I know, I know. All the photographers out there are laughing that I've never shot out here before. What an amazing location. These gigantic beautiful rock formations and big, big sky. And so so quiet. You can actually hear the sound of the air rushing from beneath the wings of the birds flying overhead. I'm not kidding, it's that quiet. And lucky for us, perfect weather—especially for a winter's day. About 78 degrees and an ever so slight breeze. Just enough to require sandbagging those scrim stands.
Joshua Tree, California. These stones stand about 35 feet tall. That's me on top of the tallest stone. See me?
I was kidding about being on that stone. Here is the actual Joshua Tree, well, not THE, but a Joshua Tree. From what I'm told there is actually one that is considered THE Joshua Tree.
We came out to shoot for our Genlux Spring/Summer issue with photographer Geoff Ragatz. My friend who I've shot with for about 5 years now. Our first shoot was in Napa at a winery that Geoff's super cool Mom, Charlene, got for us. The model for that shoot was Melissa Haro. Today we are shooting Masha from Photogenics. She recently went blonde from brunet and she's looking to get some great new images for her book. The rest of our team is Camille Clark from Aim Artists on makeup; Paul Desmarre from Rex Agency doing hair; Our stylist is Amy Mach with her assistant Amelia; Geoff's assistant is Matt and our Genlux intern is Emily Hassard.
Our Genlux photographic team dwarfed by these beautiful gigantic stones.
The theme of our shoot is TRIBAL. So much of spring fashion is based on this and Amy was able to pull some really gorgeous pieces. And shoes. And jewelry.
Shoes.
and more shoes.
Our call time was 5:00 for hair and makeup at this cute little motel out in the middle of nowhere. We started heading for the location at 6:30 to get our first shot by just past sunrise. One of my unwritten rules on shoots is that there are no rules. If we plan on starting at 6:30 but don't start til 8:00 it's all good. If we are aiming to get 9 looks for a 10 page story but only get 6 looks done, it's fine—we just have more pages for the next story. And if we're going for 6 looks but get 10 great looks, awesome! We'll just make it a longer story. There's no room on Genlux editorial shoots for timelines or must-do's. It needs to be a low or no pressure situation where everyone is participating because they want to be here, not HAVE to be here. Everyone's opinion is valuable. And each is brought in because they're REALLY great at what they do.
The colors of the rainbow are so pretty in the sky.
My friend and photographer Geoff Ragatz surfing the desert sand. It was Geoff's idea to come here today.
This was the last look (below) Masha walking down the path. The giveaway on might be the long shadows. (I'm not showing all of the looks because I can't reveal how amazing Amy's pulls were.) Geoff was about a hundred feet away using a 300mm, or was it a 400mm? Anyway, a super long lens. So in the end, we finished with seven looks total. A few doubles. We always open... no, we usually open with a double-page spread and then drop to singles. Okay, that's it for this week. Time to get ready for our next shoot with Lydia Hearst.
Masha from Photogenics in this crazy beautiful place called Joshua Tree
The sun stays pretty low in the sky during January, but the light can still get flat—nothing a little Rotolux can't fix.
Paul Demarre our hairstylist had downtime so he carved a little nest out of this stone. He's still there.
Besides carving rocks, Paul's other hobby is stacking them. Good job, Paul.