I was sitting in my Personal Finance class, listening to my professor go off topic and talk about when he used to live in Spain, and I began to make a list of the photos I wanted to take this summer. While this isn't the first great photo epiphany I had that afternoon, it stuck in my head and wouldn't leave. And when I have a surge of creativity like this, I have to indulge it or be forever haunted by my own ideas.
I was feeling especially inspired by American Horror Story: Coven, and how fabulous all the witches dressed. I wrote these bullets on my paper that also had "diversified portfolio" scribbled on the top:
- Black Dress?
- Dark eyes
- Dark lips
- Red?
- Necklace
- Headdress? Headband?
Obviously all I knew was that dark eyes and dark lips were the biggest part of my plan. I was relatively unsure of everything else that was to be incorporated in these photos, which is very common with my creative sessions.
I practiced this eyeshadow look on myself the night before:
- Jumbo eyeshadow pencil by NYX in Milk
- Urban pigment from the UD Electric Palette
- Blackout from Naked 2
- Revolt from the UD Electric Palette
Topped off with enormous eyelashes and a blend of Train Bleu by Nars with MAC Cyber.
The jewelry was the component that completely changed from my original thought. I was envisioning a red-maroon-gold-black color scheme, and had made a huge, gold filligree, bib-style necklace for this shoot. But when I threw the silver pigment in the inner corner of her eyes, the color scheme I had been imagining went to purple-black-silver quite fast. My great-grandmother had incredible taste in jewelry. I used one of her many gorgeous choker necklaces and temporarily removed the clasps to attach it to her head. The necklace on her neck is one of my favorite rhinestone pieces, and the two rings on her hands are just a few costume pieces of my own.
As it turns out, this was my first creative session of this summer, where my photos of Bethlehem's older sister, December, were taken on the first day of this year. I feel like their photos mark stages of this year for me, and I am very excited about them.
