27 Hours
There was some part of me that worried I was trying to get away with too much. After two years of wanting to be busier… wanting to be photographing more things… scheduling myself to do three shoots in just more than 24 hours could be seen as over-compensating.
…But I knew I had to try...
Leg 1 of my 27 hour photographic rush of a journey took me to Imperial, California, where the tremendous staff at IBEW Local 569 were doing what they do best: take care of their members.
The annual holiday parties have been temporarily replaced with the more covid-friendly drive through. The change did nothing to hamper the spirit of community and charity among the members and staff.
From the Imperial Valley, it was a straight shot past the Salton Sea up to Joshua Tree National Park for sunrise. I’ve always enjoyed Joshua Tree, but never really felt like I’d photographed well there.
The combination of the beauty of a desert sunrise, along with some new approaches to photographing the park, I think, made this one of my best trips to this beautiful desert yet.
The final leg of this 27 hour journey was back home to BCPHQ - where a rooftop deck became an outdoor studio, of sorts.
A nine foot roll of white seamless, three lights, and a whole bunch of weight bags to keep everything from wandering off in the breeze transformed Saturday night into Portrait Night.
Now, I usually to prefer “environmental” portraits… placing people in a surrounding that feels natural to them… or tells their story, but Covid has restricted access to a lot of places, or just made them unnecessarily complicated to get to. So simple white seamless it was.
The portraits were of long-time BCP friend (and unofficial Brand Ambassador) Ashley. I’ll be featuring the images as part of a post over on a new series on Substack, which I’ll talk more about soon. Until then, here’s a sneak peak at the crescendo of my 27 hours of photography.
In the end, these two wonderful days tallied 550 miles traveled, 20 rolls/sheets of film shot, and a whole lot of inspiration to do this again regularly in 2022. I hope you’ll join me for the ride, both here on the blog… and in person with a shoot of your own.
