Urban Cowgirl
Sarah and I have been working together for years. She’s been one of my most valued collaborators. The shoots we’ve done together have been extremely varied. We’ve done outdoor shoots, studio shoots, group shoots, event shoots, all sorts of shoots together.
At the time of this shoot, I was really looking to do a lot more work in my high contrast black and white series and of course since we’ve been collaborating for so long I really wanted to get her in front of my camera for this series as well. But one of the things you have to know about Sarah, is that she loves to travel. So, trying to get on her schedule can be difficult; she’s always flying somewhere. However, eventually I was able to find a time with her that worked.
We didn’t exactly have an idea or a concept other than the high contrast black and white when she came by. However, she always brings a huge model bag and I have a pretty large client closet to pull from with clothes and props. So, essentially we made it up on the spot.
One of the reasons I’m comfortable going into his shoot with Sarah and not having a plan, even though I typically am a planner, is that she has really good taste. Our brainstorming while looking through all the different options went quickly.
One of the other series that I have going on at all times is the ripped jeans series. We decided to combine the ripped jeans with the high contrast black and white and then she found my cowboy hat and we added that to the mix as well. It turns out, those were all the ingredients we needed to create magic.
What I discovered as we were shooting was that even though this shoot was intended to be black and white, it actually looked really really good in color as well. Now normally, when I’m shooting for high contrast black and white images, when you try to use those same images in color it just doesn’t work as well. However, this time it worked very well. As a matter of fact, the color images worked so well I wasn’t sure that I wanted to edit in black and white anymore. So, what did I end up doing? I did what you’re not supposed to do and I decided to do one version in color and one version in black and white. So even though it’s really cliché, I hope everyone takes a moment to look at the images and give me some feedback on which direction you would have gone had you been the photographer. Should I have just added them in black and white as intended or should I have abandoned the black and white and stuck with color since they looked so good?
If you’d like to have your own high contrast black and white shoot or if you just want to take part in the ripped jeans series please feel free to reach out.
