Random Acts of Kindness

This week has been a little emotional and chaotic for me - in a variety of ways. While waiting at a stop light this evening, I glanced back (I don't know why) at the car diagonally behind me. I made eye contact with the elderly woman sitting in the driver's seat. She gave me this huge, beaming smile...don't know her, but that smile was enough to, in turn, make me smile and give me a warm feeling inside.

Sometimes we don't realize the power of a smile - of a random kind gesture towards another individual. We may not know them, we may not know their story, we may not ever see them again, but in that brief moment of eye contact, sometimes a smile is enough to brighten another person's day. :)


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Today we shot at the old State Penitentiary. It closed in 1999 and has since been used for lots of photo shoots, and was even the prison used in the movie The Longest Yard (which I of course have never seen). The place was amazing - so many graphic elements to the architecture, mixed with a mild eerieness, *great* natural light, and so many creative places to shoot, that I wish I had a whole week, with 8 hour shoots to really explore the potential that the location had to offer. We weren't even able to get into the whole penitentiary because it would have been far too many options/space/hard to round all of us up at the end of the shoot.

There were these fabulous cat walks from building to building, which I assume the guards walked to keep an eye on the property and prisoners during its years of use. When I saw those, I knew I wanted to do a shoot up there. All I could think of was:
HIGH FASHION PHOTO SHOOT

Today was the only days that we also had a hair/makeup artist to help out our models...which definitely helped the photographers get the look they wanted, I think.

Anyway...this cat walk/rooftop shoot? PHENOMENAL. I haven't uploaded the images yet (class rule that I have to wait until the morning to look at them) but I had sooooo much fun shooting Rachel, the model we had at that time.

I had her wear a long, turquoise evening gown with silver, rhinestoned heels, somewhat dramatic makeup (I wanted more, but we were running short on time) and big-ish hair. I threw a medium soft box on her, and was grateful that it was a windy day (and blowing the right way!) and had the exact fan-effect that I wanted! :) yay! I usually have more fun shooting the pictures than actually looking at them afterwards, and today proved to be no exception. I'm looking forward to seeing the images, but the shoot was so fun (felt like I was shooting the cover for Vogue magazine or some high-end fashion shoot!!!!!) that I am completely satisfied with the journey, even if the end result is not as good as I hope.

Can't believe I'm almost through another week!

~ K