Red Hot Annie, Chicago-based burlesque dancer, dropped by Vancouver last week to participate in the Vancouver International Burlesque Festival.  She contacted me via Model Mayhem and we arranged a shoot at my studio in between her classes and performances.  The night before the shoot, we had a chance to meet at Whineos restaurant on Granville when she did a couple of acts with the Diamond Mine show -- a great show and atmosphere by the way, and performances every Wednesday night at 10.

One of the great things about doing a shoot is meeting cool people.  Not only does she perform, but also produces shows, does makeup for a living, and designs the occasional website.  And she photographs very nicely, has her own outfits, does her own makeup (of course), and is a gem to work with.  Photographer heaven!  Did I mention the red hair?

We didn't really have a specific bunch of things we needed, other than my wanting to try one shot I had been thinking about, so we just played it by ear (eye?), starting off with some headshots to warm up.  I'd also rented an Elinchrom octabank / Profoto Acute2 setup to try out.  First up was a beauty dish combo:

Some pinuppy work just with the giant Octa:

Annie with the Octa again, with an SB-800 on a stand and a stripbox to give her some rim lighting and backlight the red feathers:

And finally, one of the shots I had in my head:

We got a variety of different shots in only about 3-1/2 hours, switching from one costume and lighting setup to another, rapid-fire.  Lots of work, but we were both into it and having fun, and the results were definitely worthwhile.  You know you had a good shoot when you're pretty beat at the end of it!

Octabanks generate beautiful light regardless, but the Elinchrom is definitely the easiest to set up, folding up like a giant umbrella instead of being a giant softbox.  It'll definitely be worthwhile adding one to my stable of modifiers just for the convenience alone.  Boy, do you ever need a decent stand and sandbags with it, though, as it's a pretty unwieldy beast.  Elinchrom's stuff is really nice, but their bayonet attachment is a bit of a letdown.  The Profoto Acute2 1200R was a solid, lightweight, no-nonsense pack, made very convenient with the PocketWizard sync interface.  Definitely worth considering as my movable studio setup, even though my investment so far has been in Hensel Porty gear.

Annie, I hope you'll be back in town again.  Otherwise, you've given me a great reason to return to Chicago one of these days (I spent many months in Bloomington, IL in my Microsoft days)!

So Jason contacts me through Facebook and asks if I'm interested in shooting some stuff for his music website or album cover.  Something gloomy, introspective, angst-filled, maybe black and white.  Sure, why not?  We'll start in the evening, use the studio as a homebase but will mainly shoot on location guerilla-style, jumping out of the truck when we see something good, I suggest.  Somewhere he slips "Pig's head mask" and "old accordion" into the conversation.  Sure, why not?  Oh yeah, funny timing with the swine flu pandemic.

His girlfriend Melissa accompanies us and does an awesome job as a cheerleader and VAL (voice-activated lightstand).  I have this idea in my head to try, so we go down to the local train tracks and shoot away with the Hensels and giant softbox.  The wind whips up and drops of rain start to fall.  A little old lady walks by with her dog, which seems a little agitated, but she's totally cool about it and talks to us for a while.  The bulbous front element on the 14-24 lens attracts rain drops and the softbox tips over in the wind, but we persevere nonetheless on and under the railway bridge, where Jason seems a little troll-like.  He does very well to emote through the mask using body language, and I do my bit to work the lighting and shooting angles to match the mood.

We head into town and the skies open up into a miserable downpour.  I spot an abandoned TV in an alley and it looks quite interesting in the light.  I move the truck to aim the headlights properly.  Not bad.  A few snaps from behind the dash are pretty good, but we need more.  The SU-800 remote goes on the D3, SB-900 flash with CTO gel goes into Melissa's hands, Jason starts wrestling with the TV...yes!  A few frames later we're soaked and the D3's soaked.  But hey, it's a Nikon, and I don't worry about it.  Make a mental note to pop the TV in the back of the truck to replace the one at home, but conveniently forget to do so.

Over to a phone booth on Broadway that we spotted on our way in.  We get more frames of the Pigman with the same off-camera setup.  At least the rain's easing up a bit so we can take a bit more time.

The soggy crew arrive at the nice, dry studio at last.  Grab the black seamless, Porty in a softbox and a couple of SB-800 kickers.  The Pigman regales us with a polka just to round the evening out.

We part ways and I get back home to start processing.  I love the multiple challenges in the session, and I'm very happy with the images we got.  To my relief, Pigman doesn't permeate my dreams that night.  Thankfully in a few days I get to shoot with Red Hot Annie, burlesque dancer from Chicago, to clear my mind.  I wonder if she might be cool with wearing a pig's head.