The Setup

To begin… this project happened by accident… In the midst of this crazy global pandemic and trying to stay within CDC guidelines this entire project was put together by fate connecting the dots. It all started after I had 3 no call no shows… this obviously is the worst… and absolutely discouraging. After this last shoot no showed on me I went home to create a massive post about being unprofessional and not showing up for shoots to post (because let’s face it social media is basically made for this now) but instead I focused in and wrote a post looking for models to make an epic fantasy shoot. I had 3 shoots I wanted to do but everyone who applied just didn’t have the look. I've been trying more and more lately to not give up my vision and wait for the right person rather than just go with someone for the sake of doing a shoot. 

10 pm that night I got a message from a parent… (For many photographers the idea of working with an ambitious child might not be the most fun afternoon) That is when she sent me an image…. And It was different… The image was an image of a pre teen with some attitude. It was weird but its a feeling you can’t explain when a literal rush of images runs through your head and you know right then and there that THAT look was a frightened Red Riding Hood who’s ready to take on the wolf… That was Ally Nicole… and thus an idea was formed. Without hesitation we set a date to shoot in 3 weeks. 

From here it was a massive uphill battle… How was I going to get a wolf? Two weeks had gone by and all I had were the 2 locations. I knew where I wanted to shoot at and I was hoping for overcast weather. Our first location was going to be at the famous Old Mill in North Little Rock made famous by the movie Gone with the wind. I wanted a location that looked rustic but would have a cool different look that would add to the scene rather than having to make a massive background composite with multiple angles. I try to do everything in camera when I can then do a big photoshop sweep. The last location would be our story setup location and that was pinnacle mountain. 

I was still missing my one key component… I had no wolf. I didn’t want to combine wolf photos from adobe stock cause then I would more than likely be  getting very different looking wolves to comp with angles... and that was a problem. My only option was going to 3d modeling. I am not a 3d modeler and when I am I can only do what are called hard surface modeling like machine parts and vehicles. So I had to find someone. Like clockwork, once I made up my mind about finding a modeler days before the shoot I saw a post by the artist Emmanuel Rodriguez. This guy blew me away with the organic form modeling he was able to produce. His work looked like it was straight out of hollywood… I pounced. We eventually hit it off and made an agreement to work with each other. Check out his work on his instagram. It's seriously amazing. The night before the shoot I had a sketch of what our wolf would become.

I needed to find an assistant for the shoot. I primarily work alone but since I knew I was working with some heavy comp work the lighting had on point. I was able to find an assistant who actually ended up being probably the most famous guy on the shoot but I will not go further into that. The day had come and it could not be a more perfect day. The sky was overcast, It wasn’t cold, and everyone showed up early.

The Process

It was a beautiful day…. Full of people at our location. Not only was The old mill a park but apparently it is a great place to do an impromptu wedding… we crashed it. It took about 25 minutes to get to where we would be ready to shoot and out of the way of the wedding that was going on, but there came the added complication of there just being a crazy amount of people at the location. Everyone my camera would turn I knew I was going to have to nearly replace the background and paint out people, road signs, cars, fountains, and now a wedding party. I am no stranger to Roto and pen work so this was a form of meditation in the post process but more on that later. 

The other thing I had to account for was creating artificial light since our model was going to be holding a torch and our scene was going to end up being at night. With this in mind I set my strobe at an angle that the light would be coming from with the torch and set a light where I wanted a moon cut from. I set my torch light at its highest setting and diffused it with an octagonal softbox and a cut light (Hair Light). I would use this same technique through the shoot until we got inside the mill. In the mill I used the octagon light from way above acting as moonlight bounce through window as well as a torch light. After we got some fantastic images we went on to pinnacle mountain to finish out the day and get that sunset nearly dark look. I just want to say our model Ally Nicole is one of the most well behaved and driven young models that I have had the pleasure of working with. YOU NEED TO HIRE HER is an understatement. Also please check out her other work.

The Photoshop

Comping everything together was not going to be an easy task. One of the things about my style of trying to capture everything in camera is the fact that I try to use every pixel possible. This includes straightening images to a certain degree. I honestly love the look of a slightly off angled image. It feels to me more real and in the moment. This means better quality blowing up images for print and much… much… much… longer rendering times… and this was proven when I received our wolf. I can’t say it enough Emmanuel is a beast of an artist. This wolf was real. It went from a vision I had in my head and this guy executed it with extreme precision. Seriously Check out his instagram and hire him for anything weird lol. The idea was to create a werewolf type creature that was more beast than man and The wolf was getting revenge. If you notice in the images there is a scar on the wolf's chest where the axe from the hunter cut him open. With our wolf being of such a high quality It came as a struggle when it came down to rigging the model to be posed and then rendered. I used cinema 4D and pro renderer to render out the werewolf at 24 megapixel with 300 DPI. This way any photo I created could be blown up to over 20 inches easily without resolution loss (Please Order Prints). These renders would take at the longest 6 days each. When it came down to comping everything down I used photoshop and fortunately had a Huion pen display tablet to add in highlights and help with erasing a lot of the background imperfections. There are several tutorials on this and I actually live streamed some of my process on one of these very images. 

I ended up releasing my least favorite image of the bunch as a teaser.

In The End

This project from start to finish took 2 months from its start on November 2nd 2020 to when the final photoshop was complete on January 2nd 2021. One of the things I love about doing projects like this is when all the pieces really come together and you see something that was only a dream/imagination come to life. This project wasn’t perfect and there are way better ways to go about things but honestly there is beauty in all the chaos. If you ever have the chance to work with Ally Nicole Hall (Model), or Emmauel Rodriguez (3D Artist)… DO IT. I could not have had a better experience working with such fine individuals and they are absolute equals in this body of work. For your next project do something that really pushes your boundaries.. You might be surprised as to what you can accomplish.