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Portrait

This photo was shot for a recent issue of Austin Monthly magazine for a feature called “Beauty and the Best” about the top hair salons in town. The schedule was an extremely ambitious one....23 locations in 4 days! Everything had to run like clock-work for us to meet our deadline, with no margin for error.

The model we planned to use had decided at the last minute that she couldn’t make it and the guy in the photograph, described in the article as “the best cutter of locks” had about 5 minutes to pose for this shot while the client whose hair he was cutting was under the hair dryer!

 

I was at a complete loss as to what to do....this photograph absolutely hinged on having a female model wrapped up in a chain with a big lock on it, so that he could use the bolt cutters as a visual pun on the phrase “cutter of locks”. I was standing there wondering what to do when this statuesque beauty emerged from the salon....wearing jeans and a t-shirt.

I chased her down the block, explained my situation, and persuaded her to accompany me to a nearby women’s clothing store where I purchased the dress, jewelry and shoes, totaling $600.00 with the understanding that I could return it an hour later.

The image was captured digitally at 1/60 second, using a Tamron SP AF14mm at f9, and lit with a battery powered 1200 watt second pack and a single head in a softbox positioned to the left of the camera. Since the weather was very overcast, the blue sky and clouds were added later for a more dramatic effect.

 

The photo gods were definitely with me that day, and the magazine liked the shot so much that they hired me and the model the following month for their style feature, shown below.

This was shot with the Tamron SP AF28-75mm at 35mm, exposure was 1/125 at f6.3, westcott softbox to the right of the subject as well as a hair light with a 10 degree spot grid positioned behind and above the model to the left of the door.