what you are creating.



This last shot is just to make y'all jealous... look at all my pretty wire! I ordered this before I left and oh rainbows make me happy. LOL. We will be using this box of goodies today to shoot the "color wheel" section of the book and then it is on to the bits and bobs about tools 'n stuff.

WOW! That is a long post about the photo shoot... it made me tired just thinking about all the work we have done. I haven't kept 9-5 hours like this in years! I best hop in the shower and get the morning moving so I am not late for "work". More coming soon on the "playing" I have done in Loveland. All work and no play would make for a very boring trip dontcha think?